What Fwdays does

Fwdays is a privately held Ukrainian event management and technical education company founded in 2010 by Stepan Tanasiychuk and Oleksandr Makhomet and headquartered in Kyiv. The company organizes large-scale technical conferences, workshops, and meetups covering software development domains including JavaScript, PHP, Python, .NET, DevOps, Data Science, Software Architecture, and more recently AI engineering. Fwdays operates three integrated lines of business: the flagship Fwdays Conferences (in-person events in Kyiv plus online editions), Fwdays Academy (live and video courses delivered via fwdays.com/academy), and Fwdays Tech Talks (a podcast distributed across SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and YouTube). Over 15 years, the company has organized 140+ events with 120,000+ total participants and 320+ speakers from 21 countries, including internationally recognized figures such as Rasmus Lerdorf, Fabien Potencier, Evan You, Jeff Atwood, and Neal Ford.

The company's underlying technology stack is lightweight and centered on event delivery rather than proprietary platform development. Live courses are delivered over Zoom, student collaboration is supported through GitHub, and recorded materials are hosted on an internal educational platform. No proprietary software product, API, or SDK is disclosed; the company's defensible assets are its content library (739 hours of recorded talks), its mentor network (50+ practitioner instructors from leading Ukrainian tech companies including Ukrposhta, MacPaw, SoftServe, and Grammarly), and its community brand.

Fwdays generates revenue through two principal streams: one-time ticket sales for conferences, crash courses, and video courses (priced in Ukrainian Hryvnia, ranging from approximately 3,600 UAH/~$75 for entry-level crash courses to 18,900 UAH/~$378 for premium AI engineering courses, with early-bird, student, and military discounts), and corporate sponsorship packages (Premium, Silver, Bronze, Community tiers) sold to IT employers for talent recruitment and employer branding. The Academy division adds a recurring course-based revenue line, with 2,000+ participants served in 2023. Go-to-market is hybrid: event-driven and product-led, leveraging self-serve ticket purchasing via fwdays.com, partnership-driven sponsor promotion, a podcast funnel, and social media channels (Facebook, Telegram, YouTube, Instagram). Fwdays serves two primary customer segments: individual IT developers and engineers seeking upskilling, and IT companies using conferences and Academy programs for recruiting and employer branding.

Name

Fwdays

Legal name

Fwdays

Website

https://fwdays.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2010

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Fwdays is a privately held Ukrainian company founded in 2010 that organizes large-scale technical IT conferences, workshops, and courses in Kyiv and online. It serves IT developers, engineers, and tech employers through its Fwdays Conferences, Fwdays Academy, and Fwdays Tech Talks podcast.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

IT Conferences and Professional Education

NAICS

Computer Training (611420), Business Schools and Computer and Management Training (6114)

SIC

Services-Educational Services (8200)

akta.pro primary industry

Software Development (Programming, Frameworks, Dev Tools) (EDABAFAA)

akta.pro secondary industries

Workshops, Webinars & Live Masterclasses (MPACALAD), DevOps, SRE & Platform Engineering (CI/CD, IaC, Containers) (EDABAFAC), Software Engineering & Application Development Training (Languages, Frameworks, Testing) (BPAEANAI)

Keywords

• Technical conferences
• IT training courses
• Developer workshops
• Software engineering education
• Tech event organization

Headquarters

HQ city

Kyiv

HQ country

Ukraine

HQ region

Europe

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Conference and course ticket sales: Fwdays sells paid tickets to technical conferences, crash courses, and workshops. Pricing varies by event type and early-bird timing, ranging from approximately 3,600 UAH (~€75) for basic crash courses to 18,900 UAH (~€378) for premium offerings. Courses also include paid video content and access passes. The company accepts payment installments via Monobank and PrivatBank.
2. Sponsorship and employer branding: IT companies sponsor Fwdays conferences and events to recruit technical talent, build employer brand, and raise product awareness among the Ukrainian and European IT audience. Sponsorship tiers (Premium, Silver, Bronze, Community, etc.) are offered to partners.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Fwdays organizes large-scale technical conferences, workshops, and crash courses for IT professionals across topics such as JavaScript, PHP, Python, .NET, DevOps, Data Science, AI, and Software Architecture, delivered in-person in Kyiv and online. Fwdays Academy operates as a dedicated education division offering live courses, intensive programs, and video content covering AI/ML, DevOps, Python, JavaScript, PHP, .NET, and Architecture, taught by practitioner mentors from leading Ukrainian and international tech firms. Corporate sponsorship packages are also sold to IT companies for talent recruitment and employer branding.

