Vasil Zhigilei
Builder.
Beyond the résumé.I am Vasil Zhigilei. I recently left my software engineering role to pursue building my own stuff. I am curious and optimistic.
Builder.
Beyond the résumé.I am Vasil Zhigilei. I recently left my software engineering role to pursue building my own stuff. I am curious and optimistic.
Some of the fun things I have done in my life:
1. Traveled Thailand for a few weeks as my "career break" after leaving my job. Best reset ever. Got to socialize a ton, feed elephants, climb a jungle waterfall, go scuba diving, etc.
2. At Cloudflare I built critical systems that manage 20% of the web's SSL/TLS certificates.
3. I had led an agentic AI proptech startup that got a Y Combinator interview. I was told that I was a top 5% founder applicant.
4. In college I used to run an eBay store selling used computer parts. I also designed and sold RFID-blocking cards that I sourced via Alibaba. Funded my fun during a semester abroad in Valencia, Spain.
5. I'm really into personal finance (self-diagnosed triple leveraged ETF addict). I won my university trading club's investing game two semesters in a row – achieved 50.2% returns in 49 days (1st/12 teams) and 30.3% returns in 56 days (1st/23 teams).
6. I used to have a meme YouTube channel for a few years that attained a couple hundred thousand views.
Some of the not-so-cool things that I have done:
1. I bought cheap playing cards in bulk and tried to sell them to other students in high school. Turns out that high schoolers are more interested in other categories of items like snacks.
2. Related, I played lots of poker and dreidel during class when I probably should have paid attention more.
3. Spent a lot of time building a referral code sharing site and a Spanish conjugation site that nobody used.
4. Spotify told me that in 2024 I was a top 0.005% listener of B.o.B. That was probably too much.
To be honest, this list could go on for pages, so I'll just stop now...