Meet The Team: Aurora Labs' Relayer Team Lead, Alex Krasinskyi

The Aurora Labs team is made up of exceptional individuals that left a mark in the industries they have been part of by innovating and building cutting edge technology. These top-tier professionals have unique stories to share about their journeys that deserve to be talked about as they can provide inspiration and guidance to new builders joining this ecosystem. With this series we aim to do just that by highlighting the work and experiences of a generation of pioneers in the Web3 world paying tribute to their valuable contributions and achievements.

Alex’s Coding Journey

Alex Krasinskyi is a Ukrainian professional with decades of experience in programming. His interest in coding started at the early age of ten, when Alex’s older brother introduced him to programming. Alex’s interest kept growing during his school years and upon his high school graduation, he decided to refine his coding skills by enrolling in Polytechnica and pursue a degree in computer science.

After a few years dedicated exclusively to coding, Alex decided to take a shift in his career by taking an opportunity to work in the field of construction and architecture. For two years then, Alex would go on to apply his programming skills to automate processes for the company he was working for, and of course, acquiring new manual skills. But after two years, Alex decided to go back to full time programming by joining Innocode AS, a company that builds digital solutions for startups and media companies.

Here Alex had the opportunity to work on many different projects, among which, the development of an award winning ticketing platform for the Scandinavian market. Alex would go on to work for Innocode AS for almost eleven years before he would finally embark on his first blockchain project

Joining Aurora Labs

In 2021, Alex Krasinskyi found himself seeking a fresh opportunity when his colleague and friend, Anton, the current Head of Integrations at Aurora Labs, introduced him to the world of blockchain. While Alex was already familiar with this technology, he had never worked in the field. However, upon joining the Relayer team, he quickly realized that despite the presence of new concepts, there were also significant crossovers with traditional programming, as he aptly described it:

The work I do in the Relayer team may not fall strictly under the category of blockchain development. We don't primarily write in Solidity or Rust, nor do we focus on deploying contracts. While we possess the knowledge to do so, it's not our primary focus. Instead, we specialize in simpler, foundational web development using languages like JavaScript and Go. This aligns well with my previous experience, making the transition relatively seamless. Surprisingly, the initial learning curve wasn't as steep as I had anticipated.

As the team lead, Alex oversees the support and development of the relayer. Together with other five programmers, Alex has contributed to the development and support of the old as well as the new Relayer launched only a few months ago, ensures compatibility with various programming languages, such as Python, JavaScript, and Go, making sure they are as Ethereum-compatible as possible and runs extensive testing to identify potential problems and minimize distruptions.

We focus a lot of our energies in providing support to partners who encounter issues or have specific requests. However, our main project revolved around developing and maintaining our Relayer project, which recently reached a significant milestone with its final release. This achievement brought us great satisfaction, as we now have a well-documented and functional codebase, significantly improving efficiency. Overall, our meticulous testing and dedication to compatibility played a crucial role in ensuring a smooth experience for our clients.

What’s Coming

The Relayer team is constantly trying to improve its infrastructure to ensure the best experience for Aurora clients. This includes a lot of code rewriting, conducting audits and identifying new areas of development, in line with Aurora Lab’s overall vision. In the coming months, the team will be focused on a new big project:

Currently, we are responsible for maintaining the Block Explorer, which is the only one we host and make custom changes to, such as rolling out new versions for silos. We also have future projects related to Borealis Business, and we are also developing some services for our financial department. But more is to come on the business front!

About Aurora

Powered by its high-performance EVM, and fully trustless Rainbow Bridge, Aurora combines an Ethereum compatible experience with the modern blockchain performance of NEAR Protocol. Aurora provides an optimal environment for the creation of scalable, carbon-neutral, future-safe, and low-cost Web3 services, as well as the perfect tools to bring to life your Web3 initiatives. Try Aurora Cloud, our all-in-one cloud solution for enterprises, and get your Web3 journey started!