2022 Noonies Nominee Sergei on Programming, Technology, and More

Howdy Hackers!

I’m Sergei Golitsyn, and I’m the Senior Software Engineer at Covalent Inc.

I’ve been nominated for the categories below, and if you've enjoyed anything I've written this year, please take some time to vote for me.

HackerNoon Contributor of the Year- DESIGN: URL

HackerNoon Contributor of the Year- SOFTWARE-ARCHITECTURE: URL.

As a writer in tech, I believe that Java + C# + Unity is the most exciting technology of the present because you can change reality with it. Learn more about my views on Software Architecture and my journey in the tech industry via the interview below.

What's your current role and what do you like about it?

Now, I'm a Senior Software Engineer, and I make games. This is a dream job. After all, I create worlds that are used by hundreds of thousands of players. Every day I come across challenges that make me a puzzle. How can you not like it?

How did you get into Programming?

Actually, it happened by accident.

After graduation, I got a job in a large energy company. I was engaged in installing software for all sorts of aunts and uncles. You know how it happens in a large company, only admins have installation rights, so I was one of them. I did not work with iron.

My department was all about software =) After a month or maybe two, I started doing my daily tasks in a couple of hours. A little later, it came to the point that I could do everything that was planned for the day in half an hour or an hour.

I began to read books, various fiction, psychology, and everything that caught my eye. Later, when I was already feeling bad about seeing the pages, I started watching movies and TV shows. Yes, I did it at work because there is nothing more boring than sitting around doing nothing. After the series and films ended or I felt terrible about them, I remembered that I had not played for a long time. I disappeared for a couple of months in games =)

At that moment, a guy who programmed in PHP got a job in our department. I still remember his burning look, and I wanted one too. Every day, he actively and enthusiastically did something, discussed some incomprehensible databases with colleagues from neighboring departments, actively printed something, and was happy.

I thought that's what I wanted. And he started googling. What did I google? Like "how to become a programmer? "and "Learn a programming language." Haha, this is funny. But due to these ridiculous requests, the javaRush site caught my eye. This is not an advertisement of the site at all, it just flew out to me, and I decided to play it. Yes, play. Education is built in the form of a game.

So, I disappeared from life for a couple of months. I went through the levels and read the additional materials given after each lesson.

Unfortunately, 10 levels later, the free access ended, and you had to pay. I found out that closer to the new year, there will be a sale. The dilemma was a turning point. Finally, close the credit card I foolishly took and waste all the money or get into debt again and buy the course.

Yes, I freaked out and again spent all the money from the credit card and purchased the course. To better understand what it cost me, in addition to the monthly payment, I had to pay a percentage of about 2 thousand rubles every month, and my salary was about 20 thousand. Apparently, I could close the credit card again after a couple of years =)

I bought this course and probably fell out of life completely for 8-12 months. Every second I thought about how to solve the problem, how to do better, and how to move to the next level. After that, I thought that I could try to find a job as a developer and prepare a resume. There were only 2 vacancies for Java developers in the city.

One was for experienced guys, and they were looking for an intern/junior in the second vacancy. I wrote, and they answered me. I was surprised. After talking on the phone, I was given a test task. For this assignment, I had to read Knuth and get a deeper understanding of algorithms and data structures.

Then there was a face-to-face interview, and I passed. I was offered an offer 20-30 percent below my salary. But I understood that I would not try now - I would never try. And so, I became a developer.

How did you get into writing about Programming?

At some point, I decided to just try to share my knowledge. As it turned out, I didn’t know anything, but writing the first article helped me understand the topic even deeper. Writing each article is not only giving knowledge but consolidating it, which is also helpful for me.

I would like to read many of the articles I wrote at the beginning of my journey. Maybe I can help someone? I rejoice like a child every view and like =)

What's your earliest memory of you learning to code?

Of course, it's Hello World. I could not believe my eyes at all that my application could display a phrase on the screen. Then I changed the text, and it worked again. I was in seventh heaven with happiness. After some time, I got acquainted with REST, and I remember how I sent the first request and received the first response. It's unforgettable.

When Elon Musk achieves his dream of getting us to Mars, what technology do you think would be important on Mars and why?

Cool question. I think that obtaining oxygen and maintaining a normal temperature will be necessary in the first place. I think we can not do without artificial intelligence, which will control the level of oxygen and temperature. I would very much like to participate in Ilon's project.

What's a programming language that you would build EVERYTHING and ANYTHING in and why?

I will be a bore and say that there is no such language. A language is a tool. And we must select each tool for a specific task. I think there is no "Swiss knife" in the programming world.

What's something you think Software developers do not do enough of?

I think developers have recently not paid attention to their code's quality and performance. With the advent of clouds and high-performance servers, more and more developers don't know much about the code they write. It becomes unsupported, unscalable, and slow, but this is all compensated by the clouds and a few microservices.

What is your least favorite thing about programming?

There is probably nothing I don't like about programming. Sometimes I get frustrated with not planning carefully or writing lower-quality code because I'm running out of time.

What’s a technology you’re currently learning or excited to learn?

Oh, now I'm learning c# + Unity. This is magic for me, and I'm obsessed with it and try to devote every free minute to it. Creating games with Unity has opened up a new world for the Java backend developer.

What’s your favorite Programming story of all-time on HackerNoon?

An unexpected question. I've never ranked articles by popularity, so I can't answer that question. But I've definitely read a lot of fantastic articles on HackerNoon.

Time travel 10 years into the past or 10 years into the future? What does technology look like? Give reasons for your answer.

10 years ago, technology was just getting infected, and there were no productive servers. The developers were meticulous about the little things.

But it will be interesting to look at 10 years ahead. I think that artificial intelligence will prevail. Algorithms for some programs will develop independently. I think everyone will also need professionals to create and invent new technologies, and the current opportunities will only help them. And of course teleport and flying cars.

About HackerNoon’s 2022 Noonie Awards

The annual Noonie Awards celebrate the best and brightest of the tech industry, bringing together all who are making the Internet and the world of tech what it is today. Please be sure to check out our award categories, nominate, and vote for the people and companies who you think are making the biggest impact on the tech industry today.

The 2022 Noonies are sponsored by: BingX, and .tech domains. Thank you so much to these sponsors who are helping us celebrate the accomplishments of all our nominees.