In this Tech Forward Episode, Boris Matijasevic, Software Engineer at HTEC Group, guided you through the event sourcing idea, offered a detailed explanation of the architectural pattern through a real-life example, and discussed all the relevant questions to help you dive deeper into the subject of event sourcing.
After the presentation, our two colleagues Dusan Kuvalja, Engineering Lead, and Aleksandar Miljkovic, Senior Engineering Lead, discussed the hiring process, growth opportunities, and benefits that HTEC Group offers.
About the speakers
Boris Matijasevic started his career at Execom as a full-stack developer before HTEC Group acquired it. He is now working as a full-stack developer at HTEC and he primarily works with technologies like .NET, Angular, and Microsoft Azure.
Aleksandar Miljkovic is a Senior Engineering lead at HTEC Group. He has been in the IT industry for almost 15 years, starting as an embedded engineer, after that .NET developer, Technical Team Leader, and now as a Senior Engineering Lead. He has worked on various projects and domains, IoT solutions, Enterprise systems, Smart cities, etc. With the help of four other ELs, he is leading one of the HTEC divisions currently with 65 people and counting. His primary responsibility is to make sure that everything works smoothly, that people are happy to work at HTEC both in the office or remotely. He is involved in the hiring process, as well.
Dusan Kuvalja has been in the IT industry since 2010. He started as a QA on a huge ERP system for the housing association. After a few years, he got promoted to Test Lead, then to Technical Team Lead, and now as an Engineering Lead. He has worked on different projects, but most of them are from Fintech and Transportation. Currently, he is leading a team of 25+ people, and he is responsible for the team, delivery, and, of course, client satisfaction. Dusan also takes part in the hiring process of QA candidates at HTEC.
Watch the video.
After the presentation, our Niko Slavnic chatted with the speakers to hear more about their passions, hiring process, and growth opportunities at HTEC. We bring you the highlights.
N: What is the most challenging part of being an Engineering Lead? How do you motivate your team? How do you lead through change?
Aleksandar: There’s no easier question for warming up? EL is, in general, responsible for three things, People, Delivery, and Account. I will be honest. There is no easier part. On the accounting side, you need to establish confidence with the client, understand their pain points to help them grow together. From the delivery part, yes, you need to make sure that every release is on time and to detect if something goes wrong so you can do your best, together with the team, to bring the project on the right track. But, those two are easier parts. People’s satisfaction is what comes first. I always make sure my people are happy working for HTEC, and there’s no compromise about that. But, there are many challenges. Everything starts with understanding all of them. It would be best to establish a personal connection with each of them — to understand them and support them. But it is important to be realistic, not to give them false promises and bring them down to earth from time to time. These guys are your family, and you spend most of your day with them. It’s vital that you are honest with them both personally and professionally, and they will appreciate that. You are one of them. When you establish that kind of connectivity with your team, you can manage everything together.
N: How does HTEC support your professional but also personal growth?
Aleksandar: HTEC Group supports the education of all its employees. We organize internal presentations, workshops, and even internal conferences, summer and winter schools. On the other hand, HTEC provides access to online learning platforms like Udemy, and it supports employees by allowing them to attend various IT conferences and obtain certificates. Besides that, we developed our HTEC competency framework, which consists of three main competencies: technical, core, and leadership. We recruit, evaluate, design, and promote our people based on a unique and holistic competency framework. Every employee receives feedback, suggestions on what to improve, how to do that, and proper and prepared learning material. All those possibilities should speed up the learning and growing process for each of our employees.
N: One of the HTEC’s slogans is “Delight, not just deliver.” How does it resonate with you?
Boris: “It is really important to love what you do. It is not only “deliver,” or “let’s do it like we have done it hundred times before.” You always need to improve on the process; you always need to find out how to do something better, learn from your mistakes, learn not to repeat them, always improve, and always optimize. Honestly, coding and programming are like an art to me, so you need to define it, make it look good and be proud of it, and make clients proud of your work. That’s what’s really important to me.”
N: What does a selection process for Quality Assurance (QA) look like?
Dusan: This is an excellent question since I have ten years of QA experience and am also involved in QA job interviews. So, as soon as somebody applies for a manual QA position, a meeting with the Talent Acquisition team is immediately organized. Candidates get two days to do the task. As soon as the task is done, our interviewers check it, and if they see that the candidate has a QA mindset, they invite them for a technical interview. In the technical interview, candidates can expect a really friendly atmosphere where we will get to know each other better, do at least one more task, and answer all the candidates’ questions. Since the task is something that causes stress to most candidates, I will try to explain it. The task does not check if something is true or false. It only checks if the candidate doing the task has a QA mindset, no more, no less. So, no need for stress. They just need to show their way of thinking.
N: Is there any advice that you would give to people that apply for job positions? There is an extensive selection process at HTEC. A lot of seniors are included in the process. Is there anything people should do to be better at interviews?
Dusan: I’ll be short here because it is really straightforward. Just give your best, show your knowledge, and you will get the best from HTEC, and even more, it’s as simple as that. You just need to show your expertise and be the best version of yourself.
Moving forward
Wondering who our next special guest is? Stay tuned for the next Tech Forward webinar!
We are fully committed to nurturing our knowledge-sharing culture. We’ll continue to organize events where our colleagues will have a chance to exchange their thoughts and experiences with others.
Want to become a part of a growing team? Explore HTEC career opportunities and apply.
