The greatest Sorcerer of Designveloper

It’s been 6 years since Designveloper’s very first code was written but rarely did we tell you about our hard-working and wonderful guys and girls here. So in an attempt to serve you a better look at DSV-ers’ working life, here’s a little series named “Stars At Designveloper”. On the other hand, it is also dedicated to praising our enthusiastic members.

And the very first blog of the series is a talk with Thai — a young yet talented team leader of Designveloper.

Started with the position of an intern back in 2016, at the moment, Thai has become a core member of DSV. Up until now, he went through more than five projects such as Gentley, holaSpirit, Lumin,… and as mentioned before, Thai is now a team leader of a long-term project in the company. But enough monologue, now, shall we begin?

Hi Thai, thanks for sitting here and have yogurt with me today. Could you introduce a bit about yourself?

I am a man of detail but kinda mindless. Dreamy and loves to sing. My favorite music genres are ballad, bolero, and pop, sometimes new age or classical. I’m into novels (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Eragon,…). My favorite quote: “Keep moving forward”.

Oh, I did read Harry Potter too. What character do you think they reflect you?

I think I’m a bit of a mix between Hermione and Luna. I often like to show off as I-know-it-all, and I think that there is a logical reason for everything. On the other hand, I also like to believe that there is magic or miracle, somewhere around the corner, waiting for me to find out.

What are your strengths and weakness? In terms of technical stuff and non-technical stuff?

I’m mostly about hard-working and invest time to complete my job. I can comprehend English documents fast. And I’m also careful with plans, I always make plans (though my plans are not always perfect).

About my weakness. I’m not really a quick-minded, quick-action guy (close friends of mine in DSV call me Slowpoke for this reason). Also, I’m not good at improvising, and I will immediately lose my coolness when things don’t go out as planned.

How did you become a DSV-er?

Introduction from a classmate who is working at DSV, and I kinda needed money.

So let’s talk about your path to become a senior developer, what are the upsides?

I learned many things along the way and got to know great people.

Could you be more specific? Like, what are “many things”?

At the start, I didn’t even know how to create pull requests or even create new branches in Git. My code was really messy, as I only wanted to make it work despite the consequences.

Through time, I’ve gained more vision about my work. I started to care about code expandability, about the business strategy of my clients. That has greatly widened my horizon, the way I look at my job.

I realize that the role and the right of a client are just equal to me. They pay us and we give them what they want. This relationship, partnership are mutually beneficial. And sometimes, we became friends.

There must be challenges too, right?

There was a time when I lost my motivation to work. It’s like I didn’t want to do anything at all, and was easy to get angry/depressed.

I was able to get through that period by going to the gym and exercising. It’s really a good way to get you through stress and stuff.

How about your experience at the current position?

My main job is to develop mobile applications. Besides that, I’m also responsible for interviewing the recruitment candidates, estimating projects, and guiding the youngsters on their career path.

Sounds busy, how do you balance these things?

At the start of each week, I make up a list of action items that I need to complete in that week. This list usually comprises of the stuff I discussed with my clients and some issues that I detected the week before. When working, I also try to keep a close watch on my teammates, to find out about their personal problems (if any).

Sometimes I would find myself losing my temper a bit, but that’s hard to avoid in this job. I still have much to learn.

Let’s talk about a specific project you’ve joined.

It’s called Gentley. It’s to develop a platform for a specific range of people to meet and build up their relationship (not limited to dating, but also mentorship, friendship,…).

What were the obstacles? How did you solve those issues?

It was the very first project that I had to lead a team, and I took responsibility for everything (including communicate with clients, assure quality, propose features,…) I was not very into leadership back then, so no doubt I was really freaked out. But the clients were nice, and I can be transparent to them about any issues that come up in development.

What did you learn from the project?

Transparency. When working with clients, transparency is very important. It helps build up trust and credibility.

Let’s find out how you think of Designveloper. To be more specific, what do you think about the time working at Designveloper?

It’s been a very great journey.

What is the most memorable moment when working here?

There are really many things to remember here. We are young, wild and free and we really enjoy our time here.

Wild? I remember your “Doctor Familiar” video? How did you become the Doctor?

It was that one afternoon, my colleagues felt bored and wanted to do something fun, so they came up with the idea of doing a Dr. Strange parody video. When we cast for the role, I was chosen because (as they said) my face looked dumb and funny, which was required to be hilarious. After the casting, we made up the scripts which comprised mostly of “magically” obvious acts with stupid cheerings, then used the name Doctor Familiar to be the opposite of the authentic Doctor Strange. It was like unofficial teambuilding of ours.

Unexpectedly, many interns joined our company after that video. They were inspired by our company culture and the young energy here.

Watch DR. FAMILIAR COMES TO EARTH !!! now.

Any advice for others?

Never go half-retard.

Oh, it looks like we ate enough yogurt today, right. So, thanks for your nice words. I hope that your days at Designveloper will always be fun and wild like this. Don’t forget to release new videos, we long to watch them.