Tech Life at Oxylabs: Engineering, Technology, and Exciting Challenges
What’s it like to develop our tech products — and what exactly do we do? We interviewed Our Chief Technology Officer, Žydrūnas Tamašauskas, and he was happy to answer these questions in depth.
Tell us more about Oxylabs. What are the products, and what’s unique about them?
At Oxylabs, we develop cutting-edge web intelligence solutions. Our main products are proxies and web scraping tools. Simply put, we create infrastructures to gather large-scale public data using web scraping technology.
Most of our developers have used proxies or web scraping at some point in their careers, so we build products we would enjoy using.
Our engineering department builds innovative solutions that are yet to be patented or even applied in practice. What’s unique about services is the quality — we’re trusted by our clients, the largest companies in the world, and many of them are on the Fortune 500 list.
Are you a product or data-driven company? How do you measure the success of your products?
We are product-led and data-informed. Since we’re one of the leading companies in the industry, there are no footsteps to follow. That’s why we use qualitative and quantitative data, as well as our minds and intuition, to inform our next steps.
To build better products, we measure customer satisfaction, ease of use, adoption rate, support issues, and more. On one hand, success is reflected by the revenue. On the other hand, it’s the positive feedback from our customers that drives us forward.
What about the product quality and customer satisfaction?
We have dedicated teams for parts of the product life cycle. Technology, product metrics, marketing strategy, sales, and other relevant areas are interconnected, so our colleagues all work in tandem to deliver the best results.
Since we are led by our products, and not necessarily the market, user feedback is crucial. We work hard to make our user experience excellent, as reflected by our Trustpilot rating of 4.7 with 300 reviews from paid customers.
Is there a way to predict the next game-changer in the market?
We’re pioneers in our field, so a lot of innovation comes from within the team. Most of our developers have used proxies or web scraping at some point in their careers, so we build products we would enjoy using.
We start with building an MVP (Minimal Viable Product). Sometimes, we use no-code or low-code tools to test if an idea sticks. If it doesn’t, we scrap it and go for another big idea — we live by the “fail fast, improve faster” mindset.
We don’t try to predict the next big thing — we observe what features our users adapt and keep polishing them.
What are the go-to technologies at Oxylabs?
We don’t consider ourselves “tech purists”, so we constantly incorporate something new into our tech stack. We use PHP to write APIs; Python for parsing, scraping, and data analysis; React in front-end to build browser extensions and mobile and desktop apps; Golang; Node.js is also being incorporated into the full-stack.
How do you stay relevant in terms of tech stack?
It all depends on our goals and the talent pool. We already have a stable tech stack, but we are evaluating and adding new tools to it.
If our engineers want to switch tech, we’re fast to make decisions. In most cases, only the Project Manager’s or Tech Lead’s approval is needed.
If previously widespread technology or framework falls in popularity, drops in quality, or there are fluctuations in the hiring market, we’ll be ready to switch it up for something new and more exciting. Relevancy is an essential factor for us — at the end of the day, we provide services in 216 countries, sell over 100M IPs, and offer 24/7 service.
Engineering, technology, and exciting challenges — is this a winning combo for tech employees?
Yes, I tend to agree. Tech talent wants to contribute, have supporting colleagues, and, probably most importantly — solve challenges that expand their knowledge base. As an employer, your job is to provide talent with challenges and tools to achieve professional growth.
How do you ensure this winning combo?
Most of the management at Oxylabs have a tech background, so they have faced similar challenges and know both the inefficiencies and best practices. We listen to our colleagues, help them remove any roadblocks, and welcome all internal initiatives.
If our engineers want to switch tech, we’re fast to make decisions. In most cases, only the Project Manager’s or Tech Lead’s approval is needed.
Thank you for the chat! Last question: what message would you like to share with future Oxylabs colleagues?
Be brave enough to try, fail, and learn from your mistakes to develop the future of the web intelligence world.
And if you’re looking for a workplace with interesting challenges, hottest tech stack, and cool colleagues to support you along the way — don’t look any further — take a look at our open positions.
Open Engineering Positions
Python Developer (Mid - Senior)
Vilnius, OxySERPS
Details
Mid Site Reliability Engineer
Vilnius, Supply
Details
Mid Site Reliability Engineer
Vilnius, Platform
Details
Android Developer
Vilnius/Kaunas, Supply
Details
Mid-Senior DevOps Engineer (Kubernetes)
Vilnius, Data Team
Details
DevOps Engineer
Vilnius, Platform
Details
Mid-Senior Backend Developer (PHP/Golang)
Vilnius, Supply
Details
Mid-Senior Backend Developer (PHP/Golang)
Kaunas, Supply
Details
GET IN TOUCH
General:
hello@oxylabs.ioSupport:
support@oxylabs.ioCareer:
career@oxylabs.io