🇹🇳 L&H Tunisia 2025: Insights #2

Final part of my Tunisian tald. Let's talk about the product creation and my conclusions.

🛠 Hack Part

About two weeks before the event, I shared a PDF document with the assignment with the teams. We defined one task, described how it would be evaluated, and teams were expected to deliver an MVP within that week. The topic of our assignment was the following: imagine how Free2move may utilise ChatGPT Apps to improve our customer's experience.

1️⃣ When we were planning this event, I thought the teams would self-organize before the on-site part and maybe even start working on the assignment, as it would give them more time to achieve a better result. It turned out that it didn't happen the way I expected. And that is fine; it confirms my observation from the AI hackathon: people are different, and there is no reason to expect proactive behavior regarding the working topic from all of them.
2️⃣ Time. On the third day, when we happened to have a long lunch and were back to the office only at 4:00 PM, I thought that maybe, actually, there wasn't that much time left for the hackathon part, and teams wouldn't be able to produce anything solid. In the end, according to the plan, we only had four half-day slots plus one full day. But, to my surprise, even that amount of time was enough, and the demos were great.
3️⃣ There is a reason why teams achieved so much in such a short time: ✨ Vibe coding. I heard that helped a lot, especially because teams knew they were developing a one-off solution and it was not expected to be maintained in this form in the future. The solutions that were presented impressed everyone: the jury, the public, and me. They were exactly enough to demonstrate how the technology from the assignment could be applied and how Free2move could benefit from it. I confirm that ✨ Vibe coding rightfully got the word of the year award.
4️⃣ Before we gave out the assignment I checked myself that it's already possible to develop the ChatGPT Apps from Europe ✅ However, participants shared that the thing still feels quite raw. During the hackathon there was even a period of about 4 hours, where the app infrastructure of OpenAI was down. Nevertheless, it's interesting to explore new horizons and imagine how this new potential market might be integrated to the Free2move ecosystem. The attached image is just a mock-up to illustrate what it might look like.

🫡 Let's Summarize

The event was a success, both for the company and the participants. For me, the most important part was to bring people together and mix them in a way that made them more familiar with each other and therefore closer. This helps in different ways: people learn more about the different domains of our company, people meet new faces, and it's easier for them to work together in the future, and people learn from each other.

I think such events are powerful multipliers that keep the company velocity high. When you are a technical leader or want to establish yourself this way, consider the offsite event or training as one of the tools in your arsenal.

Technical leadership crash-course #4

Good news ⚡️If you want to boost your career and knowledge by taking the course I mentioned above, but for some reason you don’t want to apply to Free2move or travel to 🇹🇳 Tunisia, there’s a solution!

In just one week, on 04.12, my friends at fwdays and I are launching the fourth batch of our Tech Leadership crash course. It lasts only three days, but you’ll get hands-on experience performing the role of a technical leader — and the confidence that comes with it.

Here are just some of the reviews from past participants:

Коли ви думаєте що все знаєте про лідерство, архітектуру, презентації і зустрічі, то ви точно помиляєтесь. Цей курс звернув мою увагу на більш глибоке вивчення вказаних вище тем. Практична частина підібрано вдало і дозволяє краще закріпити матеріал.

Цей курс це значний поштовх на шляху до того щоб стати лідом. Він концентрує в собі корсну інформацію, на самостійний пошук та розуміння якої потрібен час. Кому це буде корисно на мою думку? Перш за все, цей курс буде корисний для розробників, що зараз фокусуються лише на потребах власної команди та власного проєкту, але бажають рухатися вперед та росповсюджувати свій вплив. Також цей курс буде цікавий для амбіційних людей, що впевнені у своїх лідерських якостях, але ще не мають необхідних навичок для того щоб взяти на себе роль ліда.

Дуже гарний, структурований і зрозумілий курс. Павло дуже добре і докладно все пояснює, приділяє увагу всім студентам і приділяє багато уваги на відповіді на питання. Практичні завдання дуже доречні і допомагають краще засвоїти матеріал. Так як це Crash course матеріал подається у стислому вигляді але є дуже багато рекомендацій по книгах від Павла де можна більш детально ознайомитись.

You can read more about the program on the website.
There are only a few tickets left, and the course starts next week. With the code Good_dev_knows, you can get a 20% discount.

👋,

📹 Interesting talk on how the ROI on the AI adoption might be measured in tech companies.

