Volodymyr Isai
~ engineer, researcher, builder_

Hi there! I'm an engineer based in Vancouver. I've been building things on the internet for most of my life — started making websites when I was 11, and haven't really stopped since. My work spans web infrastructure, product engineering, AI systems, and privacy tooling.

Currently I'm a tech lead at Open Data Labs, building infrastructure for user-owned data and the Vana protocol. Before that I spent years building across the full stack — from running my own network of web projects to freelancing to working at agencies and startups. I've touched a lot of technologies, but what keeps me going is the product side of things.

I started early. At 17 I built a content platform that ended up in the top 10,000 most visited websites globally. I ran it full-time for a while, and it taught me more about building for real users than any classroom could. Eventually the project wound down, but the lessons stuck.

Outside of work I'm always hacking on something — tools for financial market analysis, experiments with AI agents, small products. I like understanding how things work end to end, from the engineering to the business side.

I'm interested in AI systems that work in the real world, good product design, and building things people actually use. Let's connect on GitHub, LinkedIn, or X.

-- writing
AI Models Have Personalities and It Matters You Can't Separate Thinking From Doing What Backtesting Taught Me About AI Reliability