My name is Kuba and I’m a software engineer with a great passion for understanding how things work – which has taken me on some great journeys way beyond just software.

So, who are you?

I’m a software engineer, fortunate enough to have worked on quite a few exciting projects with some really really great people. A short recap of my professional career:

  • 2004 is when I first got internet access, and began to code shortly after.
  • I kickstarted my professional career in 2014, joining Brainly as a QA Engineer and enjoying some proper startup experience. The culture rubbed off on me.
  • In 2015 I moved to a full development role at what would become a very successful software development firm in Poland – they go by Exadel now. It was also where I eventually discovered this is not the path for me.
  • 2017 was a breakthrough, landing me a dream gig at Automattic – a fully distributed Silicon Valley company. Little did I know, this would be an 8 year long journey where I really worked my way through the portfolio, including: WordPress.com, Jetpack, Tumblr, Crowdsignal, Gravatar and Cloudup.
    It also challenged me as a technical, people and business leader.
  • All things come to an end though, so here I am, in 2025, looking forward to what lies ahead!

I’m also a human, so when not at work, you’ll find me traveling, taking pictures, making music and occasionally even going down an alpine ski race course ⛷️.

Why “ice9js”?

It was available.

The long answer is, “ice9” is a piece by Joe Satriani (JS) whom I’m a massive fan of. It also so happens that “js” is the extension of JavaScript files… which I use a lot.

If you dig deeper, you’ll come across a book by Kurt Vonnegut called “Cat’s Cradle”.
It’s a pretty fun book. So without spoiling it, Ice-nine is the result of people concerned with whether they could more than with anything else. That resonates with me. I love building stuff, although these days I try to remind myself as much as I can why I’m doing it too. It was also the original inspiration for the song.

Contact

If you wish to get in touch, I’m on most social platforms under @ice9js. You can also email me at kuba.birecki@crystalplanet.io or come say “hi” on my Discord server.