1. Alex, what’s your role at SCD Company and when did you join the team?

I am currently a Technical Team Lead and a Project Manager at SCD Company. I joined the team right after graduating from university when an opportunity to work at SCD opened up in 2016.

2. How has your role evolved since you joined the company?

Initially, I was very timid and not confident in my skills and capabilities. With years of experience, I also realized that “not knowing” something is not a big problem, as long as I can figure it out and achieve a reasonable solution for a given task. I also learned that it’s not so scary to speak up, even if I may be wrong, as long as it helps to achieve the conversation goal. After becoming a team leader (around 2021, If I remember correctly) I realized that I needed to polish some basic skills here and there, so I could reach the level of confidence required for taking care of others.

3. Can you tell us about the working processes and overall experience with the team at SCD?

Usually, we work in teams of three, or in some cases, eight to nine, while implementing diverse projects for our clients. The level of exposure to the client varies from project to project. The workflow can vary in each case as well. My current project uses a hybrid of Kanban and Scrum and some aspects of Agile as well. The experience is mostly positive, both as a developer and a team leader.

4. What types of projects or tasks do you find the most fulfilling in your role?

As a team leader and a project manager, my current role is to make sure the project is being done in the most optimal way using the given resources. The tasks include planning, resource management, scheduling, communicating ideas, brainstorming, communicating with our clients, prototyping and development tasks.

5. Is there a specific project where you feel you grew the most, personally or professionally? Or any standout projects you want to mention?

I guess it's the current project I am working on. It’s both my first project as a team leader and now the longest project I’ve worked on. It’s a rather difficult project where people need to work with 3D data. That results in significantly higher requirements for the team members.

But on the other hand, there are not many “boring” or “braindead” routine tasks. I happen to be very passion-driven by nature, so this is a good environment for me to avoid burnout.

6. What new skills or technologies have you learned while working here?

If we talk about “learned” and not “mastered” technologies and skills, then over the past almost 9 years there has been a lot. Usually, it’s not that challenging to learn something new for a task, and knowing the key traits of one technology helps with learning a similar one. For example, knowing what’s common in imperative or descriptive languages helps in figuring out new ones.

I guess I could also highlight some of the more important skills acquired, it’s something on a more universal side, like management, communicating complex ideas, ability to do research, estimation, and prototyping.

7. What does your daily life as a tech team leader look like?

I check the state of current tasks at the project Kanban board on a daily basis, perform code reviews, join a daily meeting with our team where I gather the current status from them and we discuss any problems or ideas, reviewing the state of the current sprint, editing or adding new tasks.

Some parts of this may be repeated during the day. There are also days when I code a lot, but it’s not consistent and depends on the tasks, whether they can be delegated or not.

8. What’s your favorite part of working at SCD?

The management is honest and transparent. We have no strict restrictions on where, when, and how to work, as long as the developers fulfill their direct responsibilities and tasks. Developers are listened to in terms of the direction they want to grow in, or the area they want to work at. In general, it’s just a nice place to work in peace without negativity.

9. How does the company support your professional growth and learning?

I continuously receive feedback in the areas where I ask for from the management. For example, sometimes I may not feel too confident about doing public presentations for a client, going too deep into technical details, etc. In such situations, feedback allows me to reflect on the moments I can do better, which helps a lot.

Like other developers in the company, I’m given the freedom to have a flexible schedule and work wherever, whenever and however I want. It gives me a good opportunity for professional and personal growth/learning.

10. Anything you wish to add?

I only attended one work interview in my life, and it was for a vacancy in this company. It was right after graduating and I did not really consider myself a strong junior back then, since I had no working experience. It was lucky that the company directors preferred to estimate my ability to approach and address a technical problem and to think carefully/calmly, over the amount of knowledge and experience. I think it’s the right approach. After I became a team leader, only people who could pass in this criterion with flying colors could stay on my project for long.

Read our interview with Alena, Co-founder of SCD Company by clicking on this link.