Ádám Sándor, Cloud technology consultant at Container Solutions

1. You moved from application development to a consultancy career in cloud native computing. What made you take this decision?

First of all I was unhappy with my level of cloud knowledge so I wanted my next job to bring me closer to that area. On the other hand I felt that with Docker containers and the surrounding technologies we finally have a platform which is built with a developer mindset, as opposed to the low-level services of AWS. Application components packaged as containers are directly managed by the production environment. I found this new development in software delivery very exciting, so when the opportunity to join Container Solutions came up I didn’t hesitate. As a consultant I can be a part the development of this technology, while helping others make the best use of it. I always had a passion for teaching others the stuff I know, so working as a consultant is the perfect job for me right now.

2.   Now you are a Senior Consultant at Container Solutions. What was the biggest challenge encountered along your career?

The biggest challenges when working as a consultant are usually not technical but people related. Coming to a company from the outside and giving advice is not easy. People often feel threatened, or it’s just hard to reach consensus about the right solution. I feel I have grown a lot in the past years in how I deal with people. Many think this is a form of manipulation but that’s far from it. The point is to be authentic, have patience, listen to people and be able to spot and react to emotions. Earlier in my carrier I imagined that reaching consensus is about convincing people with the power of logical arguments, but since I learned that that’s not the case. You have to win hearts as well as minds. As a consultant I’m constantly encountering these situations, as I move from client to client, so there is a lot of opportunity to learn and improve.

3.  What did you like most about DevTalks and how did you decide to apply to join us as a speaker at this edition?

I saw DevTalks on PaperCall.io when I was looking for conferences to present my new talk aimed at Java developers. Before I was mainly presenting on DevOps conferences, but this year I want to reconnect with the Java community (I spent most my career coding Java). Kubernetes is not just on Ops tool, but something every developer should learn, because it gives them new powers 🙂 That’s what my talk is about.

Aleksander Radovan, Java Team Lead at KING ICT

1. First, we would like to thank you for accepting our invitation to DevTalks 2018. What convinced you to be our guest speaker?

Thank you so much for inviting me! I love to talk at conferences, especially related to Java and open source community. Your conference is a great opportunity for me to meet other experts, share ideas with them and to visit great countries like Romania. I’m also involved in organizing two Java conferences in Croatia, Javantura in Zagreb and JavaCro in Rovinj so this is also an excellent way how to exchange experiences with you guys.

Besides programming I have a second great passion: football. During visits of foreign countries I try to visit football stadiums and this is unique chance to visit stadiums from Steaua and Dinamo, great clubs with a successful history. Just to mention great Romanian football players like Hagi, Popescu, Dumitrescu, Raducioiu, Contra, Stelea etc. Some Romanian players also played in our first division and some Croatian players are playing in Liga I – visiting Bucharest is a must! J

2. You have over 14 years working with Java. Where this passion for Java comes from?

I started working with Java during my college days and my first job was related to Java. The first version of Java that I worked with was 1.4. The versatility of the Java platform immediately caught my eye and the rest is history. I witnessed big changes in the language, from adding generics to the language, replacing Swing with JavaFX to introducing lambdas. My final thesis on college was related to Java and smart card security mechanisms and my PhD study research is also related to Java and various features with image processing and artificial intelligence. During my career my primary focus was related to developing web applications, code quality, automated testing and exploring how to become a better programmer. Although I’ve written millions and millions lines of code so far, there is so much to learn, it’s a never-ending story! It’s always a great pleasure to meet someone who has a similar approach in his job and I’m sure I’ll meet many excellent professionals at DevTalks to learn something new.

3. How did you decide to become a teacher for the young generation?

After I finished my college and started working as a junior Java developer, I got a part-time job as a teaching assistant. Since I had real-life experience with Java and large projects, my primary goal was to prepare students for challenges after they finish their education. It turned out that many students recognized my passion for Java and continued working with it on their final thesis with me as a mentor and got their first job related to Java programming. Throughout the years I worked with many of them on the same projects and this pleasure cannot be compared with anything materialistic. I work as a Java team lead at King ICT now and the team consist mostly of my students. That’s why I really love my job every day more and more. I also try to introduce the newest version of Java to my classes, that can be very challenging sometimes, but it’s a win-win situation, the students are becoming very competitive on the job market and I get ideas for many interesting topics for conference talks J