In a modest apartment in Kakhovka, a small town in southern Ukraine, a young girl once spent hours dismantling devices to understand how they worked. That curiosity, sharpened by academic excellence and unwavering maternal support, led Yuliia Horbenko on a path from gold medal high school graduate to a senior front-end technologist designing secure, intelligent interfaces for millions of users worldwide.
Today, Horbenko is known for her technical skill and ethical vision, one that sees the digital interface as the system’s moral ground.
Whether serving public services in Ukraine or building AI-integrated dashboards in the U.S., her work proves that good front-end design is more about trust, safety, and equity.
Where Interfaces Begin and Ethics Take Root
At SmartBarrel, Horbenko develops AI-powered UI systems that go beyond data display to improve jobsite safety proactively. Her work ensures that interfaces detect hazards, log anomalies, and issue alerts, all while maintaining a focus on ethical design, where the user’s safety and well-being are paramount.
Systems Thinking, from Kyiv to the World
Horbenko’s career was shaped by an early insight: the interface is not separate from the system; it is the system, as far as users are concerned.
This conviction guided her academic path at the National Transport University in Kyiv, where she earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Management Information Systems, graduating with honors and a prestigious Presidential Scholarship. Her coursework, from software architecture and information security to UX design and AI fundamentals, laid the foundation for a unique blend of technical and systems thinking.
Early professional roles at Fibosoft and BAZU allowed her to put this mindset into action, especially on Diia, Ukraine’s flagship digital government platform.
Digital Nation-Building in Ukraine
In 2020, while at BAZU, Horbenko helped design the front-end architecture for Diia. This platform delivers public services such as vaccine certificates, digital ID cards, and social benefit access to over 18 million Ukrainians.
She built a modular interface system with dynamic validation, encrypted front-end/back-end communication, and real-time user feedback, ensuring the platform was not only usable but resilient under pressure.
Her work helped establish Diia as a global model for digital governance, earning recognition from the World Bank and OECD. For Horbenko, though, the achievement was personal: “We were building something people relied on in urgent, vulnerable moments. It had to work, not just technically, but ethically.”
Challenging the Front-End Security Blind Spot
Throughout her career, Horbenko noticed a troubling pattern: while back-end security was prioritized, the interface was often treated like decorative wallpaper.
She pushed back, introducing Zero Trust principles at the UI level, an uncommon but increasingly essential strategy.
Her front-end automation framework incorporated role-based rendering, session-aware validations, input hygiene protocols, and interface-level audit trails. These were ethical guardrails, ensuring the system could not be exploited through its most visible layer.
“If the front end is blind, the system is vulnerable,” she says. Her work across both civic and commercial platforms has consistently proven that security must begin where users enter the system.
Global Reach: From Gaming to E-Commerce
At Fulcrum, Horbenko expanded her technical expertise by leading front-end development across diverse sectors, including gaming, healthcare, and e-commerce.
In each project, she maintained her core philosophy: that interfaces must prioritize the user’s needs and respect their data, whether optimizing performance for gaming apps or creating real-time analytics tools for global brands.
Leading Clean Energy Through Code
In 2024, after relocating to the U.S., Horbenko joined SolarReviews, a leading clean energy SaaS platform. As a full-stack developer, she spearheaded the modernization of its lead-generation and comparison tools, optimizing accessibility and performance for 80,000+ daily users.
Her updates, which included compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA standards and a 60% improvement in query speed, empowered consumers to make informed solar investments aligned with climate goals, blending technology, policy, and public good in one interface.
Building Interfaces That Think
Now at SmartBarrel, Horbenko designs AI-integrated dashboards that do more than display data; they think.
One standout project features a real-time safety system that responds to edge-device detectors on jobsites. The UI flags missed clock-ins, identifies hazardous behavior, and logs data for OSHA compliance, turning the front end into a proactive safety tool.
“Construction interfaces can’t just be checklists anymore,” she says. “They have to understand context and act fast.”
Recognition Rooted in Resilience
Horbenko’s professional achievements have earned global recognition:
- Bronze Stevie® Award for Technology Innovation (2025)
- Senior Member of IEEE (2023)
- Judge for the 2024 Globee® Awards, evaluating AI and software innovation
Yet, behind every accolade is a story of grit. Raised by her mother, a government accountant, Horbenko learned resilience early. Despite limited resources, her mother nurtured her daughter’s potential with unwavering support.
“She believed in me before I did,” Horbenko recalls. “That belief became the engine behind everything I do.”
Looking Ahead: Building for the Public Good
Now, Horbenko is developing her product, a compliance-first platform for underserved municipalities.
It will focus on equitable access to housing, safe job site conditions, and transparent procurement, areas where trustworthy technology can directly shape human outcomes.
She also mentors junior developers and is preparing a series of online courses on secure UI design, product thinking, and civic tech, sharing the frameworks that have defined her career.
“I’m not interested in features for features’ sake,” she says. “I want to build systems people can count on, especially in moments that are messy, urgent, or life-defining.”
Connect with Yuliia Horbenko on LinkedIn and at web-developer.us