Product overview

Fwdays is a Ukrainian IT event and education company operating since 2010. The core offering consists of Fwdays Conferences - large-scale technical conferences covering JavaScript, PHP, Python, .NET, DevOps, Data Science, Architecture, and other topics. Complementing the conference business is Fwdays Academy, which provides live courses and video content including AI-focused programs like AI Agents Pro, RAG System courses, AI-native Observability, and Harness Engineering courses that teach building and deploying AI agents. Fwdays Tech Talks podcast extends content reach through audio discussions available on major podcast platforms.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Fwdays Academy: Educational platform offering IT courses, workshops, and training for developers and IT specialists, with live and video courses covering AI, Python, DevOps, Architecture, JavaScript, PHP, and other tech topics.
• Fwdays Tech Talks

Products and services

• Fwdays Conferences Large-scale in-person and online technical conferences covering JavaScript, PHP, Python, .NET, DevOps, Data Science, Architecture, Highload, Vue.js, CTO, React+, and AI tracks. Held in Kyiv venues and streamed online. Designed for IT developers, engineers, tech leads, and architects seeking practical knowledge and networking.
• Fwdays Academy Educational platform offering live courses, intensive programs, video courses, and workshops for IT professionals across AI/ML, DevOps, Python, JavaScript, PHP, .NET, Architecture, Mobile, and Software Architecture. Includes recordings, materials, mentor chat, and completion certificates.
• AI Agents Pro Course Advanced 9-session course on designing, deploying, and scaling AI agents using modern frameworks (Claude Agent SDK, OpenAI Agents SDK, Google ADK, LangGraph, CrewAI), including multi-agent systems, agent RAG, and MCP/A2A protocols. Targeted at developers, QA, sysadmins, DevOps/SRE professionals.
• Building a RAG System Crash Course Crash course (3 sessions, ~7.5 hours) covering semantic search, embeddings, vector databases, and LLM integration for building RAG-based document assistants. Includes recordings, materials, TG chat access. For developers and ML engineers moving from classic ML to GenAI/LLM production work.
• AI-native Observability Crash Course Crash course (3 sessions, ~10 hours) on modern observability practices using AI for analyzing incidents, finding anomalies, and accelerating problem diagnosis in distributed systems. Includes 1-year access to recordings and 1 month of TG chat access.
• Harness Engineering Course Advanced 3-sprint intensive course (9 broadcasts, 18 hours) covering Memory, Skills, Protocols (MCP/A2A), and Interfaces for production AI agents. Includes recordings, certificate, TG chat, free Fwdays Club month, and a 10% conference discount.
• Crash Course: Storytelling for Engineers Crash course teaching engineers how to communicate and pitch their ideas so they are supported by stakeholders, led by Павло Поляков. 5-day online format.
• Fwdays Tech Talks Podcast Podcast series (also branded "Right Tool For The Job") featuring dialogues, discussions, and reports from Fwdays conferences with engineers and architects from companies such as Uklon, Luxoft, GitLab, MacPaw, Grammarly, Pitch. Available on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and YouTube.
• Conference & Event Sponsorship Packages Tiered corporate sponsorship packages (Premium, Silver, Bronze, Community, etc.) for IT companies to recruit technical talent, build employer brand, and raise product awareness among the Ukrainian and European IT audience. Includes partnership application process with 24-hour response and invoicing for group/corporate purchasers.

Quantifiable outcome

• 739 hours of conference talks delivered across all events
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers6 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration1 record

