Interviews

Interview with Monetha’s Engineering Lead | Viaceslavas

Tell us a bit more about your professional background? How did you get into software development?

I first saw the magic of programming when I was 10 years old. My older brother had drawn a sailboat on a screen using 7 lines of code.

I was truly amazed and from that point on, one more profession was added to my childhood dream jobs: policeman, fireman, spaceman or programmer. Though, this didn’t mean that I’ve started doing anything towards any of those professions, I wasn’t that sophisticated being 10 years old 🙂 Only when I was 14 I started to learn coding.

By the time I got to university I’ve passed a MS VB.NET form-based application development exam, built an application that allows to prepare tests for students in my school as my final year project, got a part time work as a tester and an IT specialist (the guy who fixes printer, computer or home network).

All these 3 main experiences helped me to understand that software development and business analysis are my 2 main passions. And this is what I keep doing still do this day.

During the last 10 years I was working as a web developer, scrum master, product owner, project manager and participated in 3 startups as a technical advisor, in order to fulfill my 2 passions.

What do you love about your profession?

There are so many things to love but I will name 3 main ones. Firstly, software development is a complex activity and there is no single right way of doing it. Secondly, it is always a result of a team work. Working with a great team is always inspiring and fulfilling. Thirdly, you simply can’t stop improving and learning new things. This as a result doesn’t let you get bored from what you’re doing.

What is your philosophy behind the software engineering?

Philosophy behind software engineering that I try to follow is best described by agile manifesto:

– Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

– Working software over comprehensive documentation

– Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

– Responding to change over following a plan

Apart from that there is a set of principles that I chose to follow while writing the code:

– Understandable and simple

– Correct and stable

– Flexible and modular

– Efficient and scalable

Keep being agile while building sustainable software would be a shorter definition of my philosophy in software engineering.

What brought you to Monetha? What do you like about the product?

I’m with Monetha long before the ICO and the thing that brought me here is the passion of the core team and their belief in the product. From the very beginning it was obvious that we are here to stay no matter if ICO fails or not, as the problem of trust in classifieds and e-commerce is valid and what is even more important – can be solved with the help of blockchain.

Any funny/interesting stories that you can share from your time in Monetha?

What can be more memorable than the ICO itself. I’ve joined the team 4 hours prior the start of the ICO and i was the 7th person in 18 square meter room.

Several ICOs were hacked that summer, so we had very strict security measures. Due to that, we were deploying most critical information (ICO smart contract address) only 30 minutes before ICO. So everyone was extra busy managing community, deploying smart contracts, making final changes until the last minute and then it started … Guys continuously shouting the numbers out loud how much ETH is already collected by us and how much is collected by scammers. Technical team closely monitoring for any sign of DDOS attack or hack attempts. There was a feeling that each minute is at least 3 times longer. And then suddenly, 3 seconds of silence and only Slack and Telegram beeping … The feeling of both emptiness and happiness when you reach the milestone that you were living by for the last few months and then you achieve it. The moment you have right before taking the next challenge.