Working between the backend developers and our frontend design team, Alex Nechaiev, James Bayley, Jerry Shikongo, Darpan Patil, and Josip Matijevic are the connecting piece in the puzzle.

Read on to get to know them a little better…

Which part of frontend development is your specialty?

James: Generally working on the more user-facing features. I actually enjoy polishing the look and feel of our applications to the standard of the mocks that our talented design team provide.

Jerry: Coming from a design background, the aesthetics part is easier for me. So naturally, that’s where my strengths lie — the prettier the designs, the better — and the Sylo app is pretty.

Darpan: Integrating react-native with the native modules of iOS and Android.

Josip: There is no specialising in Sylo. We all keep learning and improving as new issues arise and challenge our current knowledge.

Do your family and friends understand what you do?

Alex: They know that I’m participating in the development of a revolutionary product which potentially can change a lot for their lives.

James: Explaining the concepts and advantages of decentralisation is really difficult, especially to non-technical friends and family who first think of Bitcoin.

Rather than talk about the mechanics of our technology, it’s easiest to explain the pros and cons of each application of the technology.

Jerry: Most do, but the rest just think I make apps… which is not exactly wrong, so they get a pass.

Darpan: Not really, they think I work with computers and just sit in front of a computer screen for the whole day.

Josip: Of course they do. My sister is actually following in my footsteps.

Developer James Bayley hard at work.

Tell us about what you’re working on at the moment:

Alex: Payments in cryptocurrencies that can be easily sent via chat.

James: I’m currently working on the ‘Share via Sylo’ feature, where you can quickly and easily share text, links or even files via Sylo to your friends and family.

This task is pretty interesting, as you have to deal with native iOS and Android sharing modules in addition to our frontend react native code.

It’s a bit of a challenge ensuring that the user experience is consistent across all platforms, and also similar to other non-decentralised apps that our users are already familiar with.

Jerry: Right now I’m working on the Sylo web app, extending the Sylo experience to the web for our users who spend more time on desktop than mobile.

Darpan: Lots of stuff is going on around, but my primary focus is on making the calling experience better for Sylo users.

Josip: I’m mainly working on our wallet feature — integrating and adding support for different blockchains, improving usability and fixing bugs.

Developer Josip Matijevic

What part of your area of work do you find most challenging and why?

Alex: I prefer areas that require logical problem-solving and taking a new perspective. Solutions to challenges usually involve using a new approach that you haven’t tried before... At Sylo it’s almost always like this, because we are first, in our own way.

James: We don’t want to be just the best decentralised messaging app, we want to be the best messaging app (decentralised or not).

A key requirement to that is that our app is incredibly easy to use and understand — especially to users like my family, who have no idea what decentralisation is and what challenges it poses.

It’s very challenging to build a decentralised platform in a way that functions almost identically to one with a server collecting your data.

Darpan: Working on native and react-native at the same time can become a bit challenging sometimes, because Android and iOS have different SDKs, build tools, and programming languages.

To fix a complex issue we need to know the in-depth working of all the related modules.

Josip: Dealing with configurations, setups, documentation... Basically, anything and everything that has nothing to do with writing code or designing systems.

Full Stack Developer Alex Nechaiev

What do you think ‘the next big thing’ for your area of tech will be and why?

James: Sylo!

Alex: From my perspective, the next breakthrough I would like to see is one that is implemented in real life solutions via the technologies we have, rather than just creating more prototypes and philosophies.

For example, the adoption of decentralised voting processes by governments, which would make referendums and elections very straightforward and mean that maintaining privacy is not dependent on any third parties.

Jerry: Not exactly big, but there’s an interesting move to using state machines for managing data flow.

Darpan: I think decentralisation will be the next big thing. Decentralisation adds transparency to transactions that can be utilised by the governments and organisations so they can build up trust-based relationships with their citizens or customers.

Josip: With time, WebAssembly might shake up things quite drastically.

Developer Darpan Patil.

What issue relevant to our industry concerns you the most right now and why?

Alex: For me, it’s privacy and dependency on third-parties. This is gonna change but it will take time. Sylo is the product that is going to solve both of these sharp issues.

James: The division of technology availability and accessibility between the technologically literate and those that are not, is the main issue as I see it.

With the accelerating pace of technology, especially in software, we’re seeing a huge amount of digitisation of services that were previously unchanged for hundreds of years. There are huge number of people that can’t keep up and are getting left behind.

As software developers, we are generally at the leading edge of technological change and we struggle to see how what we build is viewed or used by these demographics.

The divide is accelerating. How do we close this gap, send the elderly back to school?!

Jerry: I think privacy is the main issue at the moment, with users starting to understand the value of their data, its prompting very interesting conversations especially with regards to machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Darpan: I believe data centralisation is the primary concern right now. Only a few companies hold most of the world’s data. That can be dangerous, these companies can utilise this data for their personal gain.

I believe we should support decentralised applications like Sylo where the data is owned by the user, and not by the organisation.

Frontend Developer Jerry Shikongo.

What’s a misunderstood thing about your job that you’d like to clear up?

Alex: People not from tech usually doesn’t know what’s the actual difference between having databases or not means, and therefore what means when we say that Sylo is distributed.

In all modern products, the service owner has access to the accounts of all their clients, and usually includes their private information. At Sylo, we literally do not have it. We don’t have any access to any of the private data of our users.

James: That software development does not require creativity. Software engineers need to find creative ways to solve problems more efficiently every day.

Jerry: Not a lot really… wait, what have you heard?

Darpan: That working in the software industry is boring. It’s not — at all!

Josip: People often have misconceptions about IT. They think it’s something super hard and complicated while, in reality, it’s like any other profession. If you work long enough and hard enough, you will learn to be good at it.

From left: Alex, James, Jerry, Darpan, and Josip.

Make a prediction for where technology will be at in five years time:

James: Who knows, things are changing so fast these days. I do believe that blockchain technologies will find a place in the centre of society to help prevent fraud, reduce costs and improve transparency.

Lastly, I think AI developments will continue to explode and be applied in many more industries, potentially causing chaos and unstable futures for those affected.

Jerry: Distributed apps and systems with tighter data laws will be the norm, which is more of a wish on my part to be honest.

But alas, probably still no hoverboards.

Darpan: I think AI is growing at a rapid pace and in five years we’ll be able to observe great advancements in self driving cars and AI based automation.

Josip: Hopefully, AI will replace us all :D

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