EPAM Systems has entered a new chapter with Balazs Fejes taking over as CEO, succeeding co-founder Arkady Dobkin, who will now serve as executive chairman. For Fejes, who joined EPAM 21 years ago following its acquisition of his startup Fathom Technology, this leadership transition is more of an evolution than a change. “I’ve spent most of my adulthood building what today you call EPAM,” he said, reaffirming the company’s culture of engineering excellence, transparency, and client trust.
Fejes has made it clear that the next big driver for EPAM is artificial intelligence, which he sees as a force even more transformative than the cloud or the internet boom. “Eventually, we are in the process of repositioning EPAM to be able to take advantage of the wave itself,” he told AIM. He highlighted the distinction between using AI merely as a productivity enhancer and building AI-native applications that place intelligence at the core of their architecture. “People are going to build new applications, new solutions… where the AI will be the core in the foundation of the application itself,” he explained.
However, Fejes also cautions against overhyping AI’s ability to replace developers entirely. “There’s a myth… that software engineers are no longer going to be important because we’re just going to put in a prompt and out of the prompt will pop out a full-blown enterprise application,” he said, stressing that custom software development and legacy modernisation will remain central to enterprise strategy. He advised that clients must prioritise data quality, cloud migration, and strong API ecosystems to fully leverage AI-driven “agentic flows.”
Beyond technology, Fejes sees company culture as a cornerstone of EPAM’s success. As the company expands deeper into regions like India and Latin America, he believes adapting leadership approaches across geographies will be critical. “Engineering-first remains at the core of our culture,” he said, acknowledging Dobkin’s contributions to shaping EPAM’s identity. With characteristic humor, he remarked, “From borscht to goulash with paprika,” suggesting that while leadership styles may evolve, EPAM’s DNA of innovation and trust will stay intact.
