5 Questions with Stanislav Dudarev, PHP Developer at MyQ
From where I sit in the MyQ offices, nearly a dozen different languages can be heard every day. But the languages most baffling to me are the ones used by our developers: PHP, C++, and C#.
Stanislav Dudarev explained how the flexibility of PHP has reshaped his work environment, moving it from dull and redundant to challenging and fun. His previous job used PHP only in its most basic form, but the language provided opportunity elsewhere. Luckily, Stanislav has been flexible his entire life, having lived in multiple locations ranging from the far eastern region of Russia to the industrious areas of the Ukraine. This moving around not only instilled in him a love of travel, but a “never say never” attitude that has fit in well at MyQ. Sometimes all you need is a change of screen.
1. What was your first impression of MyQ and the PHP role?
A recruitment agency advised me about the position. At the time, I was working on boring projects with poor coding and I didn’t want to continue doing PHP anymore. The agency persuaded me to have the interview, which was my first interview in 10 years. I liked the company, office, and atmosphere right away. It appeared to be an interesting project that was doing a lot of things. This is a big, long-lasting code-based project and it’s in an interesting market. They take a more serious approach with PHP at MyQ.
2. What are some of your responsibilities as a PHP Developer?
Anything related to PHP in the MyQ product: master/print servers, print/scan jobs, data synchronization, and reports; in general, anything that touches PHP is touched by me. PHP at MyQ is more interesting and high code standards are applied here compared to other companies. There are still a lot of things I’m learning about PHP at MyQ. For our tech stack, we have our own framework which is used both on the back-end and front-end. It’s based on some Symfony components and is rather powerful and allows you to do a lot of things. As a database, we use Firebird and MS SQL.
3. What do you enjoy about your role at MyQ?
I like the approach. I feel the company is oriented around the developers; they are important for MyQ and I can feel that. It’s a good feeling for developers and it’s not very common at other companies. Developers bring value to the company and it’s embraced here; there’s always support. There are interesting projects to work on, the product has a lot of features, and it is actually needed by the customers. The customers use our product every day and we have feedback from them and we improve our product based on their feedback.
4. What is the management at MyQ like compared to previous jobs you’ve had?
I can feel that the management of the company are actually developers and it’s a comfortable environment for developers. I like the communication, the SCRUMs, the daily stand-ups, and sprint demos. It’s well structured and organized. I like how MyQ evaluates the difficulty of planned tasks instead of the time to be spent on them. There was more pressure at my previous job and with fewer results. Here, the company produces results; we set high goals and we are able to achieve them. MyQ is completely different. If I feel like I have any suggestions, I’m always able to speak my mind. When someone does a piece of work, the rest of the team checks the code, makes comments, and gives feedback. Everyone is welcome.
5. When you’re not writing code, what is your ideal day away from MyQ headquarters in Prague?
Spending time with my wife and mostly I would say exploring Prague, going for a walk in the city or in nature. I like to drive; the process of it. I made a trip once by car from Prague, Czech Republic to St. Petersburg, Russia. We visited several countries and saw a lot. I would like to explore the Czech Republic more, as well as Austria, Switzerland, and Georgia, for the mountains.
If you like coding and would like to work alongside Stanislav and the rest of the MyQ development team, apply now at our careers page.
