SivaLabs

I joined AtomicJar as a Developer Advocate on 1st November 2022. Time flies when you are enjoying your work, isn’t it.

Before joining AtomicJar, I worked as a TechLead/Architect at various companies for more than 15 years. When I got the opportunity to join AtomicJar, I was very excited to work with my favourite technology Testcontainers. I have been using Testcontainers for more than 4 years, and I am a big fan of it.

But I was also a bit nervous about how I will perform as a Developer Advocate. In fact, I had little idea about what a Developer Advocate does. So, I talked to the AtomicJar team and learned about the Developer Advocate role and responsibilities. Then I realized that I have been doing some of the Developer Advocate’s responsibilities like creating content, helping other developers to use Testcontainers, etc. for the past few years. So, I decided to join AtomicJar as a Developer Advocate.

I would like to share my experience of working at AtomicJar for the past one year.

Openness

We all come from different backgrounds, and we have different opinions and ideas. I like the openness at AtomicJar, and everyone is free to share their opinions and ideas without the fear of being judged.

I do have strong opinions on some topics(cough, cough, …), and they may not be aligned with others opinions. We occasionally have healthy discussions on those topics, and I learned a lot from those discussions.

Learning from others

AtomicJar has a very talented team, and I learned a lot from them. Though there are specific roles (such as DevTeam, DevOps, UX), everyone is highly skilled in multiple areas.

• I can freely talk to Oleg just about anything, and he always has some interesting insights to share. Though he is my Manager, it always feels like I am working with a close buddy.
• Whenever Sergei explains or demonstrates something, I am like “Maybe one day I will learn at least 10% of what he knows.” His quest for “perfection” is legendary.
• I read about “Leadership Qualities” but I have never seen anyone who has all those qualities like Kevin. He is a great leader, and every time I talked to him, I learn a lot.
• You know, I have a Love/Hate relationship with Go Language. Occasionally when I get frustrated with Go, Manu is always there to help me understand it better. Not just “getting things done” type of education, but properly explaining the concepts and making me understand it better.

I can go on and on about everyone, but I will stop here. I am surrounded by people who are very knowledgeable that inspires me to become better every day.

Work-Life Balance

The last few years are challenging for many of us because of COVID, wars, etc. I am not in my 20’s anymore to work crazy hours, and I have a family to take care of.

I am very grateful to have a manager who often reminds me to take vacations and spend time with family 😄

Remote Work

I have been working remotely for the past 3 years, and I occasionally miss being in the office, having a casual talk with colleagues. Fortunately, we have flexible working hours, and we can have a casual talk with our colleagues whenever we want. It took me some time to get used to working remotely with async communication, but now I am very comfortable with it.

Overall, I am very happy that I can work from home and spend more time with my family.

Few things I feel proud of

I feel proud of the following things I did in the past one year.

• I contributed to Testcontainers Guides that helps developers to quickly get started with Testcontainers.
• I have written a few blog posts on AtomicJar Blog that helps developers to use Testcontainers with various technologies.
• I have created a few videos on AtomicJar YouTube Channel explaining how to use Testcontainers effectively.
• I have created testcontainers-jooq-codegen-maven-plugin that helps developers to generate jOOQ code from the database schema.

In addition to these, I have published many blog posts on my blog https://www.sivalabs.in and created a few videos on my YouTube channel that helps developers to use Testcontainers.

There is a lot more to do, and I am looking forward to doing more in the coming years.

Conclusion

Often people ask me, “Do I miss regular Software Development work?”. I would say “No” because I do a lot of coding every single day. I do explore new technologies, learn new things, and experiment quite a bit while creating content.

As a passion, I have been sharing my knowledge by blogging and creating videos for the past 10 years in addition to doing my regular job. Now doing the same thing as part of my full-time job, especially with my favourite technologies.

I am very happy that I joined AtomicJar, and I am looking forward to more anniversaries.