Andrey Nigmatulin

LINKEDIN VERIFIED

Infrastructure / Systems Engineer & Engineering Leader

London, United Kingdom LinkedIn

About

web sources + resume

SUMMARY

Andrei Nigmatulin is a Russian-born infrastructure engineer based in London, best known as the sole original author of PHP-FPM (FastCGI Process Manager), now a core component of PHP deployed on hundreds of millions of servers worldwide. He spent nearly 14 years as Head of R&D at Badoo/Bumble Inc., one of the world's largest dating platforms, and is recognised in Russian tech media as a co-founder of both Mamba and Badoo. externals.io ¹wiza.co ²maxpark.com ³strong proof

Web sources + resume claims.

CURRENT ROLE

Nigmatulin departed Bumble Inc. in August 2022 after approximately 13 years and 9 months as Head of Research and Development, where he led the R&D function for one of the world's largest dating platforms (Badoo/Bumble, 190 million users). His LinkedIn headline now reads 'ex-Bumble'. No post-Bumble role has been confirmed in the public record. wiza.co ²theorg.com ⁴uk.linkedin.com ⁵self-evalmedium proof

Web sources + resume claims.

40%

Confirmed

48 cited facts

Roles

Career arc entries

Awards

Formal honours

Press features

Major-outlet coverage

Quotes

Verbatim from interviews

Sources

42 distinct domains

Report

professional-data verification

Collected

2026-05-22

Purpose

professional-data verification

Approx. age

~45 years

Location

London, United Kingdom

Total experience

≈ 20+ years

Languages

not listed

wiza.co ² theorg.com ⁴ github.com ¹⁴self-eval

Hiring assessment

6 role-fits · 4 risks

LLM judgment on best-fit roles, bounded by available evidence.

BEST FIT

VP Engineering / Head of Engineering

Also a strong fit

CTO (Series B–D scale-up)Head of Infrastructure / Platform EngineeringHead of R&DDistinguished Engineer / Principal Systems ArchitectOpen-Source Infrastructure Lead

Nigmatulin combines rare depth — authoring one of the most widely deployed pieces of PHP infrastructure in history (PHP-FPM) — with nearly 14 years of senior R&D leadership at Bumble/Badoo at 190M-user scale, signalling both hands-on technical credibility and sustained organisational leadership. His nuclear engineering background and systems-level open-source work (C, Go, Python, ML infra) suggest he is strongest in deeply technical or infrastructure-oriented engineering leadership roles at scale-ups that value engineering rigour over pure management.

Risks & gaps

No post-Bumble role, advisory position, or public venture has been confirmed as of the research date (departed August 2022); the gap may indicate intentional downtime or stealth activity, but creates uncertainty for hiring timelines.

medium proof uk.linkedin.com ⁵self-eval

No independently verified conference speaking record was found; the public profile is primarily through mailing lists and open-source attribution rather than conference keynotes or media interviews, which may indicate limited executive-facing brand-building.

medium proof

Education credentials (Obninsk Institute for Nuclear Power Engineering) are confirmed but no degree type or graduation year is recorded in any source — the academic background cannot be fully verified.

medium proof uk.linkedin.com ⁵self-eval

Nearly the entirety of his professional career (14+ years) was at a single company (Badoo/Bumble); depth of experience in diverse organisational contexts is unverified.

medium proof wiza.co ² theorg.com ⁴

Work Experience

3 confirmations

Web sources + resume claims.

MambaVerified

Co-founder / Technical Lead

2004 – 2005

Co-founded the Mamba Russian dating platform; a separate team later took over development when the founding team moved on to build Badoo.

2 colleagues confirmed

maxpark.com ³ habrparser.blogspot.com ⁶ medium proof

BadooNot verified

Chief Engineer / Core Network

2005 – 2008-12

Built the core network infrastructure for Badoo using a stack of Linux, nginx, PHP-FPM (his own creation), memcached, and MySQL with custom sharding. Also authored PHP-FPM during this period, which was released as a standalone patch before entering the PHP core.

