Roman Sevast


Roman Sevast is a Ukrainian entrepreneur, co‑founder and President of Awesomic, a remote talent marketplace for design, development, and marketing. He is listed among Forbes 30 Under 30.

Early life and education

Roman Sevast began programming in childhood. At 14 he launched various projects and game servers, starting with a private GTA: San Andreas server that led him to learn PHP, MySQL, and web technologies. While in school he freelanced and founded a copywriting and SMM agency.
In 2013, he enrolled at Chernivtsi National University’s Faculty of Applied Mathematics to study AI systems.

Career

In 2014 Sevast joined Paymentwall as a developer. At 19, he relocated to Hanoi, Vietnam, when Paymentwall opened its R&D office there, working on their e‑invoicing service. In summer 2015 he returned to Kyiv and continued at Paymentwall before resuming freelance consulting for U.S. startups and helping build their development teams.
In 2017, with partner Anastasiya Pavlyshyna, he launched Doge Codes, offering online programming courses with top mentors. By 2018 they had over 150 students and 4,000 video viewers.

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In May 2019 Sevast and Pavlyshyna created a simple designer‑search landing page that evolved into Awesomic, a full remote work platform. In July 2020 the platform rebranded as Awesomic—a design outsourcing marketplace matching businesses and designers at a fixed price without interviews. Clients include Reface, Lift99, People.ai, and Snov.
In April 2021 Awesomic joined Y Combinator and raised $125,000. That year he was named to Forbes Ukraine's 30 Under 30 list.
In August 2022 Awesomic was among 16 Ukrainian startups funded by Google for Startups Ukraine Support Fund. It also won the Red Dot Award for Brand & Communication Design.
In March 2023 Awesomic raised $800,000 from Pioneer Fund, Flyer One Ventures, Red Rooster Ventures, and YC angels Michael Seibel and Jared Friedman. In February 2024 he opened Awesomic’s second office in San Francisco, USA.
In autumn 2024, Sevast's team at Awesomic developed an AI assistant named GPT‑a, which they pitched to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman; shortly thereafter, OpenAI released its "Operator" agent based on a similar concept.