5.0
(6 reviews)
YouTube.com rebuild lead | Waymo AI | Founder backed by a16z Speedrun
United States of America
Speaks English and Russian
Active today Usually responds in half a day

Services

$360 / month

Start free, decide later

  1. 1 Free intro call
    No card needed to book.
  2. 2 Ongoing calls + chat
    4 × 60-min calls per month, unlimited Q&A. Replies in 2 days.
  3. 3 No lock-in
    Month to month, no contract.
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MentorCruise summary

Mikhail is the Co-founder and CTO of Fictional.ai. His two decades of experience include leading the complete rebuild of YouTube.com and working on AI systems at Waymo. He helps engineers prepare for senior and Staff roles, grow into technical leadership, and build AI products.

Based on 5 verified mentee reviews

  • Reviewers often praise how he understands their goals and challenges before offering practical guidance on career and technical work.
  • Two reviewers specifically value his interview preparation, including mock interviews and guidance for upcoming interviews.

About

I led the complete rebuild of YouTube.com. Today, I help engineers and founders take on bigger challenges: landing a senior or Staff role, growing into technical leadership, or building a real product with AI.

My experience spans two decades, including 12 years at YouTube/Google and Waymo. At YouTube, I took the rebuild from a demo on my laptop to a global launch three years later, setting the technical direction across product organizations. At Waymo, I worked on AI research infrastructure, ML systems and simulation, and was a member of the San Francisco launch team.

I'm now co-founder and CTO of Fictional.ai, backed by a16z Speedrun. I built the technology from the first prototype and lead engineering, hiring and technical strategy. I also created Pony Diffusion, one of the most popular open-weight image model families, used to generate 3B+ images.

WHAT WE CAN WORK ON

• YOUR NEXT ROLE — System design, coding and behavioral interviews, resume feedback, and explaining your impact at the level you're targeting. I've interviewed hundreds of candidates and been involved in hiring at Alphabet. One engineer I mentored went on to land a Staff role at Google; our work was about recognizing the strength of their existing experience and presenting it clearly.

• YOUR NEXT STEP — Promotion strategy, technical leadership, finding work with greater scope, and navigating difficult conversations. If you're unsure whether to stay, move, lead or start something yourself, we can work through that too.

• YOUR AI PRODUCT OR STARTUP — Architecture, LLMs and agents, model choices, evaluation and deployment. For technical founders, we can also work on early hiring, technical priorities and communicating your product to investors. I've built independently and at the scale of YouTube, and know how different those decisions can be.

HOW WE WORK

We work on your actual resume, project, design or career decision. You'll get candid feedback, practical next steps and someone invested in your progress. Sometimes the missing piece is technical; sometimes it's perspective or confidence. I bring humor too, with a background in improv and clowning.

Choose Lite for two 60-minute calls a month or Standard for four. Both plans include chat support, with replies within two working days.

SEE ME IN ACTION

Building with AI on ByteByteGo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5Ef_Kne17U

Introducing the YouTube.com relaunch with my colleagues:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4l86SKBtMs

Send me your goal, current situation and what's getting in the way. I'll give you an honest view of how I can help and what we could tackle first.

What mentees say

5 out of 5 stars

Mikhail might be the single best possible mentor for anyone out there! As a software engineer fairly new to the industry, I had many concerns about the direction I should take my career, what my goals should be, how I should approach the technical and political aspect of the job, where my primary struggles should be, and an overall lack of direction on what my engineering path should like. Mikhail, at multiple points throughout the mentorship, empathetically understood my painpoints and helped me reason through what the best possible decisions I could make were. Mikhail also brings an unbelievable wealth of experience and perspective. From probably one of the most impressive trajectories an engineer can have in the industry, Mike provided countless knowledge drops on technical concepts related to Machine Learning, System designs and architecture, Founding and VC's, on top of an introduction into his network of fellow a16Z and Waymo peers. For the cherry on top, Mikhail is also just a super fun person to chat and connect with as he participates in some of the most unique hobbies (acting, improv, martial arts, wrestling) and he is always asking and wanting to learn more and connect with his mentee. I couldn't recconmend Mikhail more and no matter what step you are in your career, I am sure Mikhail can provide immense help and direction on top of being a great friend and person to connect with!

Avi

Avi

Standard Plan • 6 months

5 out of 5 stars

Mike is an excellent mentor and an equally wonderful person. He possesses a vast amount of knowledge and is always willing to share it with others. I have truly enjoyed our technical and non-technical discussions, mock interviews, and job search conversations, all of which have been incredibly valuable and insightful.

Sagar

Sagar

Standard Plan • 3 months

5 out of 5 stars

I sought mentorship because I had several important interviews coming up and wanted guidance from someone experienced to help me prepare effectively. Working with Mike has been an outstanding experience. He takes the time to truly understand the challenges you’re facing and provides thoughtful, practical guidance on how to approach them. He helped me focus on the right technical areas to prepare for my interviews and spent time helping me refine and frame my experiences so they communicate impact clearly. What truly stands out about Mike is how genuinely invested he is in helping his mentees succeed. I always felt that he approached my challenges as if they were his own, not just a task he was helping with. Even though I’m still in the early stages of my interview process, his guidance has already been incredibly valuable and helped me think about aspects of interview preparation that I hadn’t considered before. I highly recommend Mike to anyone preparing for technical leadership interviews or looking for thoughtful and supportive mentorship.

Nirmin

Nirmin

Standard Plan • 1 month

Nirmin wrote 1 more review for the same mentorship

5 out of 5 stars

Nirmin

Nirmin

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What happens when you start

You tell Mikhail your goals. They see exactly what you want to work on before session one.

You meet within days. Mikhail reviews your application and books your first session, usually within a day or two.

You leave with a plan. Concrete next steps and a weekly rhythm from your very first week.

Start your mentorship