Getting to know our colleagues

We asked our partners from inpeek in Valencia (ES) 7 questions.

How does your average working day looks like?

Manuel: I usually wake up at 07:30, then I have breakfast and then I go to work. I start working at 8:30 until I join the daily meeting at 09:30. Then, I resume working and I have something to eat at approximately at 10:30. I take an hour break at 14:00 to have lunch, until 15:00 when I join the catch-up meeting. And then I resume working again until 17:30. During these days of lockdown I try to do some activities like running or going out for a walk in my spare time.

Alex: My working day always starts with a big coffee and commuting to the office usually. Later every day is different. There aren’t two days equal!

Juan: I like to have a routine. The first thing is to greet colleagues and have a coffee. Then I organize my day and try to stick to the goals I have set myself. I find the „Pomodoro Methodology“* very useful.

Mario: It starts early in the morning reading and answering emails over a good cup of coffee, then comes the follow-up meetings and from there the concentration time, where I can make the most progress on my tasks.

Simón: It always seems very different since the tasks I have to complete are not the same. The good part ist hat I always learn new things.

* Wikipedia: The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s. The system uses a short-time alarm clock to divide work into 25-minute sections – called pomodori – and break times.

How often do you work from home?

Juan: Unless circumstances require it, I prefer to work in the office. At home, I sometimes don’t have the same level of concentration as I do in the office.

Manuel: Due to the pandemic, I work from home most of the days in the week now. But I usually go to the office on days when I have no language classes. These weeks we have three language classes per week, so I theoretically should be twice a week in the office for work.

Alex: My first time working from home was during the lockdown. Now I know that I can work from home without problem and I’ll try to do it once a week, when the situation becomes normal.

Simón: Now I’m working everyday at home because oft he situation. Maybe soon we could gather together once we get the vaccine…

Mario: Due to the current situation I work from home 100%, although I think 60% office and 40% home would be the best combination.

What are the biggest challenges for you?

Mario: In this profession the main challenge is the time for continuous training, the market changes very quickly and you run the risk of being left out if you don’t make an effort.

Simón: My biggest challenge nowadays is to improve as a web developer and learn how to use the tools I need in order to become a better professional.

Juan: Continuing to improve my job skills. Team management and knowledge of technologies are always in my focus.

Manuel: A big challenge for me could be any task in my daily work that may require a kind of knowledge that I need to get. This is hard, especially in situations when I can’t get it from my teammates and when it’s difficult to find on the internet. In my opinion, learning something new is always a challenging issue.

Alex: I would say, regarding the work, the challenge is to maintain the contact and the good feeling between the team due to the distance. Other challenge is to keep myself updated in the newest cloud computing technologies

What kind of work do you like the most?

Alex: Well, the architectural work is the one I like the most. I feel so comfortable coding.

Juan: Applying acquired knowledge. Learning is something that excites me but being able to create things with that study is a great personal and job satisfaction.

Simón: Normally I like to fix bugs and create new parts of the web. Maybe in future I will have new favorite things to do as I learn new things!

Manuel: I have tried many jobs before starting to study my degree in computing. Messing around with the computer is something that I liked to do since I was a child. Now I work as a developer, I am a lucky person because I can do what I liked since my childhood. My degree was more focused on system’s administration, but I do not have any preference in the kind of tasks, if it’s related to computing.

Mario: Team and project management, although I still enjoy pure development tasks, especially the complicated ones.

What’s the programming language you like the most? Why?

Simón: Now that I’m working with angular and typescript I suppose that could be my favorite way to program, for now…

Mario: If I have to choose one, it would be Java, as it is the one I have used the most throughout my career, and the one that has given me the opportunity to grow as a professional.

Juan: I have two choices: Java and Python. Java is a language that has been modernised whenever necessary and I like to create things with it. It has almost everything and what it does not have, you can create yourself. Python is a mathematical language. Easy to understand for those of us who love to solve problems.

Manuel: Java is the first programming language that I started to learn when I was studying my degree, and it was used in many subjects that I had there. So, this is maybe the one that I know the best, so I would choose Java for this reason.

Alex: Simple answer for me: Java. The most important reason is that I have been working with this language for more than 15 years. But even though it’s a time-honored language, new technologies based on it are still popping up.

Do you have a dream which you are pursuing? Tell us more!

Alex: Related to my profession, I can call myself a good architect-consultant. Concerning my personal live, to see my daughter grow up.

Manuel: I am not a dreamer in person, I just try to make a living doing what I love to do. So, I don’t have any special dream, I only wish I could take advantage of good opportunities that may arise in my life.

Juan: I hope I can continue to enjoy the pleasure I get from reading. A dream? To have my own house for my family and myself. And to return as soon as possible to visit the Asturian mountains.

Mario: I have a personal project related to cars that involves manual work, mechanical and electrical knowledge and programming skills, maybe one day I will have the time to get it going and see if I am able to put all the pieces together.

Simón: My dream is to be rich! I wish I could complete my dream soon…

What do you think about Europeans which have meal at 12 o’clock?

Mario: I think they are crazy, hehe. Now without joking, it’s very difficult for people in Spain to change their eating habits. We are not big breakfast eaters, so we eat something in the middle of the morning (10:30-11h) and this means that we are not hungry until at least 14h. I remember trying to adapt to the meal schedule on my first trip to Switzerland and at 16 o’clock I had to go down to the supermarket to buy something because I was starving and couldn’t concentrate.

Alex: Which time will they have dinner? Do they have something before it? I ask myself this questions because my common dinner time is as late as that of other Europeans. In my opinion eating at 13:00 o’clock would be acceptable for me.

Manuel: In my opinion it has more to do with the quantity of sunny hours per day. In general, southern European countries have lunch later than the northern ones. That is simply physical science.

Simón: I think they are very hungry, I couldn’t have the lunch at that time, I’ve just had the breakfast!

Juan: Before I travelled for the first time outside Spain it seemed strange to me. But by visiting countries like Sweden, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria or Switzerland, I have learned to understand the rhythm of life in the Europe that doesn’t touch the Mediterranean. Eating at 12 o’clock is now something logical for me there.

Thank you guys for this nice interview!