Welcome to HackerNoon’s Meet the Writer Interview series, where we learn a bit more about the contributors that have written some of our favorite stories. Welcome to HackerNoon’s Meet the Writer Interview series, where we learn a bit more about the contributors that have written some of our favorite stories. Meet the Writer Meet the Writer favorite stories Let’s start! Tell us a bit about yourself. For example, name, profession, and personal interests. Hello, hello everyone. My name is Sergey, and I’m working as Chief Product Officer and Head of Development. I genuinely love software development and the opportunity to create something nice and useful from scratch. I’ve been working in product development for more than 12 years. The majority of this time I’ve worked as a manager. Nevertheless, my original background is systems analysis, and it reflects on every decision or approach in my career. Studying and working in software development was never even a question. I absolutely loved computers and tech since my early teens, have a degree in computer science, and started to work full-time as soon as it was possible. After all these years, I’m still completely immersed and have fun in this fast-changing industry and always find new ways to be fascinated. Interesting! What was your latest Hackernoon Top Story about? My latest Top Story was “The MoSCoW Method: Key to Agile Product Management,” and it was an extension of the previous one about the IdeaOps approach in idea validation. There’s always a lot that you want to say, but you have to keep it short and simple. I guess every story has some connection to the previous one and gives an opportunity to share my point of view on development processes. The MoSCoW Method: Key to Agile Product Management IdeaOps I believe that work in software development has to bring joy to anyone involved. And joy converts into revenue growth, market expansion and general winning. But it’s impossible to build something great being stuck in non-working processes and spending the time of highly intelligent and creative people on endless meetings. In “The MoSCoW Method” story I provide simple advice that could be implemented promptly and generate value in the observable future. And the main idea is plain - in every team there are a lot of tasks and you have to prioritise them properly to achieve your goals. The method is very basic and simple. It’s easy to dive into and obtain a clear priority system. Later you may improve it with more advanced techniques, but that is a great start. These simple steps streamline the development process and help to automatise work procedures, which will set free the minds of team members and allow us all to have new brilliant products. Do you usually write on similar topics? If not, what do you usually write about? As usual, I’m writing about product development processes. My articles try to help to fix something broken in development routines from different angles and based on real experience and issues that I faced myself throughout my career. How to find a perfect Agile cadence?
It’s necessary to work with tech debt tasks, but there is also a myriad of business tasks. How to find a balance and get both things done?
How to know what you are managing to adopt as best decisions as you can? How to find a perfect Agile cadence? It’s necessary to work with tech debt tasks, but there is also a myriad of business tasks. How to find a balance and get both things done? How to know what you are managing to adopt as best decisions as you can? Answers to all these questions lie in methodologies, written rules and human communication. Sometimes the solution is boring and looks a bit bureaucratic, but I think that is the only way to help creative people to thrive. It may sound controversial, but understandable and clear rules and barriers stimulate the growth of ideas, the search for beelines and help to think about important things. There are still hundreds of topics that I would like to cover in the product management area and great thanks to HackerNoon for such a great opportunity to share my thoughts. Great! What is your usual writing routine like (if you have one?) A routine is necessary, because otherwise, there is always something important in your life that you may be diverted into. Everything starts with the ideas backlog. During my usual working routine, I may face some obstacle or long-solved issue and add it to my notes as a potential article idea. Going through this backlog, I look for the theme that resonates most right now, and that is how the planning starts. I have my weekly schedule. So, I book evenings and time during weekends for the writing. If you have an appointment somewhere, you have to do this. Booked time for writing helps a lot not to be distracted by something else. Also, it’s very important to start with an article decomposition and create a draft note about every section. This helps to retain the original structure idea and the ability to complete short and doable tasks during the week. Small tasks are easy to plan and complete, and aren’t as scary as the whole article in one document. Thanks to the Agile methodologies for the tricks on how to get things done! Being a writer in tech can be a challenge. It’s not often our main role, but an addition to another one. What is the biggest challenge you have when it comes to writing? Sure, it is a challenge. But also a great opportunity to think more deeply about some obstacles or issues that you may have during your working routine. At first, you are solving a problem and later think that it could be interesting to document the solution. But writing the solution gives you some additional