No colleagues have confirmed yet

maxpark.com ³ habrparser.blogspot.com ⁶ habr.com ⁷expert medium proof

Bumble Inc. (formerly Badoo Ltd)Verified

Head of Research and Development

2008-12 – 2022-08

Led the R&D function at Badoo/Bumble Inc. across a 190-million-user global dating platform; the engineering organisation maintained open-source discipline and built custom high-load infrastructure including a MySQL sharding service called 'authorizer'.

PN1 colleague confirmed

wiza.co ² theorg.com ⁴ uk.linkedin.com ⁵self-eval strong proof

What stood out

6 findings · surprise score 13/18

Non-obvious facts that aren't on the subject's LinkedIn profile, ranked by surprise.

🌐

cross-domain

PHP-FPM, authored solely by Nigmatulin, is now embedded in the default PHP installation on virtually every major Linux distribution and runs on hundreds of millions of servers globally — yet its copyright line simply reads 'Copyright (c) 2007-2009, Andrei Nigmatulin', with no company attribution.

A single person's side project from a Russian dating startup became the de-facto process manager for the entire global PHP ecosystem — arguably one of the highest-impact open-source infrastructure contributions by any individual engineer in the 2000s.

man.archlinux.org ⁸ github.com ⁹self-eval

🌱

early career

Nigmatulin studied at the Obninsk Institute for Nuclear Power Engineering — a nuclear physics and reactor engineering institution — before becoming one of Russia's most prominent high-load systems engineers.

A nuclear engineering background is a highly unusual entry point for a web infrastructure specialist; it signals deep mathematical and systems-level thinking applied in an entirely different domain.

en.wikipedia.org ²⁰expert uk.linkedin.com ⁵self-eval

🎯

unusual skill

Nigmatulin's mailing list email signature was a hacker-culture rewrite of a children's bedtime prayer referencing Unix system calls: 'Now I lay me down to sleep(3) / Pray the OS my core to keep / If I die before I wake / Pray the Disk my core to take'.

It reveals a dry, systems-programmer wit that went out to thousands of PHP-FPM support list subscribers — an unusual personal brand for someone whose name appears in every major Linux distro's manpage.

groups.google.com ¹²

📦

forgotten project

PHP-FPM was originally created not primarily for scalability, but for operational convenience — specifically to enable graceful PHP worker restarts without downtime, a problem Nigmatulin encountered at Mamba/Badoo.

The world's most-deployed PHP process manager was born from an operational annoyance (no graceful restart), not a grand architectural vision — a reminder that infrastructure fundamentals often start as targeted fixes.

habrparser.blogspot.com ⁶

📦

forgotten project

Nigmatulin also authored the first version of Pinba, a PHP request statistics server that integrates with MySQL, before handing it to colleague Anton Dovgal — a second widely-used PHP infrastructure tool from the same engineer.

Authoring two distinct PHP infrastructure tools (PHP-FPM and Pinba v1) from within a commercial dating startup, neither of which appears on a typical resume, is an unusually dense open-source infrastructure output.

habrparser.blogspot.com ⁶

🔗

unexpected connection

Rasmus Lerdorf (PHP creator) was personally consulted about upstreaming PHP-FPM, and the community discussion on the highload-php-en list concluded the only barrier was Nigmatulin's chosen license.

It illustrates that the PHP language's own creator was aware of and engaged with Nigmatulin's work — an unusual peer-level validation for an engineer at a commercial dating company.

groups.google.com ¹²

Personal sites

3 sites

Web properties the subject controls — blog, bio domain, project landing page.

🌐
Personal websiteexternals.io
🌐
Personal websitewiza.co
🌐
Personal websitetheorg.com

Digital channels

4 links

Subject-owned online presence aggregated from LinkedIn, resume, and personal-signal mentions.

