Vadimages CTO Mykhailo Shumilov Explains How SD Education will be Reshaped in the AI Era
In October 2024, O’Reilly Media, the premier publisher of software development learning material from the famous book series to online courses, started releasing their newest tech guide on the topic of AI-enabled software development. Along with the recent launch of their AI Academy, this release marks a new stage of recognizing the role AI plays in software development. The adoption of AI and ML technologies transforms the software development lifecycle on many levels, and the ability to apply them to practical tasks becomes an essential part of the developer’s skillset. However, it also creates challenges for software developer education, as it becomes increasingly harder to stay relevant in an environment of rapid changes. Mykhailo Shumilov, a CTO at Vadimages web development agency, an author of a textbook, and a developer who has worked on a wide range of projects, from creating a payment system to digital media analysis, outlines the core principles of educating software developers of the new era.
First of all, he notes that the influence of AI and ML technologies redefines the approach to studying IT, demanding a more extensive learning process. While possessing extensive technical knowledge is a necessary trait for a professional working in this field, and the educational material still needs to provide all the necessary resources, it is not enough anymore, as with the routing tasks being relegated to AI, the demand for the creatively minded developers will only rise.
Consequently, beginner developers should be constantly pushed to explore and experiment, as well as, which is especially important, to exchange knowledge and ideas. Mykhailo Shumilov notes that professional improvement should not be limited to acquiring new knowledge and being able to reproduce it – one needs to be able to develop new ideas based on it. From the very beginning of his career, Mykhailo made this one of its underlying principles, creating his first textbook less than five years after he had started studying programming. The resulting work contained an extensive description of the MS Access functionality. Later it became part of his second textbook, dedicated to MS Office products as a whole. Both textbooks provided useful resources for a wide audience of PC users, helping them to familiarize themselves with the actual versions of the software.
Moreover, this approach, which implies creating an environment for continuous learning and hand-on practice from the very beginning, should be implemented not only on a more generalized level, as was mentioned above, but within any specific domain as well. Mykhailo Shuimilov mentions a time-tested advice for beginner developers, which remains true to this day: to seek out opportunities to contribute and apply their knowledge to real-life problems as early as possible. For instance, while studying Node JS, he developed a unique software library for binary data processing. It provided better optimization, which is important when creating software for built-in devices. While the library was created about 6 years ago, it is still downloaded about 400 times weekly on average, which makes it a valuable tool for the NodeJS development community.For instance, throughout his career Mykhailo Shumilov has worked on several open-source projects, creating valuable utilities for the software development community. One of them is the teltonica-parcer library, a package used for parsing data structure from Teltonika UDP packets with the ability to process over one million packets per second, ensuring reliable and efficient communication with Teltonika tracking devices.
His extensive knowledge and experience allowed him to create software solutions that find their real-life applications in various industries. As an example, he developed the payment processing system that allowed users to conduct purchases via SMS. Mykhailo Shumilov comments that developing a payment system is a challenging task for any developer, as it needs to be convenient for the user, fast and secure at the same time. He was able to tackle the challenge creating the system that was widely used in Ukraine, with about a half payments of the type within the country being processed through it at the peak moment of its popularity.
However, possessing the necessary practical skills and technological knowledge is only part of what makes a successful software developer. “If someone wants to go beyond solving the routing tasks, studying various technologies along with acquiring practical expertise becomes not enough,” emphasizes Mykhailo Shumilov. “One needs to interact with the community and exchange experiences with others to grow beyond a certain level.” Mykhailo Shumilov himself found such an environment for a productive exchange of ideas at the Raptors.dev – an organization of expert software engineers, which is focused on building cooperation, robust exchanges, and synergies in a text field. The membership itself can be viewed as proof of one’s proficiency, as each candidate is required to be evaluated by five industry experts already belonging to the organization, who confirm the value of the candidates’ input for the advancement of the software development industry. Mykhailo Shumilov notes that becoming a part of such a community brings a valuable addition to other ways of professional development, as it stimulates the exchange of ideas and finding creative solutions.
To build and expand the professional community through supporting efficient teamwork and collaboration, the education of future software developers should also include the soft skills necessary to establish productive interactions with colleagues, subordinates, and contractors. As a CTO, Mykhailo Shumilov attempts to establish such a positive environment for learning and collaboration, to stimulate the professional development of the team. From 2014 till the present time, the team under his leadership completed over 100 projects of varying complexity, which is another proof of his ability to create an environment for steadily productive work. He also conducted over 70 technical interviews, helping to add the best talents to the team. Since 2023 Mykhailo Shumilov has worked in a similar position at the Rotbright business intelligence company. In a short period, his leadership allowed the company to complete over 20 projects, with two of them having a value of over 150 thousand dollars.
The principles mentioned above provide just a brief outline of the changes the software development education needs to come through to answer the challenges of the AI era. However, they provide a good starting point for those who plan a career in software development for themselves or want to create new learning opportunities at their organization.
