Scandiweb Team Stories #8

Episode 8: Developers, again!

There are over 30 years of experience between the 5 guys below. And that’s just with Scandiweb! These 5 developers are part of the backbone of the company and they are the people who the new developers strive to become. More often than not, these are also the people responsible for making sure the newcomers succeed in doing so!

Teachers, experts, and simply amazing people — meet five of Scandiweb’s more senior developers!

Scandiweb boasts a large and continuously growing team of brilliant minds. In this, the eighth instalment of our team stories, Scandiweb would like to introduce you to 5 senior developers. They shared their stories, their skills, their experience, their passions and the advice they would give to their younger selves.

“Be more attentive to the people that become part of your life”

Taras Kapushchak

Born and raised in Kyiv, Ukraine, Taras is currently a senior full stack developer, part of the Rockar team here at Scandiweb. Taras is constantly looking for new things to learn and highlights this as his most valuable skill for being great at what he does, even after over 7 years with Scandiweb. Taras’ abundance of experience is supplemented with an MA in mechanical engineering, as well as a Magento 1 Developer Plus certificate. Taras’ wisdom, approachability, and drive is exemplary and makes him greatly admired among colleagues!

An explorer of different folk cultures, Taras has a special place in his heart for his own, Ukrainian one — reading myths and fairytales, or fiddling and listening to old village music. Taras handles the fiddle masterfully and loves to play lesser-known folk tunes, breathing life into them in a time, when they’re regrettably slowly dying out! In terms of sport, Taras is a hearty rugby player!

Taras’ favorite thing about Scandiweb is how the company is constantly taking on new challenges and evolving to fulfil them, mirroring his own quest for progressive growth!

“Make sure to finish university”

Sergejs Plisko

Born and raised in Daugavpils, Latvia, Sergejs is currently a senior developer at Scandiweb, with a tenure of over 6 years. A full-stack developer, Sergejs works with both Magento 1 and Magento 2, primarily doing support, consultative and communicative tasks, striving to realize the visions of clients perfectly. There are many facets to Sergejs’ success, such as discipline, organization, communication, but the most valuable one is his work philosophy — Sergejs likes to keep the things he works on organized on a technical level, meaning every project needs to look good (easy for anybody to take over and easy to locate problems), be effective (trimmed of all fat), organized (hence, easily reviewable) and all problems are to be solved in-depth and not with quick fixes, which sometimes come back to bite you.

A father of two, Sergejs loves to spend time with his wife and children, whom he takes to be the greatest achievements of his life. Sergejs also enjoys fixing things, with cars and other motorized vehicles having a special place in his heart.

Sergejs is a fan of Scandifest. People are often working from different offices, from home, from abroad, so it is amazing to see the entire community come together in one spot.

“Do it!”

Viktors Pliska

One of the more senior members of the team, Viktors is a full-stack senior developer. With years of experience, an MA in Information Technologies and Project Management and extensive knowledge of different languages, Viktors is among the most versatile assets Scandiweb has. Support, dedicated programmer, fixed team projects, startups, microservices e.t.c., Viktors has done it all! Often switching between front-end and back-end tasks, Viktors doesn’t like to get bogged down on a single aspect of development, so he mixes things up whenever possible. Quick to adapt and happy to learn, Viktors will tackle anything put in front of him!

Outside of work, Viktors keeps up with the latest trends in music, movies, sports, e-sports, etc., participating wherever he can! He’s also a great chef, whose culinary prowess has earned him compliments galore. Since Viktors likes what he does, he also spends time programming at home, his creations limited only by his imagination!

At Scandiweb, says Viktors, the team members are treated as people both by colleagues and management — there is never a feeling of being a simple cog in a machine. This, in turn, makes for a respectful and friendly environment and problem-solving becomes a breeze!

“Just do it”

Krisjanis Smits

As a child, Krisjanis believed that nosebleeds can kill you and hence had an (ir)rational fear of them. Now he’s a senior developer/team lead, programming eCommerce for cars and making sure purchase systems are in tip-top order. Confidence in what he does is Krisjanis’ recipe for success, and the ingredients are hard-earned and well-nurtured. Having worked in Scandiweb for over 5 years, Krisjanis is an irreplaceable specialist, teacher, and colleague.

In light of his love for books, Krisjanis has developed an unhealthy habit — buying more books than he can read. He’s also into cars — the older the better. Thankfully, Krisjanis is repaying the environment, having planted over a thousand trees! Being a person who likes to make their own way, Krisjanis is also very fond of DIY projects and travelling to rural places, where there aren’t many people!

Even after 5 years, Krisjanis favorite reason for working at Scandiweb is the same as for many of the newcomers — the freedom and… the freedom!

“Everything will be just fine”

Damirs Muhejevs

Born and raised in Riga, Damirs is a developer and an indispensable part of the Scandiweb team since August 2013. Damirs is a one-man army. Currently, the sole developer tied to a big project, he’s using his multifaceted skill-set, doing everything imaginable that is related to coding. When prompted for his most valuable skill for working at Scandiweb, he does not mention the knowledge he acquired in his computer science BA studies, nor the extensive technical experience he has, having worked on numerous projects; Damirs emphasizes communication.

Damirs is an active man — running, cycling, playing football, volleyball. He has surprised himself by running a marathon — something he previously thought impossible. Taking things even further, Damirs has set his sights on conquering the highest peak in the world — Mt. Everest. The only thing standing in his way — his acrophobia. Despite considerable physical and professional achievements, the thing he considers himself best at is being a family man.

Originally drawn to Scandiweb because of technology and opportunity, he now highlights the relationships with his coworkers as the best thing about Scandiweb. And the ping-pong table, of course.

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