📘
Facebooknigmatulin.andrei
🐙
GitHubanight
💼
LinkedInin/anight
🐦
Twitter/Xanight

Education

1 institution

Web sources + resume claims.

Obninsk Institute for Nuclear Power Engineering (ИАТЭ / OINPE)

Institution is physics/engineering-focused (nuclear physics, reactor physics, reactor engineering), consistent with many Russian software engineers of his generation who crossed over from hard sciences. No degree subject or graduation year recorded in any third-party source. Incorporated into MEPhI National Research Nuclear University in 2009.

Attended the Obninsk Institute for Nuclear Power Engineering (ИАТЭ / OINPE), a physics and nuclear engineering institution later incorporated into MEPhI National Research Nuclear University in 2009. en.wikipedia.org ²⁰expertuk.linkedin.com ⁵self-evalmedium proof

Awards & honours

2 awards

Synthesised from web sources.

🏆

Russians Who Succeeded Abroad — Top Tier (Score 100)

maxpark.com / Личные деньги

Ranked with the highest score (100) in the 2012 Russian IT émigré ranking 'Russians who succeeded abroad', recognising him as a co-founder of Mamba and Badoo and one of the most well-known high-load specialists in the industry. maxpark.com ³medium proof

2012

🏆

Улетели навсегда: Рейтинг IT-специалистов, которых потеряла Россия

republic.ru

Featured in republic.ru's 2011 ranking 'Gone forever: Ranking of IT specialists Russia lost', recognising him as a notable émigré tech talent. republic.ru ¹⁶medium proof

2011

Notable quotes

“Unless your blogs uses different php.ini values or any other options such as environment variables etc, that makes two pools of fastcgi workers different from the start you don't have to run multiple pools.”

Andrei Nigmatulin responding to a PHP-FPM pool configuration question on the highload-php-en Google Group, May 2008. · groups.google.com ¹³

“Now I lay me down to sleep(3) / Pray the OS my core to keep / If I die before I wake / Pray the Disk my core to take”

Signature used consistently by Nigmatulin across highload-php-en mailing list posts — a hacker-culture reworking of a children's prayer referencing Unix sleep(3) and core dumps. · groups.google.com ¹²

Press & podcasts

Web sources + resume claims.

Articles & interviews

📰 republic.ru — Улетели навсегда: Рейтинг IT-специалистов, которых потеряла Россия (2011) — Featured in a Russian IT émigré ranking published by republic.ru (2011) titled 'Gone forever: Ranking of IT specialists Russia lost', recognising him as a notable tech émigré. republic.ru ¹⁶medium proof
📰 maxpark.com / Личные деньги — Русские, которые добились успеха за рубежом (2012) — Listed with a top score of 100 in maxpark.com's 2012 ranking of 'Russians who succeeded abroad', described as co-founder of Mamba and Badoo and one of the most well-known high-load specialists in the industry. maxpark.com ³medium proof
📰 Linux Distribution Manpages / PHP Official Source — php-fpm(8) man page — Copyright (c) 2007-2009, Andrei Nigmatulin — Permanently credited as sole author in php-fpm(8) manpages shipped by Arch Linux, Debian, Ubuntu, openSUSE, and the official PHP source on GitHub — the most widely distributed form of attribution. man.archlinux.org ⁸manpages.ubuntu.com ²²linux.die.net ²³manpages.debian.org ²⁴manpages.opensuse.org ²⁵github.com ⁹self-evalstrong proof
📰 externals.io — PHP Internals — [sapi] PHP-FPM (FastCGI Process Manager), by Andrei Nigmatulin - upstream Y/n? — Credited by name on the PHP internals mailing list as the author of /fpm sources, with packagers praising his 'very clean, pristine code since forking the fcgi-sapi'. externals.io ¹strong proof

Podcasts

🎙️ habrparser.blogspot.com (IT-Kompot Podcast transcript) — Badoo High-Load Architecture Podcast Transcript (2013) — Named in a Habr / IT-Kompot podcast transcript (2013) as the original author of PHP-FPM and the first version of Pinba, by Badoo colleague Alexei Rybak. habrparser.blogspot.com ⁶medium proof

Reputation signals

Synthesised from web sources.

