A Look Into my Writing Process: Interview With Serhii Rubets, Full-Stack Software Engineer

So let’s start! Tell us a bit about yourself. For example, name, profession, and personal interests.

Hello, friends. I’m Serhii Rubets, I’m from Ukraine and I’m a Full-Stack Software Engineer with about 7 years of experience. I worked in different companies, small and medium. My main stack is: JS, react, angular, and node.js. Also, I’m a mentor and a teacher. I participated as a teacher and mentor in different online schools and offline schools. Also, I help students individually. I participated as a judge in Globee Awards programs.

Interesting! What was your latest Hackernoon Top story about?

My latest story was about GRASP patterns, what they are and why we should use them. Also I provided simple, but very informative (in my opinion) examples, using Javascript language.

I think it’s an interesting topic because no matter what programming language you are using, these principles can help to make your code more better, cleaner, understandable and maintainable.

Do you usually write on similar topics? If not, what do you usually write about?

Yes, I really enjoy sharing my knowledge, and I enjoy learning something new for myself. I try to share my knowledge using youtube, online programs, and also articles on hackernoon. My main language is Javascript, but I try to write topics, that could be useful for any software engineer, like GRASP, SOLID, different GoF patterns, and other good patterns or principles.

And yes, sometimes you can see topics, more focused on the Javascript world, like something from react.

Great! What is your usual writing routine like (if you have one?)

I can’t say that I have some special writing routine, but I try to think about topics, that would be very useful for many developers. Some of them come to me during work. For example, one of my previous articles was about debouncing and throttling. During creating one of the features at work, we faced a performance problem and I used both techniques and realize that it could be very useful for someone because someone knows debouncing good, and doesn’t know throttling or wise verse.

Sometimes my students ask similar questions and it’s a good idea to record a video explanation for them or write an article.

Sometimes I can face an interesting issue, spend some time to understand how to solve it, and what different approaches for them, and after some period of time if it is interesting, I can share it here.

Being a writer in tech can be a challenge. It’s not often our main role, but an addition to another one. What is the biggest challenge you have when it comes to writing?

Yes, I have some challenges, especially from the start. I can’t say that they are really big problems, but anyway, they create some challenges. Here there are:

• Finding an interesting topic. In our time, it seems everything is written about anything. You can google a lot of different articles, videos, and books about any topic. And of course, sometimes I have a question what the reason to write about something if I can find 20+ resources about this topic. The answer is yes, there are many resources. But, each of us unique person, with a unique background, and skills.

  
  

  And someone can write about some topic using one programming language, someone can write the same topic, using another programming language. In general, we use different examples, and different explanations and for someone, my explanations will be better than those from other authors and wise verses.

  
  

• Another problem is the English language. I’m from Ukraine and of course, my native language isn’t English. I use English for my work, but I’m not a native speaker, and my English is not at an excellent level. So, first of all, I should think about text, that will be easily understandable in my language and after that translate it correctly to English. I can’t say that it’s a really big problem, but anyway, it’s a little additional thing, that takes time.

  
  

• For sure, sometimes it’s hard to explain something in an easy way and for this purpose, I should provide good examples, and it’s also sometimes not obvious when I take one example and a little bit later, I understand that it’s not really good example, and I need to find another, better.

What is the next thing you hope to achieve in your career?

It’s a hard question at this moment because there is a war in Ukraine, and I couldn’t predict the future, In general, before the war, I had thought about finding my next role in top big companies like FAANG. But for this moment I try to do the better that I can now. I continue working at my current company on a very useful web application that is relative to the maritime industry. I still try to help other people, who want to change their job and become software engineers. I continue to share my knowledge by writing articles and making different coach sessions. Also, I still continue improving my skills and learning new topics.

Wow, that’s admirable. Now, something more casual: What is your guilty pleasure of choice?

I think it’s watching movies instead of doing something more useful for me, like learning or doing a workout. But, I, as we all know relaxing, is really important for us, so I can’t say that I feel very guilty after a new good film.

Do you have a non-tech-related hobby? If yes, what is it?

Yes, the last of my hobbies is learning to play the piano, the latest song that I played on my LinkedIn profile. Also, I really enjoy watching films, with superhero, like “Avengers”. I try to do workouts, but unfortunately, I couldn’t do it on a regular basis. I enjoy swimming, lying and relaxing. And yes, learning, learning, and learning. I have an understanding, that no matter where am I now, there are a lot of things that I can study, to be better as a software engineer and as a person in general.

What can the Hacker Noon community expect to read from you next?

For sure I will finish a series of GRASP patterns and after that, I want to start writing about often used GoF patterns in Javascript world. And yes, If I see, something interesting in my work, something practical that will be useful for many other developers, I will write about it.

Thanks for taking time to join our “Meet the writer” series. It was a pleasure. Do you have any closing words?

I want to say a big “Thank you” to all people from HackerNoon, for the opportunity that you give to us, to share our knowledge. I want to say thank you to all people, who read our articles and give feedback so we could make our world better. As I mentioned before, sometimes it’s hard to write a good explanation, to pick a really interesting topic, but I will improve myself and try to make each next topic better and better.