"If You Have a Goal, You Can Reach it" Nominee Nominee Yan Tsishko

Hey Hackers! I’m Yan Tsishko and I’m the Chief Software Engineer at Oxagile.

First of all, a huge thank you to the HackerNoon community and staff for nominating me for a 2021 Noonies award! I’ve been nominated in the following categories, please do check out these award pages and vote:

1. JAVASCRIPT: Vote here
2. JAVASCRIPT-DEVELOPMENT: Vote here
3. FRONTEND: Vote here
4. FRONT-END-DEVELOPMENT: Vote here

As someone in the frontend industry, I believe that the most exciting technology of the present is JavaScript/TypeScript because you can use it for Frontend and Backend development and for different platforms like Web, Mobile, Smart TV, STB. Learn more about my thoughts and opinions on Frontend and my journey in the tech industry via the interview below.

1. What do you do and why do you do it?

Currently, I’m a Chief Software Engineer and manage 25 JS developers.

Another part of my work is engineering. I like to take part in projects with challenges, especially for the Smart TV platform, because we have limited resources (memory, CPU) and we should implement a solution that can work fast on these devices.

I have had an opportunity to try ML in browsers on mobile devices and I shared my investigation and implementation in the articles How We Implemented Face and Mask Recognition in Google Chrome.

I like to share my experience in articles, meetups and conferences.

2. Tell us more about the things you create/write/manage/build!

If we speak about public contributions, I can say that I have a repository on GitHub with an example of how to create SSR for React.js with Express.js. When I started to implement this feature Next.js was not production-ready for our project (which was in production at that moment) and I researched how to do it manually. The results of best practices from the internet are presented in my repository. Also, you can find out how to blur objects in real-time on video with code examples. How to use ML in browser for face and mask detection.

3. How did you end up on your current career path? Do you like it?

I became interested in programming at the age of 14 and independently studied new things for myself. Then I graduated from a technical university and started my first job at a startup remotely with no strong skills in any programming language. I studied HTML, CSS, PHP and created several web applications at school and university and had the chance to improve my knowledge. I had a lot of challenges, and every day I had to learn something new.

When I wanted to become a Frontend software developer, I found an opportunity at another company, where with the minimal knowledge of JavaScript, my first task was to write treeview. I didn’t understand the task or know how to start. Nevertheless, I had a mentor and google search. And after 5 days I gladly submitted the code for review. Since then, I have continued to self-study and have not been afraid of challenging tasks.

When I started to share my experience and improve my soft skills, my current company noticed this and offered me a promotion to Chief Software Engineer.

This is the result of many years of experience and self-improvement.

4. What tech are you most excited or passionate about right now and why?

I like Frontend and JavaScript/TypeScript. When you receive feedback from millions of users about the results of your work, it motivates me. I like JavaScript because it’s a powerful language and you can do almost anything you want, starting from a simple website to programming robots.

5. What tech are you most worried about right now and why?

All techs have pros and cons. JavaScript is not an exception.

6. If we gave you 10 million dollars to invest in something today, what would you invest in and why?

The best investment is investing in yourself. Your education.

7. What are you currently learning?

Currently, I am diving deeper into the performance of applications and project architecture. I have been given the opportunity to test optimization hypotheses on a real project for SmartTV.

8. What’s the best advice you’ve ever given someone?

Google knows almost all, try googling for 30 minutes and then ask your colleague for help. 😃

When you search for answers, you read different points of view and practices. In case you can’t find an answer, at least you read a lot of information around this theme.

9. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

If you have a goal, you can reach it.

About HackerNoon’s 2021 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 2021 Noonies are sponsored by: bybit, Dottech Domains, and Avast. Thank you so much to these sponsors who are helping us celebrate the accomplishments of all our nominees.