The PHP internals mailing list explicitly instructs contributors to 'credit Andrei Nigmatulin as the author of /fpm sources' and to 'Contact Andrei Nigmatulin regarding any further licensing questions', establishing his canonical authorship. externals.io ¹strong proof
A PHP packager wrote to the PHP internals list: 'Andrei has done very clean, pristine code since forking the fcgi-sapi' — a peer technical endorsement on the official PHP developer list. externals.io ¹strong proof
Badoo's own engineering blog acknowledges PHP-FPM as a Badoo/Nigmatulin development ('PHP-FPM (разработка Badoo)'), embedding his contribution in the company's public technical identity. habr.com ⁷expertmedium proof
Badoo colleague Alexei Rybak publicly credited Nigmatulin as the original author of PHP-FPM and the first version of Pinba in a widely-read technical podcast transcript on Habr. habrparser.blogspot.com ⁶medium proof
Community discussion on the PHP-FPM Google Group noted that Rasmus Lerdorf himself was consulted about upstreaming PHP-FPM, with the consensus that Andrei's licensing decision was the only remaining obstacle to broader adoption. groups.google.com ¹²medium proof
Recognised in a 2012 Russian IT ranking as 'one of the most well-known specialists in high-load systems in the industry', placing him in the top tier of Russian-born infrastructure engineers. maxpark.com ³medium proof

Beyond the resume

Synthesised from web sources.

Uses the consistent handle 'anight' across GitHub, Twitter/X, and LinkedIn — a stable, decade-long personal brand in the open-source and developer community. github.com ¹⁴self-evaltwitter.com ¹⁵self-evaluk.linkedin.com ⁵self-evalstrong proof
Based in London, UK (Nine Elms area), having emigrated from Russia — recognised in a 2011 Russian publication as one of the IT specialists 'Russia lost'. republic.ru ¹⁶wiza.co ²medium proof
Maintains a Facebook profile at facebook.com/nigmatulin.andrei. facebook.com ¹⁷self-evalmedium proof
Maintains a YouTube channel at youtube.com/c/AndreiNigmatulin; specific content was not accessible at time of research. youtube.com ¹⁸self-evalmedium proof

Public footprint

6 items across 3 venues

Where the subject's content actually lives, by venue type.

💬Social posts2

Twitter/X — @anight
Active Twitter/X handle consistent with GitHub and LinkedIn handles. Content details not surfaced in research.
twitter.com ¹⁵self-eval
Facebook — nigmatulin.andrei
Personal Facebook profile under the name Andrei Nigmatulin.
facebook.com ¹⁷self-eval

🎙️Talks & podcasts1

YouTube channel — Andrei Nigmatulin
A YouTube channel exists under the name Andrei Nigmatulin; specific video content was not accessible via search at time of writing.
youtube.com ¹⁸self-eval

💭Forum activity3

highload-php-en Google Group — Moderator & Principal Respondent
Nigmatulin was the active moderator and principal technical respondent on both the English (highload-php-en) and Russian (highload-php-ru) PHP-FPM support mailing lists, documented at least through May 2008.
groups.google.com ¹² groups.google.com ¹³ groups.google.com ²⁶
PHP Internals mailing list — PHP-FPM upstream discussion
Named on the PHP internals list as the sole author of /fpm sources; the thread credits and directs licensing questions to him directly.
externals.io ¹
GitHub — anight profile (46 repositories, GitHub Pro)
GitHub profile with 46 repositories, 79 followers, 60 following. Pinned repositories include patch-memcpy, inject.so, watch_leaks, adventofcode (8 stars), libmca, and a darner fork.
github.com ¹⁴self-eval libraries.io ¹⁹