“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
Mark Twain
Aman is an optimist, who finds ways to get things done even when the wind blows the opposite. I had the fortune to get to know him not only as a person who loves to code day in and day out but also as someone who enjoys life beyond work. As someone who puts learning above anything else, he has taken the initiative to build a community around learning about real-world applications. He strives to help the developer community in every way possible by becoming the one he needed during his initial days.
Eager to know how he keeps himself inspired all the time? Here’s our talk about his motivation, work-life balance and more –
What is it like to be a software developer engineer at Nimbbl?
Working at Nimbbl is fun and enriching. I have learned a lot since coming here, both from a technical and business perspective. On the backend, we work on Kotlin & Ktor, PostgreSQL, Redis, microservices architecture and all that good stuff. I have also had the privilege to work on Frontend with React.js, TypeScript, Tailwind etc. I love this tech stack and React.js and its ecosystem (have also worked as MERN (MongoDB, Express, React.js, Node.js) stack developer in the past. We have a super helpful and knowledgeable Product Manager and Tech Lead who guide us wherever needed from a business and technical perspective, respectively.
What keeps you motivated and energized at work?
I don’t need to motivate myself to sit down and code, it comes from within. I am very passionate about my work as a software engineer. While at work I have the privilege to work with an amazing team. We discuss every sort of thing from architectural designs to production level practices after understanding the business requirements. Product level discussions with our product manager and founders are also fun and enlightening about what we are building and what is going on in the FinTech market.
Fill in the blanks – Working at Nimbbl is — ?
A fun learning experience.
Tell us more about your YouTube channel.
I have a YouTube channel which I started around 6 months back to support the developer community. I was learning this language called Elixir. It’s a language of a completely different paradigm and style than that we have in common languages like Node.js or Java. But our most-used apps like Whatsapp, Discord, and Pinterest use Elixir/Erlang. This fact drove me towards learning Elixir. But when I was learning and doing R&D, I found out that there is not much support for learning Elixir (at least not a straightforward approach). The support was almost nil, especially when you are done learning a coding language and then you move on to building real-world applications, exploring the frameworks available in a language’s ecosystem etc.
I found a gap in video content about Elixir on Youtube and wanted to fill that. I was anyway contributing to the community by being actively involved on StackOverflow, NPM etc. So my friends motivated me to start a YouTube channel, and that’s how it started. It was not a cakewalk in the beginning, but it is paying off. I am quite satisfied with the content on my channel. The channel is fully devoted to building practical full-stack projects with the latest technologies like Elixir, Phoenix, React.js, Node.js, Flutter etc.
What are your thoughts on ‘Tech for Good’?
Technology is everywhere, from entertainment to the necessities of life; technology offers it all. So it’s up to us to decide on how we want to use the tech for good. As quoted by Albert Einstein, “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity”. So whether we choose to believe in materialistic things or the things that actually have meaning and purpose, it’s up to us. I myself prefer the latter.
What’s the best professional advice you’ve got from someone?
Talk is overrated, show me the coding.
(Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux and GitHub)
What’s your mantra for a work-life balance?
Work-life balance is very important. I try to maintain it to avoid burnout. I start my day by taking my dog (Beagle) for a walk. After that I do workouts and then I start coding. After a long day’s work I again take my Beagle for a walk and then I try to relax by listening to music and/or, watching some tv show or a movie. I have all kinds of hobbies and interests besides coding like cycling, music, movies, sports, athletics, callisthenics, novels, animals, nature and so on. I eat healthily and I drink lots of water.
Tell us about a time you laughed out a lot at your work-related blunders.
I once deleted a git branch upon which I was coding. I deleted it locally and then I got curious about how to delete branches from GitHub via terminal and I ended up deleting the remote branch as well. But that’s been way in the past and I have moved on. At work, I try to avoid blunders as I and the whole of my team first understand the business perspective, then we design the architecture, and so on. But errors are everywhere. So yeah, we end up having a lot of bugs as well. Sometimes, a blocker takes more time than estimated, maybe even a day or more to figure out the solution. But that’s the life of a developer; I have found out.
Feeling inspired by Aman’s story? Nimbbl invites young candidates to explore working with our diverse team members in our engineering and other functions. Check out our careers page: https://nimbbl.biz/careers
