Ivan Tolkunov

Hey there, I’m Ivan, a software engineer based in Waterloo/Toronto. I like optimizations so I can spend more time on my hobbies: homelab, travelling, photography, Linux ricing, running, and video games.

I work across backend, infrastructure, and MLOps (honestly it’s a long list, but these are the core). Most of what I do is making systems actually work - fast, reliable, and under real load.

I’m pedantic by nature. I care about details, correctness, and not cutting corners when it matters.

I make a lot of mistakes. I’m good at it. But I don’t make the same mistake twice.

This blog is where I write about my approach - my bushido (way of a samurai).

btw I use arch fedora ;)


My thoughts on:

A Remote Dev Environment Was All I Needed

How (Not) to Find a SWE Job in North America

Building AI-powered personal task tracker

Deploying AI-powered Django apps to Modal.com

AI or Not — detect AI-generated photos using AI