By Pete Salib
In today’s digital landscape, the user interface (UI) is not merely a visual layer but a crucial element of business strategy, directly influencing user engagement, development speed, and operational costs. For major platforms like VK Dzen, which serves nearly 30 million daily active users, maintaining UI consistency and development flexibility across numerous teams presents a considerable challenge.
In this complex environment, Pavel Alekseev, Senior Front-End Engineer at VK Dzen, led an architectural shift that redefines how user experience is built and scaled through UI Kit. A seasoned engineer with experience at large-scale companies, Alekseev is also a published author, IT Link RAF conference speaker, and a distinguished Fellow of the Hackathon Raptors Association — a title awarded to professionals with proven excellence in software engineering.
On expansive digital platforms serving millions of users and involving dozens of parallel product teams, the risk of architectural fragmentation is significant: divergences in interface implementation can accumulate, leading to a fractured visual language, slower development cycles, and rising technical complexity. Anticipating these risks, Pavel initiated an architectural transformation focused on establishing a unified approach to UI development, thus helping the platform avoid the typical pitfalls of scaling.
Moreover, while the architecture was built for VK Dzen’s platform, the modular design principles are also highly relevant to sectors like fintech and blockchain-based applications, where UI consistency across decentralized teams is equally critical.
At the core of his solution lies a fundamentally new UI Kit architecture. Pavel designed the component system as a modular constructor, enabling seamless composition, configuration, and reuse of elements without the need for code duplication or rewriting. “This architecture provided high flexibility and scalability, allowing teams to deliver new features faster while maintaining visual and functional consistency across the platform,” explains Pavel, outlining the rationale behind his approach.
His proactive mindset and willingness to go beyond his core responsibilities played a pivotal role in the success of UI Kit. The implementation of UI Kit, shaped by Pavel’s architectural vision, delivered significant and measurable results for VK Dzen.
First, the new UI Kit architecture dramatically accelerated development cycles. Pavel engineered a system where teams could leverage easily configurable components, akin to building blocks, eliminating redundant coding and directly shortening release timelines for new features.
Second, his solution established a unified visual language across the entire platform. The unification embedded in the very architecture ensured a coherent and intuitive UI experience for approximately 30 million daily users.
Third, thanks to the architectural transformation initiated by Pavel — focused on a consolidated UI approach — the business was able to sustain its growth trajectory. The resulting stability and efficiency supported significant platform expansion, including onboarding over 1 million new content creators in 2024 and contributing to VK’s overall revenue growth of 23% that same year. User engagement also soared: in 2024, users collectively spent over 5 billion hours on the platform.
These outcomes highlight the profound impact of a well-conceived UI architecture, particularly one crafted with the foresight demonstrated by Pavel Alekseev. His work on the UI Kit is not merely an internal success story for VK Dzen. It stands as a compelling example of how principled front-end architecture can drive substantial business value.
