From translator to AI product engineer

My name is Eva and I'm from Czechia. I studied Russian translation at university, that was supposed to be my path. For a few years it was: I worked as a project coordinator at a power engineering company. Then things shifted, my field got affected by what was happening in the world, and I had to rethink my career.

I had been curious about programming for a long time, partly because my boyfriend is a software engineer and watching him work made it feel less abstract. There was a boom of programming courses in Czechia at the time, so I took the chance and started from zero, spending evenings building little card games and trying to make sense of JavaScript.

A few months later, I found a job as a frontend engineer at a digital agency. That first year was hard. I was learning fast, building real products for real clients, and constantly feeling behind. Impostor syndrome was a daily companion. But I kept going. My partner became my mentor, and I owe him a lot of who I am as a developer today.

A year later, I joined Native, an American startup building a B2B AI conversation platform. For a language enthusiast like me, it was a dream. Over three years I grew from frontend engineer to senior product engineer, architecting real-time WebSocket systems, driving activation growth, working closely with design and product. That place taught me how much of engineering is actually about people, trade-offs, and listening.

People often say don't work with your partner, but for me he's the best colleague I've ever had. We kept starting things together: side projects, prototypes, weekend builds. None of them ever shipped. Then we moved to Greece. I left Czechia, kept working remotely, and started over in a country where I didn't speak the language. Harder than I expected. At some point this year we looked at each other and said: okay. We keep doing this. Let's actually pick one and finish it. And with AI, maybe this time it will be easier.

Somewhere in that period, my company stopped operating, and I felt the weight of the current job market. Part of me still wants to find a company, mainly for the sense of community. But another part keeps asking: aren't we capable enough to make it on our own? And building your own product is so exciting.

That's how we started Wonaby — an AI-native mobile app that values privacy and uses local LLMs. Just the two of us, owning everything from architecture to UX research. The first project where we said out loud, "we are going to ship this."

I'm still figuring a lot out. How to build for real users. How to balance speed and care. How to not burn out in a 2-person team and still live some life.

But I'm here. To build real things, learn from people doing the same, and connect with anyone creating something that matters.

Happy to be here 😊

Always happy to connect: LinkedIn