Happy holidays readers, I decided to allocate a time to reflect on my past 5 years.

Moving to a new country, Belarus to the UK

In January 2017 I first stepped onto the UK soil, to join Meta (then Facebook) to build up Spark AR team. I’ve never been to the UK before doing this sharp move and it’s been one of the best moves I’ve made in my life. I had around 3k USD in my bank account when doing the move and it was indeed scary-ish.

Over 5 years I’ve lived in different areas of London: Notting Hill, Camden Town, Hampstead Heath, Belsize Park and central London. All those I like. In December 2021 I got my ILR, removing the visa question forever.

Crafting software at Meta, ex-MSQRD

Facebook acquired a startup, MSQRD, that I’ve been a part of in March 2016 but I only moved 9 months later. Technically, I’ve started working on Spark AR and AR Studio at the start of 2016 which makes my journey at Meta 6 years long. Zuck made a nice welcome video in 2016 for the team: https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10102701376905821

I’ve worked with more than 300 people in the company, collaborated with FAIR, FRL (Facebook Reality Labs) and Oculus.

The Spark AR is a special stuff… which I’ve seen to grow from 20 people to over 200 in London. I still remember a meeting in the ‘Red Lion’ meeting room which does not exist anymore in Brock Street London office where ‘Spark’ brand was first born.

The products and technologies I worked on included Spark AR Studio (x-plat, mac, windows), Graphics Engine development, working on Sparial Audio and mobile products (iOS, Android).

In 2021 I worked on integral parts of a new product codenamed “Polar” which zuck made a separate post about: https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10114152123083691 https://www.instagram.com/p/CXbj3-4JBlY/

Both posts running in December (2016, 2021) is a nice coincidence which triggered me to reflect on over 5 years at Facebook.

When I eventually would have to depart, I’ll make a comprehensive post about my journey at Facebook, people I worked with, lessons I learned.

Travel

Areas that I have been sliding through in the last 5 years, totalling more than 350 days of travel. Which means I lived in the UK for 4 years, not 5!  

🇺🇸 Hawaii, California, Washington, Colorado  

🇨🇦 British Columbia, Vancouver 

🇬🇧 UK

🇫🇷 Paris, Lyon, Côte d’Azur, Bordeaux 

🇮🇹 Whole of Tuscany  

🇪🇸 Ibiza

🇮🇸 Iceland roundtrip 

🇮🇱 Tel-Aviv, Herzliya, Jerusalem 

🇫🇮 Helsinki by Finland (gov invitation) 

🇳🇱 Netherlands roundtrip 

🇲🇪 Montenegro  

🇦🇪 Dubai

🇺🇦 Ukraine (Kyiv, Odessa)

🇧🇾 Belarus 

Secret Future Stuff

There is a lot of things I can’t yet disclose about years 2019–2021, which I will eventually shine a lot of light on.