What did I learn being part of the Bitwala* team for three years?
*Bitwala is now called Nuri as in New Reality
This is a very small and yet very important subset of things I learned while working at Bitwala.
Club 27
At the end of the summer of 2018, I was in the middle of a job search after allegedly teaching myself how to code from Udemy courses and paying my friends for brunch in exchange for pair programming sessions in some hipster cafes.
I was sending new applications almost every day, and in most cases, it was not a NO; it was seen. At some point, I was debating about how good my idea about the career change was, but luckily friends around and my unwillingness to give up pushed me further. The 27th application was the lucky one. After a couple of calls with Ben (CTO at the time and co-founder) and two senior devs Ondrej and Anton, I received an internship offer. That was on Thursday; one week later, equipped with a backpack and one duffle bag, I flew to Berlin.
What can I learn doing this task?
The first days were absolute information overflow. Meeting so many new people, getting familiar with various tech tools, and last but not least how to get 2 espressos out of the coffee machine.
Days flew by quickly, but one thing was common throughout my whole time at the company. Everyone is really going out of their way to help others. Whether it was to fix tests, laptop config, or question about tax refunds in Germany, I have never received no for an answer when seeking help.
In the early days, we were doing 2-week sprints, and I really clearly remember how worried I was about not finishing the tasks assigned to me for that period of time. When I expressed my concerns to Anton, my attitude changed. He suggested that instead of asking “Why I haven't completed the task?” or “When will I complete this?” I should be looking at it from the “What I can learn doing this task?” perspective. This question became a sticky note on my computer and a mental note in my mind for the years to come. Approaching tasks with the new philosophy did allow me to progress faster and distance myself from constantly looking at deadlines.
Asking lots of questions is a good thing
It is tough to mention everyone here, but the amount of questions I have asked Ondrej, Leo, Anton, Amit, and Emad is most definitely in hundreds if not thousands. Despite the very comfortable setting, reaching out to more experienced devs sometimes made me feel at unease. When I once expressed this sentiment, Leo replied: “Well, the worst thing that can actually happen is if you are stuck and don't ask questions”. This resulted in lots more questions, fun pair programming sessions with Ondrej, Amit helping me with git sessions, and later on, fixing some fun issues next to Emad, Anton, and Leo. More importantly than just the effect for myself, it worked as an inspiration to pass this approach further to other people who joined after me.
Always put people first
For around a year I had an amazing opportunity to work together with Blair Woods who was our engineering manager and later on head of engineering. He was always striving to improve things from the tech side, but more importantly, he was supporting everyone and every one engineer till the moon and back. Whether it was going to conferences, negotiating for flexible working hours, or pushing for time off when something outside of the work setting went south. In one of our conversations he said “Care and take care of people first and tech after”.
To all the Bitwala crew, thanks for everything. You are truly amazing!
What's next for me and how to connect?
Couple of words about my next chapter:
https://app.sigle.io/akirtovskis.id.stx/cNaYGTrTFcLpQgbTsSguv
If you want to connect, tweeting at akirtovskis is all it takes.
