Hello, Fellow Tech Enthusiasts!
Here’s your monthly update from Ralabs and the broader tech world.
📊 Focus & Insights
- Hope you had a peaceful, warm and joyful Easter. I spent mine with my family, and I hope you had a chance to do the same.
- Another strategic session is behind us – this time in Lisbon. Four days of deep work resulted in: three new project roadmaps, one shared strategic narrative and stronger team alignment. You can read more about our takeaways in the ‘Thoughts’ section below and on our LinkedIn page.
- We’re also gearing up for our next webinar on how LLMs are driving efficiency and scale in fintech. Elidor Varosi, Senior LLM Engineer, and Qeto Matitaishvili, Innovation Strategist, will break down how these tools are changing the game in the industry. Register.
👩🏼💼 HR Updates
- Six new team members joined Ralabs previous month.
- Our Mentoring Program continues to grow, welcoming new mentors and mentees. The program, active since 2018, helps teammates develop both hard and soft skills through peer-led learning.
- We also hosted a pysanky master class – a beautiful offline event. For Ukrainians, decorating Easter eggs isn’t just a tradition, it’s a craft that carries generations of meaning, where each symbol and color tells a story.
📈 Business Development
- We published a new article in interview format, a conversation with Senior LLM Engineer Elidor, speaker at our webinar, about AI in healthcare: its use cases, challenges, and why progress in this sector lags behind others. Read here.
- New case study now live: Integrating Salesforce, Twilio, and Advanced APIs for Source Advisors. Case study.
- During our strategic session in Portugal, we met face-to-face with FDS, our long-term partner of 7 years. We aligned on project goals, explored new collaboration opportunities in the UK market, reviewed performance, and mapped out a two-year product roadmap. We also introduced them to Ukrainian cuisine and built even stronger personal ties.
💼 Open Positions at Ralabs
- Lead Generation Specialist (Upwork);
- Senior DevOps Engineer (part-time);
- React Software Engineer;
- Middle iOS Engineer – Swift & SwiftUI;
- Senior Full Stack (.Net) Engineer;
- Data Scientist/AI Consultant;
- Senior Vue.js Engineer;
- Senior Full-stack (Python+React or Vue) Engineer.
💻 Coding Insights
- Codex – a lightweight terminal-first coding agent that combines ChatGPT-level reasoning with local code execution. Network-disabled and version-controlled. Github Repo.
- Prompt-kit – UI components for AI applications, built on React, Tailwind, Vite, and shadcn/ui.
- Why don’t companies fix bugs?
- Smithery Basically – NPM-style MCP services. Still early, but promising.
- Sinaptik AI – LLM-based data interaction for SQL, CSV, parquet.
- Cloudflare Labyrinth – Blocking AI crawler bots.
- New VS Code with Agent Mode and MCP support. Release notes.
- Using Claude and MCP to control your browser.
- Datastar – A 14.5 KB framework combining SSR and SPA features.
- ⌘K Base – eact-based popup command menu.
🤖 AI Developments
- OpenAI released o3 and o4-mini, combining simulated reasoning with browsing, coding, and full ChatGPT tool access. Read more.
- OpenAI is reportedly building a social media platform centered around AI-generated content. TechCrunch.
📚 Books and Reading
- No new books from me this month – a packed schedule with travel and strategic sessions. Feel free to send over your recommendations.
💡 Thoughts
- Our Lisbon strategy session exceeded expectations. The difference between in-person and virtual sessions is hard to overstate – I believe we’d have achieved only 10% of this result online.
Insight #1: Preparation matters. Day one started slow, but once we switched to physical brainstorming with whiteboards and sticky notes – and ditched the laptops – the team came alive.
Insight #2: Focus is key. We narrowed our list of initiatives from 10+ to just 3. That alone helped us move faster and translate ideas into actionable plans – with roadmaps, task owners, KPIs, budgets, and a RACI structure.
We now have clear priorities and a solid execution plan.
🔍 Other Noteworthy Mentions
- Testing Will Become More Important, Not Less.
- Firebase Studio – another handy tool to launch or scale a project. Visit.
- Apple will start training artificial intelligence models by analyzing data on customers’ devices to improve its AI platform. Read more.
- Protecting your AI app from bots. WorkOS.
- Pessimistic vs Optimistic Locking.
- How to build an agent. Ampcode.
- new.email – Use React.email to build, customize, and resend perfect email templates. Try it.
If you found this update helpful, please feel free to share it with others. My newsletter is also published as a blog on our website – Ralabs Blog. You can now read the previous updates if you want to.
Lastly, as a company with deep Ukrainian roots, we continue to seek your support for Ukraine during these challenging times. Every contribution makes a difference.
Stay safe and connected,
Best,
Andrew
- Our Head of Engineering, Daniiel Niiaziiev, and Customer Success Manager, Yuliia Matsyhon, are currently attending Cloud Fest, a major cloud computing event in Germany, networking with tech leaders. We are looking forward to the new collaborations that will emerge from these connections.
