Nurym Kudaibergen
Profile
A pioneer of Kazakhstan’s speedcubing scene and an IT specialist, Nurym Kudaibergen was named to Forbes Kazakhstan’s “30 Under 30” list for his outstanding achievements in speedcubing, international records, and professional experience developing web products used by millions of people through his work at leading technology companies.
Speedcubing is an unofficial sport that has nevertheless captured the hearts of hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts around the world. In Kazakhstan, one of the biggest names in the speedcubing community is Nurym. He was born in Shymkent but moved to Astana with his parents before starting school. His father is a mathematician who devoted his life to science, while his mother is a teacher of Russian language and literature. Nurym recalls that from the age of four, he dreamed of creating computer games and was an avid gamer himself. He was first introduced to programming at the age of 10 through Garry’s Mod, a sandbox game where players can automate the construction of virtual worlds using the Lua programming language. After completing fourth grade, he enrolled in Nazarbayev Intellectual School, which had only recently opened in the capital in 2009.
While at school, Nurym became fascinated with speedcubing. He was drawn to the essence of the discipline: trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube faster than anyone else. He achieved results impressive enough to travel to Las Vegas in 2013, where he reached the final stages of the World Championship in the 4×4, 5×5 and 6×6 cube events. Among 580 competitors, he ranked 11th, 13th and 15th in the world respectively. In the 4×4 event, Nurym achieved the 12th-fastest time in the world at that point, covering the period from 1982 to 2013. His time was just 30.19 seconds! Over the course of his speedcubing career, he won four gold, 10 silver and 11 bronze medals at international and national competitions, while setting 121 national records across 13 different disciplines.
In 2016, Nurym enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he studied Computer Science and graduated in 2020. During his studies, he worked as an engineer on Silicon Valley startup teams at Taylr and Princeton Chat. At 18, he became the lead mobile developer at All Square, a Luxembourg-based social network for golfers. At 21, he worked as a developer at HENNGE in Tokyo and FanAI in Los Angeles.
Nurym considers his work at the renowned fintech company Robinhood from 2020 to 2022 his first major professional achievement. There, he had the opportunity to launch web projects used by millions of people while learning the craft from some of the best professionals in the industry. He was responsible for the entire technical side of Robinhood Snacks, a popular financial newsletter with 40 million subscribers.
“My main goal in life is to build a software product from scratch that will be used by one billion people around the world,” Nurym says.
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