This is the first talk from the series of interviews with ADCI Solutions developers. We talk about working experience, developer’s background, and cute little habits. Meet Artyom Zenkovets!
Where did you study? Are you a mathematician? Do you apply knowledge received in the University somehow?
I studied at the Faculty of the Computer Science at Omsk State University. No, I’m not a mathematician, I’m an engineer, actually. I had to be some kind of a system administrator and I even worked as a sysadmin, for a while. But it was boring, and I was captured by web development then. That’s why I came to ADCI Solutions.
I completed the internship and stayed. It was not my first job. I had started working since the third year of University. I was an assistant to a system administrator in a large trading company in Omsk. And if we talk about what I’m doing right now — studies do not help me. But the University gave me the fundamental knowledge in programming, love for this and such a non-technical skill that helps to find the right information.
You said that you came to ADCI Solutions for the internship. Was it a fortuity or you knew about the company and wanted to work here?
I got to know about the company by an accident. I was looking for an internship where I can learn web development. So, I found ADCI Solutions.
There’s a belief that programmers deal with everything that works on electricity. Have somebody ever told you: “Hey, you’re a programmer, fix this or that”? How was it?
Jokes are jokes, but it happens all the time! Sometimes this is absurd. The most common situation is when someone asks to repair the computer, “you’re a programmer, dude.” Once I came to fix the computer, I did everything, then they asked me if I can look at the broken microwave oven. Well, it’s hard to believe, but I’m not such a skilled programmer to repair the microwave.
Do you code something for Open Source projects? Do you code just for fun? Why are you doing this?
I don’t write for Open Source, but I had a project at work that was related to the front-end development. I liked this project a lot, and despite the fact that the project is over now, I still try to read something related in my free time, I even write some small applications. This has nothing to do with my current work, I do kinda different tasks, but it’s just a thing of interest for me.
Do you write to music? Why yes? Why not?
Oh sure, it depends on my mood. Sometimes, when it’s very noisy and you need to concentrate on some task, I turn on the music. I can recommend the soundtrack of the film “Interstellar”. It’s a very good one, and it’s also cool to code while listening to ambient.
The first application/site/project. How did it all start?
I met a girl, her mom was a toastmaster. She needed a website. She asked me: “Can you develop a website?" I said: “No, but I will learn.” After that I started learning HTML, CSS and I realized that I really like it, that I want to do this ‘till the end of my life. I made the first site, it even was launched and lived for a while.
But then I realized that in addition to the knowledge of markup and styles, it is also necessary to be able to promote the site, and, for example, in order to make a contact form work you need to learn PHP web development. Everything is like a snowball piled up, I started to study everything. That’s how I became a web developer. This can be considered as the first project that I made myself. At work, there was a bunch of the internship projects with small tasks.
If you had a time machine what project would you do differently, or maybe some of them you want to do again? Maybe it is a site for a mom-toastmaster?
If I had a time machine I would return a few years ago with knowledge and experience that I have now, and completed tasks easier and learned new technologies.
What do you like in developer’s duties? What are you proud of?
I can be proud of working with the Acronis team. I still remember only the best. There were good guys from Acronis, it was easy to get along with them. Their initial goal was redevelopment, but we explained to them that the site is better to be developed from scratch, and they agreed. My team lead was the guy named Leonid Mamaev. I liked working with him, because he was a rather tough team leader, and it was impossible to mess up or do something wrong under his guidance. We worked together, and I enjoyed the process of developing and communicating with the team. Working with Anton (ADCI Solutions senior developer) is also a pleasure, everything is always fine: there are interesting tasks and you always have to stick to the deadlines. You don’t think how to reach a compromise with a customer, but you clearly know that the task should be done like this because it will benefit the business.
And what are the professional developers watching? What was the last movie you watched?
Personally, I have 3 favorite genres: SciFi, dystopia, and comics (Marvel, of course). And I like movies with an interesting ending. The normal happy ending that occurs in over 90 percent of the films is already pretty boring.
The last movie I had watched — “IT.”
Finish the sentence: “I can not imagine my day without …”
I can not imagine my day without feeling sleepy.
This is it, guys! The next interview will be posted soon!
Keep reading our articles and blogs.
Read other interviews with our team leads:
"I like to help people. That's why I am a programmer" with Evgeny