ideas that may improve the solution, postponing the article. It’s like an endless cycle of improvement. Tech writing is deeply connected to the main role and helps to boost both. The most fascinating thing about software development that has given me joy for all these years is the endless possibilities of making processes or products better. The big challenge is to have boundaries that say “enough”, because otherwise it would be impossible to finish anything. Perfect is the enemy of good. What is the next thing you hope to achieve in your career? Right now I’m managing a wonderful product in B2B Enterprise and feel fulfilled in my career. Also, last year my team and I released a brand-new SaaS product, and I am interested in its development. Still, for almost thirteen years, I have worked in B2B Enterprise product software development. This rich experience helps me to handle any type of issue and provide the best possible products on the market. Nevertheless, some approaches in B2B are quite different from high-load B2C products. As a person interested in software development in general, it would be nice to have an opportunity to find new challenges in high-demand B2C product growth. Wow, that’s admirable. Now, something more casual: What is your guilty pleasure of choice? Ha, I think I love eating something tasty too much. I’m a pretty good cook and sometimes have a strong desire to bake something unhealthy but delicious, or visit a brand-new place in the city that provides some unique cuisine. I guess even our journeys with my beloved wife are built around recommended places with unusual food. I can’t help myself, and this is the way I try to understand other cultures and their traditions. Because nothing shows the core of any society as well as the common and staple food or traditional celebration dishes. Even the snacks could be interesting. I’ve been to many places across the world, but there are still a lot of places that I want to visit and taste. Do you have a non-tech-related hobby? If yes, what is it? Yes, I have, and this is music. Nevertheless, in my case, I wasn't sure that it’s completely non-tech-related. Throughout my life, I have been deeply engaged in music, and in my free time, I look for new interesting music, long plays for my vinyl collection, and play my electric guitar. I’m not a professional musician and not even such a good guitar player, but music helps me to calm down and relax. During the last few months, AI assistants have helped me to uncover a whole new direction in my hobby and helped to implement the weirdest ideas using software and a computer with my guitar. Like transforming an electric guitar into a bass guitar and playing basslines from the 80s. Before AI, I would not have spent a few hours searching forums for advice on how to produce the bass sound of a particular band on an electric guitar. And now it’s horrifyingly simple; you could get a step-by-step manual on how to enable a few settings and tweaks to produce almost everything. I guess, to get the right sound is sometimes more interesting to me than playing. But this is my hobby; it’s not about the result. A hobby is about something that makes you happy through the process. What can the Hacker Noon community expect to read from you next? I have a few drafts about Agile and management, but right now I’m into a massive shift in product management caused by AI in the last half a year. Agents have become reliable assistants and I am overwhelmed with the possibilities that modern instruments could provide. Tasks that took weeks can be done in hours. So many things could be simplified and other things become complicated. So, I guess, during the AI transformation in my company and my own journey through tools like “Cursor AI”, I will produce some articles about processes enhanced by AI in the new era of product development. What’s your opinion on HackerNoon as a platform for writers? I feel endlessly grateful to HackerNoon as a perfect tribune to deliver my thoughts and ideas. The platform has great manuals and is really intuitive. It has everything that may help you to start your writing and publish it after a meticulous review. In 2026, HackerNoon is a well-known brand and I have a lot of acquaintances that know about this platform. It is a big pleasure and honour to have an opportunity to contribute to the global software development community through HackerNoon articles. Thanks for taking time to join our “Meet the writer” series. It was a pleasure. Do you have any closing words? Meet the writer Same here. The questions were fun to answer! We are living in the epoch of great changes. Artificial intelligence is everywhere. In social media, thousands of people post about layoffs across the globe. It may seem like the whole industry is not in the best shape. But conversely, I think these times are great for anyone who is engaged and in love with technology. The current industry is an ocean of opportunities. Sometimes I even think that I’m not running fast enough to keep my finger on the pulse. But this has happened before and we should adapt to new changes, and read more meaningful articles on platforms like HackerNoon. As a result, all changes will lead us to a better world. Thank you for reading my interview, and I wish everyone great success in their working routine and the opportunity to dream big.

This story contains new, firsthand information uncovered by the writer.

Between Two Computer Monitors: This story includes an interview between the writer and guest/interviewee. 

Meet the Writer: Sergey Fedorov on Finding Joy in Software Development Through Structure

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