Welcome to our "A day in the life" blog series! With these insightful interviews, we are pulling back the curtain to reveal the diverse roles within Pwrteams and the professional journeys of our team members. In each edition, we'll highlight a different role, walking you through their day from start to finish. You'll discover the morning routines, collaborative discussions, intricate problem-tackling and innovative thinking that make up our team members’ workdays. Curious about a specific role at Pwrteams and our company culture? These series are the right place for you.
This time, we had a chat with Dimitar Yoldov, Senior Software Engineer at one of our client’s (a US-based fintech company) dedicated team. Check out his answers below to find out what a typical workday for him looks like.
How did you come into this position? What was your previous background?
I was a member of Funding Circle’s dedicated team, however part of Funding Circle was acquired by another organisation – a leader in providing innovative SaaS solutions for banks and lenders, and as a result, I started working with the new organisation, again through Pwrteams. At first, I was very hesitant, but then it became clear that my new team had an effective approach towards what they were developing and how they were doing business.
My previous development experience was mostly with Clojure, but I also got some Ruby and Python exposure in my last position.
How does your typical day at your team look like?
After ingesting copious amounts of coffee, I check the messages in the team channel. We’re a multinational company, with developers across the world. In my team’s case that could be the US, Bulgaria, India and Ukraine. So, a natural first step is to get up-to-date with what has been happening during US working hours – any emergencies, points that need addressing, etc.
The next step is usually firing JIRA and looking at my team’s Kanban board. We are oriented towards Agile development practices and when the team was formed, we concluded that Kanban gives us the best balance when it comes to ceremonies and time taken to track our work.
Then we have our daily sync, where we give short updates and discuss briefly what needs to be done. This is the point where it’s most convenient to ask for help or offer help to those who might need it.
After that, it’s grind time! Fire up the editor of choice and get cracking!
Friday is a “no daily sync” day, and we also (typically) don’t release on Friday because we like to avoid firefighting during the last hours of the work week.
What’s your favourite part of the job?
I like that it exposes me to technologies I never used before, and that the engineering focus of the company is to only build what gives real value to our customers at a calculated cost to ourselves.
This might sound trivial or obvious, but it’s a very meticulous process that requires knowledge on how to build systems that scale efficiently, which cloud services to use, etc.
And the most challenging?
Being able to respond to the changing requirements of our stakeholders. It’s not that these requirements change based on whims either. It’s just that ours is a dynamic market, and getting ahead of the competition sometimes requires rapid changes in how and what we develop.
What new skills have you picked up on this position?
Being part of a fintech team means we have to pay extra attention towards security. From my work here, I’ve picked up a lot on how to design a development process that takes security seriously.
In addition to that, our product is a multi-tenant deployment, which was also something I had not seen in the past, and I had the chance to examine some great practices on how it’s done here.
What makes it so great being part of your team?
The team itself – knowledgeable engineers under adequate supervision.
What do you like the most about being part of the Pwrteams family?
I’ve been part of the Pwrteams family for 4 years at this point, and during that time, I’ve always been surprised at how adaptable the company is with both its employees and partners. Everything that has to do with my contract is handled online and at pace, which is not something I can say about my previous employers. And for those who prefer to be in place, the office in Sofia is a pretty cosy environment.
Interested in teaming up with outstanding talents like Dimitar? We're currently searching for skilled Engineers to become part of his team. Check out our current openings and be sure to apply.