Mid-Stride
Oleg Lola does not specialize in being the loudest voice in the room. He specializes in being the one who was already there when you arrived. He founded MobiDev in 2009 when "mobile development" meant writing code for BlackBerry devices and hoping clients understood what an API was. Fifteen-plus years later, he's running a 334-person operation with R&D centers in Poland and Ukraine, clients from PGA to healthcare systems, and a distinct reputation for telling people things they don't particularly want to hear.
Chief among those inconvenient truths: most companies don't need custom AI. They need to fine-tune an existing model with their own proprietary data, run a proof-of-concept in six to eight weeks, and stop commissioning two-year research projects that produce slide decks. Lola has made this argument in the European Business Review, to audiences at TechCrunch Disrupt and Web Summit, and in his capacity as a Forbes Technology Council member. He keeps making it because it keeps being true.
MobiDev invests 30% of its engineering hours into researching new technology - an allocation that would raise eyebrows at most services companies. At MobiDev it's institutional policy, not a line item that disappears when margins tighten. The result: the company built its AI consulting practice in 2018, before the rest of the market decided AI was interesting, and ranked #1 in Machine Learning development on Clutch in 2021.
"AI offers solutions to tasks that couldn't have been solved before - or to tasks where the solution was complicated."
- Oleg Lola, European Business ReviewThe MobiDev client roster runs across healthcare, retail, fintech, and hospitality. The company holds a 100% success rate on Upwork - which, for a 334-person outfit, requires more organizational discipline than raw technical skill. Lola's approach to building teams reflects this. MobiDev's engineering staff is 89% middle and senior level. Junior developers are not the company's model. Senior engineers who stay are.
In 2025, Newsweek included MobiDev in its Excellence 1000 Index, ranking the company 266th in Software Development and Consulting Services. For a company built without venture capital funding and still privately held, that placement means something specific: it's the kind of growth that happens when the same person has been making the same decisions, consistently, for sixteen years.
A Second Company, Quietly
In 2023, while running MobiDev, Lola co-founded Treegress with Anna Karnaukh. The pitch is specific: autonomous quality assurance for software teams, powered by proprietary AI, with no-code test automation that can match human-written QA in fidelity. It is positioned squarely in the San Francisco Bay Area tech ecosystem, targeting software teams that want to compress their QA cycles without adding headcount.
The move makes more sense in context. MobiDev had been building software testing and QA capabilities for years - the company's service list includes quality assurance and test automation. Treegress is the product-company version of that expertise. Lola is not starting from zero; he's productizing a decade of institutional knowledge. That pattern - consultant builds deep domain expertise, then spins out a SaaS product - has been reliable enough across the industry that it has its own playbook. Lola is running it.
"Tech visionaries already work on the edge between the problem and the solution. AI Product Consulting helps to broaden the edge."
- Oleg Lola, U.Today, March 2024The Anti-Hype Position
When ChatGPT launched in late 2022, most of the technology industry decided it was time to add "AI" to every pitch deck, product roadmap, and job listing. Lola went in the other direction. He started saying publicly that the hype was making things worse - creating unrealistic expectations, driving clients toward expensive custom builds they didn't need, and obscuring what AI was actually good for.
His alternative framework is deliberately boring: identify a specific business problem, run a proof-of-concept in one to two months, measure whether it works, and then decide whether to invest more. Fine-tune an existing model before considering building from scratch. Involve the client in the process without overwhelming them with technical decisions they're not equipped to make.
Lola predicts that AI will advance from descriptive and predictive systems toward fully automated prescriptive decision-making - but that for high-risk decisions, human oversight will remain necessary for another five to ten years. This is not a conservative position; it's a calibrated one. He's been watching the gap between AI capability and AI deployment for long enough to have a sense of where the friction actually lives.
"A big budget isn't a must in order to reap the benefits of AI."
- Oleg Lola, European Business ReviewThe Sequence
What MobiDev Actually Does
MobiDev is a custom software development company. That phrase covers an enormous amount of ground, so here's the specific version: the company builds AI solutions, AR/VR applications, IoT systems, mobile apps, web platforms, and legacy system modernizations. Its R&D centers sit in Poland and Ukraine. Its commercial presence runs through the US and UK. Headquarters: Norcross, Georgia.
The industries served include healthcare, retail, fintech, manufacturing, hospitality, and sports and fitness. Notable projects from the MobiDev history: RAD.JS (Lola's own framework for accelerating PhoneGap development), IMS TILES (an investigative interviewing planning tool built for law enforcement), and SmartTAB (a point-of-sale system for hospitality venues). The PGA is in the client list.
The Record
- Founded MobiDev in 2009; grew to 334 employees with US, UK, Poland, and Ukraine offices
- Forbes Technology Council member since 2020; regular contributor on AI and technology
- MobiDev ranked #1 Machine Learning development company by Clutch in 2021
- MobiDev named to Newsweek's 2025 Excellence 1000 Index, ranked 266th in Software Development
- Co-founded Treegress in 2023 - autonomous AI-powered QA startup, San Francisco
- Speaker at TechCrunch Disrupt, Web Summit, and World AI Cannes Festival
- Built MobiDev to 100% success rate on Upwork across hundreds of client engagements
- Created RAD.JS: a custom framework accelerating PhoneGap mobile app development
- 89% of MobiDev engineers at middle or senior level - a deliberate, sustained hiring standard
What He Actually Says
"AI is not a mystery or magic. It requires input."
"Our company tries to involve the customer in the process without overburdening them."
"A big budget isn't a must in order to reap the benefits of AI."
"AI is heavily overhyped. The launch of ChatGPT made things even worse."
"Tech visionaries already work on the edge between the problem and the solution."
"AI offers solutions to tasks that couldn't have been solved before or where the solution was complicated."
The Small Print
Speaks four languages: English, Russian, Ukrainian, and German
Originally from Ukraine. Now based in San Francisco, California
Built RAD.JS - his own framework for accelerating PhoneGap app development
MobiDev dedicates 30% of engineering hours to pure research - unusual for a services firm
Studied at Kharkiv National University of Radioelectronics - one of Ukraine's oldest tech universities
One MobiDev project: IMS TILES, an investigative interviewing tool for law enforcement agencies