My day job is to solve problems and meet business needs. In other words - I work as a Senior Backend Developer. Currently, I'm responsible for developing Tidio live chat. My work is my hobby, so getting up in the morning doesn't give me a headache. Hope it stays that way for as long as possible. In my free time, I take a break from screens and go hiking or travel to learn about foreign cultures.
What does "Grow with Tidio" mean to you?
I see growth as an essential part of being part of the IT industry. You can't just learn everything once and work the same way for many years. You must constantly educate yourself and develop your technical and soft skills. In the phrase "Grow with Tidio," the most important element for me is the word "with." It means that I don't grow solely on my own, but the company helps me in this process by creating growth possibilities, such as new technical challenges, supporting my participation in conferences, or providing help from other employees.
What attracted you to Tidio in the first place? Where did you first hear about Tidio?
I learned about Tidio from a friend who had started working here a few months earlier. During one of our meetings, he told me about the company, product, tasks, and atmosphere. What impressed and interested me the most was the scale one has to deal with while designing technical solutions. I've worked before on projects that handled a fair amount of traffic. Yet, none of them had to take on about 510 million unique users a month - really sizable numbers that sometimes require a different approach to designing the solution. In addition, Tidio serves customers from all over the world, so "the product never sleeps." It means that technical interruptions allowing upload changes are rather out of the question, and downtime is not an option. I am a person who very much enjoys taking on new challenges, and working on such a product definitely sounded like one of them.
What do you do in Tidio? What does your day look like?
At Tidio, I work as a Senior Backend Developer on the team that develops the core part of our product - chat. So my daily work mainly consists of designing and implementing new technical solutions and solving problems posed to my team, whether by those responsible for the business side or our users. Usually, my days look very similar to each other - I start by reading messages on Slack, checking what has been going on while I was away from the computer (we work flexible hours, so my end of work doesn't mean that others have finished too). I review emails and then get down to that "proper work." By "proper," I mean, of course, those with code - writing actual code, doing a code review for someone, doing a refinement, or meeting with members of other teams to discuss some technical aspects.
At Tidio, we can work 100% remotely and have access to our two offices in Szczecin and Warsaw. What is your favorite way of working?
By far, my favorite mode of work is the remote one. Of course, it's nice sometimes to visit the office, meet with the team in person and have a coffee together, although this doesn't happen to me too often because I live in Silesia, so I have a pretty long way to the nearest office. I've been working this way for a few years now, and I wouldn't change it. I appreciate the time saved on commuting and the fact that I can actually work from anywhere. And, as I'm not attached to any cities, I don't have to worry that changing my place will also influence my job. I love this freedom!
What is your favorite part of your role?
Autonomy and a strong influence on the shape of the implemented solutions. No one tells me how specifically to solve this or that problem. The technical and conceptual decision belongs to the team and me. As long as my work does not negatively affect the infrastructure or generate high costs, no one interrupts my daily duties and undermines my decisions. Of course, other colleagues ask questions about proposed solutions and challenge me to present arguments about why I want to do something one way or another. However, it's still my ideas that go into production, and that's what I love about working as a developer.
Any tips for someone looking to get into a career like yours?
If you're unsure about something or just don't know how to do something, don't be afraid to ask questions! Especially if you are just at the beginning of your career path. People are often ashamed to admit that they can't do something. They try to solve problems on their own at all costs. Self-reliance is important, of course, and it's worth trying to do something on your own. However, you must know when to stop wasting time and energy and ask for help. As a Junior, I felt I was asking too many questions and was afraid I knew less than other people in my position. It turned out not to be true. By asking a lot, I learned faster, and that, combined with a fair amount of persistence (a dose of which you'll definitely need in this industry, too), has put me in a different place now.
If you can learn anything from the people around you - make it count because it won't always be this way.
