At Bitrock, innovation comes from combining cutting-edge technology with talented people. With these values, we are launching a new column called “Behind the scenes of coding”: a space dedicated to our engineers and developers, where they can talk about the challenges, background and passion that drive digital evolution projects.
In this first interview, we meet Danilo Ventura, Senior Software Engineer at Bitrock. With extensive experience in developing complex systems, Danilo introduces us to his role and some of the behind-the-scenes aspects of the tech world.
What is the biggest technical challenge you have faced and how did you overcome it?
In our work, it is more common to come across and have to deal with lots of daily challenges rather than major, epoch-making ones. In my role, it is essential to be able to break down big problems into smaller, more manageable ones.
It is easy to lose your overview when you are focused on a specific task.
Every day we face different obstacles: from coding a complex algorithm to a mysterious bug, to the refactoring necessary to make the software understandable to colleagues
To summarise, my biggest challenge comes up every day and is to create code that is understandable, meets customer requirements and is as easy as possible to modify and maintain.
Which project have you been particularly proud of?
Two of them are particularly meaningful to me. The first is an application developed for the public administration, dedicated to refunding school books.
It wasn’t a complex system, but it had to handle huge traffic spikes. In addition to the technical challenges we overcame, it was a source of pride to know that we had created something useful, used by many, that provided an important service. The greatest satisfaction? Overhearing two parents at school praising the service because it “worked perfectly”. Knowing that we had made a public service useful is priceless.
The second project I would like to mention is a private corporate social network. It was a pioneering project in the use of the cloud and allowed me to collaborate with marketing and HR. We created a modern tool that changed the corporate climate, making internal communication more engaging and less formal. Seeing colleagues posting content from their smartphones was the best feedback possible.
Which language has surprised you the most?
The choice of tools shapes the resilience of a digital solution. Throughout my career, there are only two languages that I have continued to use without interruption, Java and JavaScript.
Java is definitely the one I am most fond of because I feel like I “grew up” with it.
The most surprising thing about Java is the fact that it has been constantly evolving for almost thirty years, filling the gaps that were gradually created with newer languages and embracing the demands of the developer community.
However, today the real breakthrough is represented by Apache Kafka and event-driven architectures. They require a total paradigm shift: we no longer think in a “database-centric” way, but put data at the centre of the communication flow between different systems. This is where real value for business is generated today.
Conclusion
This interview with Danilo showed us how excellent code is always underpinned by a focus on simplicity and the end user. This is the essence of engineering at Bitrock: transforming complexity into opportunity.
Don’t miss the next episodes of “Behind the scenes of coding”, where we will give a voice to other members of our Engineering team to discover new perspectives on technological innovation.
Would you like to learn more about how we work? Discover our Engineering services.