Day job · 2018 –
Xeneta
VP Data Science
Ran the Data division. Now running the AI division: the strategy, the teams and the AI products behind global freight market intelligence.
Visit xeneta.com ›
Ilko Masaldzhiyski
Running teams. Growing companies. Building people up.
VP Data Science at Xeneta
Founder of WeddingRunbook
Oslo, Norway
Now.
WeddingRunbookBuilding · 2026 –
WeddingRunbook
Founder
Calendar-first workflow software for wedding photographers and videographers. Built in public.
Visit weddingrunbook.com ›
Shooting · 2024 –
PhotoBros Studio
Co-founder
Wedding and family photo and video in Plovdiv. Yes, I'm one of the bros with a camera.
Visit photo-bros.com ›Started with Data
Now everything AI
Career · 2013 → 2026
13 years in data.
Two countries. Two companies of my own.
EVN BulgariaPlovdiv
XenetaOslo
Analyst
Director
VP
PhotoBrosCo-founder
WeddingRunbookFounder & CEO
2013
2018 · to Oslo
2024
2026
Today
Everything AI at Xeneta.
That's my job now. The AI strategy, the teams that build it, and what we ship to customers on top of it.
How I work · 01
Leading by example.
I don't run AI from slides. I pioneered industry-leading advances in Data Processing and Forecasting using autoresearch. I shipped my own CRM, where 99.9% of the code is written by AI and I'm the architect and PM.
How I work · 02
Simple before smart.
If a plain rule does the job, use the rule. AI goes where the rules break.
How I work · 03
Grow people by challenging them.
Give someone a problem bigger than their title, then back them. That's how I've built a team, a division and a department.
My management style
I always hire people smarter than me.
Hiring people smarter than me is only the start. The real work is investing in them: problems bigger than their title, honest feedback, time, and the trust to make calls I would have made differently. I measure myself by how many people on my teams have grown into bigger jobs than the one they came for. That's where the compounding happens.
WeddingRunbookThe CRM I used wouldn't build the feature I needed. So I built the whole thing.
Calendar-first workflow software for wedding photographers and videographers. Four weekends to the first version, then I moved my own business onto it. Customer number one: me.
I don't review the code anymore. I check what it does.
4
weekends to the first version
~400k
lines of TypeScript, web to iOS
99.9%
written by AI models
Day 305
of 365, building in public
What it does
- Calendar-first operations
- Template runbooks
- Client portal: galleries, contracts, quotes, invoices
- Second-shooter and Google Calendar sync
- iOS companion app Beta
How it's built
99.9% of the code is written by Claude, Codex and Gemini. I'm the architect and the PM: I decide what gets built and check what it does. I don't review the code anymore.
AmplifyNext.jsExpoDynamoDBRDSS3CognitoAppSyncLambda
What I learned
- Build systems that prompt themselves. Good docs, specs and tests in the repo. The next prompt writes itself.
- Find a deterministic way to evaluate outcomes. If a machine can't check the result, it isn't done.
- Data is the moat. Everyone has the same models. Nobody has your data.
Speaking.
Data teams, deterministic systems and what actually works with AI in production. Mostly in Stockholm, it turns out.
- 2026
Why Deterministic Systems Still Matter for Data Automation in the Age of AI
Data Innovation Summit, Stockholm · with Viviane Santiago Gomes, Xeneta
- 2025
Architecting SaaS for Scale: Why and How to Build on Snowflake
Snowflake World Tour, Stockholm · with Ahmet Yilmaz Vural, Xeneta, and Lisa Olsson, Snowflake
- 2025
Building High-Performing Data Teams
Data Innovation Summit, Stockholm
- 2024
Speaker
Xeneta Summit
Writing.
No-BS essays on data, leadership and growing into jobs I wasn't ready for.
- Don't stay bitter! There are dark things out there…Aug 2026
- What makes an annual review helpful? The no-BS guide to annual reviews in TechJan 2024
- Challenge Accepted: 4 Startups in 12 MonthsJan 2024
- You are not prepared! But that's the pointJan 2024
- How much data is enough data — Part 1: Beyond numbers · XenetaOct 2023
- Moving from a contributor to a Data Science team leadSep 2022
Behind the camera.
I also shoot weddings with PhotoBros Studio in Plovdiv.
Path.
| Period | Organisation | Role | Place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 – now | WeddingRunbook | Founder & CEO | — |
| 2024 – now | PhotoBros Studio | Co-founder | Plovdiv |
| 2018 – now | Xeneta | Junior Data Analyst → Director Data Science (2021) → VP Data Science (2024) | Oslo |
| 2013 – 2018 | EVN Bulgaria | Intern → Data Processing Specialist (meter data management) → Maintenance Engineer for remote reading and meter data systems. Built an ML model in Azure ML, R and T-SQL to find the meters behind grid losses. | Plovdiv |
| 2010 – 2012 | Comet Electronics | Part-time vendor consultant | Plovdiv |
Education
Technical University of Sofia, Plovdiv branch. MEng Automation, Information and Control Systems (2015) · BEng Electrical and Electronics Engineering (2013) · BEng Industrial Engineering (2013, Medal of Excellence).
Origin story
I started as an electrical engineer designing PCBs and writing embedded C. The 2020 site, archived ›
Off the clock: dad first. Then chess, reading, video games and cinema.
Fun fact
50,000+ games of chess.
Since 2008: 25,437 wins, 24,041 losses and 856 draws. Below is one of my Lichess games, picked at random. It plays by itself. Use the arrows, the move list, or your keyboard to step through.
Games from my Lichess history. Pieces by Colin M.L. Burnett, CC BY-SA 3.0.