Think Piece

Which part of IT industry to choose for your tech career path? How to get inspired? With or without partner for your initiatives? The second part of Ivaylo Kenov’s candid interview answers these questions and more.

When a person in the profession chooses how to develop, what must he consider – programming language, team, projects, company, other? How much do you think each of these factors weighs? What would be the pros and cons for him personally if he did not choose to start in a product company?

I have always said that technology is not so important, as long as a person finds it interesting and likes to work with it. There is potential and opportunities for development in every part of the IT industry. So it’s more a matter of personal preference.

The team and the atmosphere are a factor that is extremely important to me. We spend most of our lives at work and it is good to be surrounded by people who make us feel good. A junior programmer should be among the good mentors and colleagues to help him rise quickly just when it’s hardest – at the start. My career developed favorably mainly because of the strong leaders, among whom I found my first job.

In regard to the projects – I think that at the beginning of the programmer’s career any project that works in a quality team would be useful, no matter what stage of business development it is. It is important to feel that you are learning new techniques and developing your skills daily or at least weekly. Software engineering is not just about writing code. There are many different processes and skills that we can only develop if we are part of a larger structure. They are as important as technological knowledge, but they are learned through workplace practice.

After a few years – then it makes sense to choose the work itself and the various specifics in the projects that one thinks he will like.

For companies and whether they are product or project-based – here everyone should judge for themselves, because both have their pros and cons. There is no better choice, but from my experience if you work on a product – you have the opportunity to gain more depth in your knowledge, but they remain niche and specific to that particular business. Frequent changes of projects, on the other hand, lead to less depth in the details, but a greater variety of tasks and skills. Both are worth it in the long run and it is a matter of personal choice in my opinion.

2.      How do you choose the topics for the individual sessions? What inspires you in this process?

Many of the topics I teach are selected by the audience through a survey, but I select the possible options in it very carefully. I generally follow these guidelines:

–         I try to make the material as “evergreen” as possible, or in other words to last over time and be relevant to the industry even after years. With the dynamic environment of the technology sector, this is strongly said to be almost impossible, but in the end there are always concepts that are abstract and teach you to think correctly, whenever you decide to pay attention to them. For example, my lectures on functional programming or the current series on software architectures may be useful in half a decade. Of course, some of the knowledge will have changed or become obsolete, but the overall picture tends to remain as it is provided at the moment.

–         I want to address some pressing issues. Those that were difficult for me some time ago or for which I regularly receive questions from my students. Some of the lectures for advanced require a great deal of reading and gathering knowledge from a variety of sources. This is where I come and help with synthesized information and a selected presentation that goes into depth. Such an example is my topic of asynchronous programming or authentication and authorization. Newcomers to the field regularly have ambiguities and “gaps” around these issues, and it can be said that they are an absolute standard and are part of almost all projects in the industry.

–         Last but not least – topics that the industry is currently seriously interested in. Here we may come across a lecture that is not super relevant over time, because “hypes” are usually associated with newer technologies, and they tend to change quickly. However – once again I try to cover the topic conceptually so that it can remain relevant as long as possible. Examples of such lectures are microservice architectures, containerization with Docker or orchestration with Kubernetes. I observe online conferences and which topics are the most watched, then I catch and unravel them to a serious depth so that I can provide quality training

3.      What is useful in having a partner in the realization of such events? Why did you choose INDEAVR?

It may be clear to the readers, but preparing the materials takes a considerable amount of time. Days, and sometimes weeks, of my free time, because like most people – I have a standard 8-hour job from morning till evening. The knowledge in the topics goes to such a depth that often during the preparation I also learn details that I missed during my professional experience. As I have already said – according to my observations, some of my lectures are practically free courses. When I started the initiative, I wanted to achieve a balance in which to reward my work properly according to the labor market, but also to spread knowledge to as many people as possible, without harming them based on their financial situation. For this reason, the lectures are free during the live broadcast and a few days after. If you do not have the financial means – you consider your time and study according to my schedule. And if you set aside money for lessons – then you can take the record for a fair amount in my opinion, to watch it as you see fit.

The money raised in this way is enough to cover the main costs of taxes, advertising, accounting, administrative work and other operational costs, but not enough to make the initiative financially sustainable mainly through free lectures.

Here comes the help of partner companies, through which support of lectures, invest in the education of many people and help develop the industry. I try not to make too much advertising noise, because the goal is to focus on acquiring new knowledge. For this reason, the partners are minimal in number and are carefully selected based on feedback from colleagues in the industry or personal impressions over the years.

While talking about partners – I want to specifically thank INDEAVR, because my communication with them has always been very easy and pleasant. So far, the company has not forgotten to be a partner in any event that shows commitment to the industry and beginners in the profession. I am extremely grateful for their contribution, because without them – my lectures might not have existed in the current public and accessible format.