AI capability5 records

Partnerships

15 partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• SoftServecoreGTM or Marketing PartnerSoftServe is a recurring partner and sponsor of Fwdays conferences. SoftServe mentors (наталія Манакова, Vyacheslav Koldovkyy) contribute as course instructors. SoftServe also features in Fwdays Tech Talks podcast. The partnership serves talent recruitment and employer branding purposes for SoftServe.
• MacPawcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerMacPaw is a recurring partner/sponsor of Fwdays conferences. Solution Architect Йожеф Гісем from MacPaw serves as mentor for the AI-native observability course. MacPaw participates in Zoom sessions during conferences and provides technical content for the community.
• UkloncoreGTM or Marketing PartnerUklon is a featured partner in Fwdays Tech Talks podcast, with multiple episodes covering Uklon's infrastructure (migration between clouds, payment database migration, Kafka migration, microservices, MS Orleans, actor model). Uklon is presented as a tech partner of Fwdays events.
• LuxoftcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerLuxoft is a major recurring partner and sponsor of Fwdays conferences and the Fwdays Tech Talks podcast (Right Tool For The Job series). Multiple Luxoft engineers have appeared as podcast guests discussing Java, Project Loom, Elasticsearch, PHP, Prometheus, C++, monitoring, and DevOps topics.
• GrammarlyminorGTM or Marketing PartnerGrammarly appears as a partner/sponsor of Fwdays conferences. A Grammarly engineer (Віталій Браславський) has spoken at .NET fwdays'20 on declarative engineering.
• Sigma Software GroupminorGTM or Marketing PartnerSigma Software Group is listed as a recurring partner/sponsor of Fwdays conferences. Their representative (Kate Stefanovych) has provided positive feedback on sponsorship outcomes.
• EPAMminorGTM or Marketing PartnerEPAM appears as a partner/sponsor company of Fwdays conferences. An EPAM engineer (Віталій Бобров) has spoken at JavaScript fwdays on web accessibility.
• InfopulseminorGTM or Marketing PartnerInfopulse is listed as a recurring partner of Fwdays conferences, participating in sponsor activities and employer branding at events.
• CiklumminorGTM or Marketing PartnerCiklum appears as a partner company and sponsor of Fwdays conferences, contributing speakers and participating in networking events.
• SvitlaminorGTM or Marketing PartnerSvitla is a recurring partner/sponsor of Fwdays conferences. Their representative (Diana Vladyka) has provided positive feedback on cooperation outcomes.
• Levi9minorGTM or Marketing PartnerLevi9 is listed as a partner company and sponsor of Fwdays conferences.
• DataArtminorGTM or Marketing PartnerDataArt is listed as a partner/sponsor of Fwdays conferences, participating in Zoom sessions and discussions during events.
• WIX EngineeringminorGTM or Marketing PartnerWIX Engineering is listed as a partner company of Fwdays conferences. Representative Maksym Kramarenko has provided positive feedback on sponsorship.
• DevRaincoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDevRain (CEO Oleksandr Krakovetsky) is a major strategic partner of Fwdays Academy. DevRain contributes mentors and course content (Deep Dive into LLM APIs course) and organized the joint Fwdays+DevRain AI event. CEO Oleksandr Krakovetsky is also CTO of DonorUA.
• PitchminorGTM or Marketing PartnerPitch (Roman Liutykov, Lead Performance Engineer) has been featured in Fwdays Tech Talks podcast discussing Clojure, Node.js, and web application performance.

Scale indicators9 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Coursera: Global online learning platform with partnerships to top universities and tech companies, offering professional certificates in AI, data, and software engineering. Comparable to Fwdays Academy at the professional certificate and credential layer.
• DataCamp: Specialized online learning platform for data, AI, and Python skills. Overlaps specifically with Fwdays' Python, data science, and now AI/ML courses as a globally scaled incumbent in the same job-readiness segment.
• Udemy: Global marketplace for online courses including extensive developer and AI catalogs. Comparable to Fwdays Academy as a competing channel for self-paced IT learning, with the key difference being Udemy's marketplace model vs. Fwdays' curated, practitioner-led cohort courses.
• Pluralsight: Established online tech skills platform with a large course catalog, assessments, and enterprise SKUs. Overlaps with Fwdays Academy as a broader, global incumbent in the IT upskilling category Fwdays competes in.
• JetBrains Academy: Educational offering from JetBrains focused on programming and software development skills with project-based learning. Comparable to Fwdays Academy for developer-focused upskilling, particularly in Java, Python, and modern frameworks.

Direct peers

• ReactiveConf: Central/Eastern European developer conference with similar mid-market profile to Fwdays — practitioner-led talks, sponsor-driven revenue, and a focus on modern web and AI topics for working engineers.
• NDC Conferences: Operates NDC (Norwegian Developers Conference) and similar software developer events across multiple geographies. Directly comparable to Fwdays as a for-profit tech conference brand running tiered ticket and sponsorship revenue across multiple annual events.
• Selenium Conf: Niche developer conference series focused on test automation and DevOps tooling. Comparable to Fwdays' targeted technology tracks (e.g., DevOps fwdays) in audience, ticket-based monetization, and corporate sponsorship model.
• Devoxx: Long-running European developer conference organizer (Belgium, Poland, France, UK) covering Java, AI, and modern software topics. Most directly comparable to Fwdays in format, audience (senior developers/architects), and mix of paid conference tickets plus sponsor revenue.

Emerging players

• HackerEarth: Developer skills platform combining hackathons, assessments, and learning content for technical recruiting and enterprise training. Comparable to Fwdays' enterprise sponsorship model where IT companies access developer talent and training through a single platform.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/fwdays
• YouTubeyoutube.com/user/fwdays
• Facebookfacebook.com/fwdays
• Instagraminstagram.com/fwdays
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/fwdays

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Fwdays