Sharks of DigitalOcean: Vasily Prokopov, Staff Solutions Engineer

When Vasily Prokopov first came across DigitalOcean, one thing immediately stood out to him: DO Love. “How often do you find a company that lists love as one of its core values?” he thought. Fast forward to today, Vasily is thriving as a Staff Solutions Engineer in Amsterdam, Netherlands, where that same value shapes every aspect of his work. “The people here are genuinely supportive, always ready to lend a hand—whether you’re tackling a tricky task or eager to learn something new,” he says with a smile.

Vasily helps customers onboard to DigitalOcean, shares best practices for cloud deployment, and acts as a bridge between customers and our product teams. His energy and enthusiasm for innovation are contagious. Read on to hear more about his journey and how he’s helping developers around the world embrace the simplicity and scalability of cloud technology.

What excites you about your role at DigitalOcean?

My role at DigitalOcean has many aspects. A key focus of my role is developing engineering solutions that help new customers successfully integrate and get the most value from DigitalOcean’s platform. We provide technical assistance, ensure applications are ready for cloud deployment, and guide customers with best practices. We speak with so many customers that we have gathered a wealth of common wisdom about deploying applications in the cloud, and we are always willing and ready to share this information with any customer interested in joining DigitalOcean.

How would you describe the pace of innovation at DO?

When it comes to innovation, the thing I really like about working at DigitalOcean is that we are always at the edge of technology. We have these crazy waves of innovation like blockchain, and now it’s artificial intelligence and machine learning. All the customers that we talk to bring their use cases to DigitalOcean. At DigitalOcean, you will always work with the latest technology. I find this to be a great way for me to stay on the bleeding edge of technology in the industry, and I think that’s a huge advantage for anyone who joins DigitalOcean.

How does customer feedback influence product development at DigitalOcean?

On top of helping customers onboard, we also act as a bridge between customers and the product teams. Our roadmap is customer-driven, so when we meet customers, we always ask about the highlights and lowlights of our products. When they share something, we make sure that we pass this feedback to the engineering teams, and then we can implement the features in the future. So, this path between customers, their feedback, and their emotions is translated and passed on to product engineering.

How would you describe the culture of customer-centricity at DigitalOcean?

Our day-to-day job is to get on calls with customers and help them solve their issues. I think the most important quality of an engineer on this team is really being able to get into the shoes of a customer to understand them. We take the problem of a customer and treat it as our own problem to try to solve it for them. So this is what being customer-centric means to me —to show this empathy and help all the customers that we serve at DigitalOcean.

What DO value do you resonate with the most?

Out of all the values we have here at DigitalOcean, one that stands out to me the most is DO Simple. DigitalOcean has built itself to be a very simple cloud. There are many other clouds all around, but you sometimes have to have a PhD to run your simple workload in their clouds. What we build and what we deliver to customers is all very simple. The builds, the products, and the configurations are all developed in a way to give customers maximum value with minimal complexity.

For our customers, simplicity means that you don’t have to invest in a big DevOps team; you don’t have to invest a lot into learning some new technology. Instead, you can take the solution and start using it because it’s very simple. If you want to run Kubernetes at some point, good luck; that’s a steep learning curve. If you use the DigitalOcean App Platform, it offers the same benefit, but it’s much simpler. That’s why a lot of customers love our products.

Dive into the future with DigitalOcean

At DigitalOcean, our customers and community are at the heart of everything we do. We believe in acting like owners, with a bias for action and a relentless drive to simplify cloud computing. If you’re passionate about continuous learning, thinking bold, and being part of a supportive, innovative team, explore our open roles today!