💡My insights

1️⃣ AI can lead up to 25% increase in productivity (10% median)

2️⃣ AI works best if your workload is following the best SE practices (tests, modularity, types)

3️⃣ You can measure AI adoption effect just using the git history and comparing past vs present

4️⃣ They provided example of one company of our size, after AI adoption
* number of PR grew up 📈 , but code quality decreased 📉
* Rework type of code changes increased x2.6 (a lot)
* Effective output gain only +1% 🤯

What does it all mean? 🤔

It does not mean that we will stop using AI, but that we will use it more consciously and improve in the areas where we are lagging. The fact that code is now cheaper is not the final answer. We have gained a new tool, and this tool helps (as proven by +25%), but achieving those +25% (or even +10%) is not a default outcome.

Hi friends ☀️,

I want to start this year (it’s already the 21st, huh?) with a bold move!

Over the year(s) of posting here in English, I’ve noticed a few things:
1️⃣ You are awesome, because you’re still here and reading my content
2️⃣ I like creating content and sharing my findings and conclusions
3️⃣ This channel is slowly dying

Before 2022, I ran this channel in Russian. After the full-scale invasion, I realized that there was no point for me in promoting Russian culture publicly by using the Russian language, so I switched the channel to English. It worked. Somehow. But it’s been working worse and worse over time. I don’t see the level of engagement I’d need to continue posting in English. Apparently, Telegram is not the best place to organically grow an English-speaking community, unless you’re a crypto bro.

However, as I already said, ✨ you are awesome ✨. I believe there are enough people here who understand 🇺🇦 Ukrainian, and I want to continue building a Ukrainian community of people who treat both life and tech consciously. I suspect that using 🇺🇦 Ukrainian will make it easier both for people to consume and engage with the content, and for me to find more people who are interested in it.

I’ve created a new channel: https://xn--r1a.website/LifeByPavloPoliakov, and I’d like to invite you to join 💪
There’s already a fresh post waiting for you!

There, I’ll write about tech, technical leadership, and not only that. About things that are important to me and that might be useful for you. For now, I plan to post there twice a week, and we’ll see how it goes!

For subscribers of this channel who don’t understand 🇺🇦 Ukrainian: thank you for being with me! This channel won’t be deleted, and from time to time I might still post here as well.

🤝,

Hi friends,

For those who have missed it, I now regularly post in my 🇺🇦 channel: https://xn--r1a.website/LifeByPavloPoliakov

For the rest who might be interested, we have scheduled the fifth iteration of the Technical Leadership Crash Course: https://fwdays.com/event/tech-lead-course-5

Where you will learn how to confidently navigate the world when coding agents do what we used to do before: they write code. 💡Hint: yes, they can write code, but they cannot do technical leadership (yet?).

🚀 Join the course and learn what tech leaders do in the age of AI agents.

We have one ticket left for: https://fwdays.com/event/tech-lead-course-5 .

Code LIFE_BY_PP gives you 10% discount.

✨ Crash Course: Storytelling для інженерів ✨

📅 9 — 13 липня 2026

1️⃣ Чому історії працюють
Розберемо, як мозок сприймає історії, чому вони допомагають пояснювати складне і на що аудиторія реагує автоматично.

2️⃣ Як будувати історії
Попрацюємо зі структурами, фреймворками та практикою пояснення технічних ідей так, щоб вас справді розуміли. Окремо подивимось, як AI може допомагати у storytelling.

3️⃣ Як використовувати storytelling для впливу
Поговоримо про самопрезентацію, кар’єрний наратив, демонстрацію impact’у. Які ідеї легше зрозуміти і як "продати" свою ідею.

На першу ітерацію ми збираємо справді маленьку групу, лише ~20 людей. (на сайті плутанина із цифрами)

👉 Дізнатись більше про курс та доєднатися!

🛰 Я придбав Starlink!

Ще поза-вчора вранці я не збирався купляти ніякий Starlink. Але, протягом дня, до мене звернувся друг та сказав що треба придбати Starlink, бо вони зараз в Німеччині по знижці і можна придбати тільки один в одні руки!

Ви напевно здогадуєтесь що далі відбудеться з цією штукою. Далі вона поїде в 🇺🇦 Україну, її кудись прикрутять та піднімуть у повітря, щоб показати їй світ. Це досить романтично 🫶💥!

А що я хочу від нас, від сумлінних інженерів. Давайте викупимо цей Starlink, для цього потрібно всього 199€. Я дам свої 25€. Якщо ми це зробимо, то може вдасться +1 Starlink придбати.

І прошу вас доєднатися:
▫️PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/PavloPoliakov
▫️Mono: https://send.monobank.ua/jar/7z7Wtu39hH

Кожна копійка це внесок! Не стримуйтесь.

Дякую 🤝 Разом переможемо 💙💛