On his background
TLDR: Born in a town on the Danube, raised on the Black Sea Coast, I am a citizen of the World. Yes - Being around water is the backbone of my story. I have changed 3 schools (not my fault) to land at the Mathematics High School in Burgas. Math has been a loyal companion my whole life. Then I continued with studying Maths and Informatics at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. “Artificial Intelligence” followed afterwards.
I have a HUGE family and being around 20 people for the holidays was always the bare minimum. I just cannot be alone. And I do love parties. Friends, family, strangers... It is not important if it is social.
On his role at Scalefocus
Currently, I am a TTL of the Burgas PHP Team – which is a small group of diverse individuals. Honestly, they are great and help me do my work without doubt and aggravations. I like to think of myself as a constant learner and try to share that spirit with them. And miraculously, it works! I strive to be the best at anything I do. What I strive for is to lead by example, trying to keep the hype alive.
On his team
I am lucky to have all kinds of experience in my team. From interns to senior developers, all of them have their personalities to add to the mix. But what I am proud of is not just their professionalism, rather than their caring attitude. They always look after each other, always ready to succour (I’ve just learned an unusual word by writing this text) personally and professionally. Bonus points – they are fun at parties!
On his everyday work life
It is... unstructured, full of tasks to solve, and involves a lot of reading. It starts at a different time every day, and it finishes... when it finishes. Still, I always try to put some order in by doing management first and operational work second. I try to respond in a timely fashion to all important messages, although I fail at times. Then comes the coding, and at that point, people usually wait for my response a bit longer... Sorry.
On dealing with doubt
Doubt in work – always analyze and try to be objective. Then ask the team for an opinion. Then weigh the facts. Doubt in life – I ask my bride; she knows everything! See ... No doubt. Plus, I already told you about my midnight dog walks, they are a natural doubt reliever for free.
On what’s the most important since you started at Scalefocus
I've joined Scalefocus primary because I missed working in an office – I was a home office freelancer and/or employee for quite sometime before that. Then the pandemic strikes and back home... But at Scalefocus, I managed to work on diverse technology-agnostic projects, which kept me in good form. I am most proud of my work for the SoFit project, where I wrote the algorithm (and all the maths behind it) for movement detections and templating in 3D space. It was my piece of art at that moment, and I plan to expand on that at some point. Yes, teamwork is important, but sometimes little personal achievements keep the spark burning – this was my spark.
On music, hobbies, family, pets, and everything in between
I like screaming guitars, accompanied by goose bumping drums and deep bass. Rock, Hard Rock, Metal, Trash – you name it. And add a pinch of old school hip-hop. Call me a musical crossbreed, as I love Bulgarian Folk Music also. In fact, I’ve been Folk dancing for the last 6-7 years.
In the school time, I was also an athlete – running with hurdles and a sprinter. At some point, I was close to being part of the national team.
Pets? Oh, welcome to the zoo – We have 2 water turtles, 2 parrots, a big dog, and recently I caught a Balkan Gecko, which we have currently in a big aquarium.
On his life outside of work
I love social events, and the last pandemic was really a hard hit to that part of my free time. Aside from socializing, I am just an ordinary person riding bikes, enjoying trips to nearby and remote places. I love learning interesting facts about diverse cultures. I also enjoy playing computer games and board games. My family has a small villa outside of town, and I like to help with the work there, although I do not do it very often.
On the best advice for new software specialists
LEARN! CONSTANTLY AND ALWAYS!
And do not be afraid to fail. Failure is a teacher. The faster you fail, the quicker you learn. Be Technology agnostic – there is no single tool to solve all problems. Then Learn again. AND ASK QUESTIONS! Nobody was born with knowledge.