I have three main passions: paragliding, cycling and computers and somehow I’ve become professional in each of these. Finally I have chosen software development as my career and so far I’m getting lot of fun from my work. Paragliding and cycling remains my spare-time activities.
Paragliding
I always dreamed about flying. My dream come true when I attended paragliding course in 1999 being the youngest pilot in neighborhood. As I committed all my spare time to paragliding I quickly gained experience and started working in my friend’s paragliding school. Working as paragliding instructor taught me how to communicate with people, lead the group and make quick decisions.
In 2006 I get a job of ULC certification paraglider test pilot – a pilot who flies new paraglider model to test its safety and performance. It was definitely a work in stressful conditions but I found it really exciting.
Cycling
Being bicycle messenger is a perfect mix of sport and labor. Of cause I didn’t treat riding a bike through the crowded city as a permanent work but it was really cool to cycle more than 100 kilometers per day no matter if it was heat or raining. Bicycle messenger work was a lesson of punctuality and time planning.
The great thing about this work was the community of couriers. Even after turning to computer programming I have taken part in “alleycats” – the city street races organized by couriers.
Computers (2007)
Since I get my first computer in late 90’s I was interested not only in using it but also in understanding how it works. Few years later I started using Linux and learned Python programming language on my own. Since then I began to treat programming as a hobby and created many projects in different technologies (AVR microcontrollers, Linux kernel modules , Eclipse RCP, Flex etc..) just for fun.
By the end of high school I was sure that software development is what I want to do professionally so I started to study Computer Science at Poznań University of Technology – one of the best universities of technology in Poland both in theoretical and practical fields. I also took part in some Team Programming Contests.
At the beginning of 2008 I have achieved Bachelor of Science degree by creating J2EE system using Spring and Oracle database. In July 2009 I have finished my Master Thesis about “Universal GUI Components in Rich Internet Applications” and gained Master of Science degree.
During high school and beginning of studies I maintained several web pages for my friends. My first serious professional experience was an implementation of cash register configuration system for FORCom in 2005. At the beginning of 2007 I started part-time job at VeraxSystems and since then I am continuously working as a software developer. At VeraxSystems I participated in many projects in different technologies like embedded Linux on WiFi routers, Perl extensions to PortaOne VoIP management system and Flex / Java dashboard. I participated not only in implementation but also in design and requirement specification of these projects.
My first really international experience was supporting deployment of revenue assurance system in Turkey. It was really interesting to work as a contractor for Ireland based CAPE Technologies deploying system for Turkish client and cooperating with testers from Philippines. It was also exciting to learn Solaris and have shell accounts on really muuuuuultiprocessor machines. Another international project I was working on was eSuite product of Martin Dawes System. It was at the same time interesting and bothersome to follow Prince2 based methodology with all its documents and meetings. Anyway MDS was the place where I get addicted to Flex:-)
Working at MDS I needed to debug Flex SDK code quite often to find workarounds for some SDK bugs. That motivated me to checkout latest Flex sources and configure build environment so that I can really fix bugs instead of creating workarounds. After spending many hours examining how different components work I have realized that Flex SDK is really a huge project with many complex solutions, nevertheless it is fully understandable. After some investigation, things which at the beginning seems magic turn to be simple, logical code. Of course I’m not saying that I know the code of every single class of Flex SDK. However my knowledge of architecture and practice in navigating over Flex classes help me to understand and then quickly fix or extend Flex components.
I deeply believe that what I described above is just the beginning of my adventure with computers:-)