The 3 Important Things I Learned During My 2 Years at Bright Inventions

Huh, it’s been 2 years at Bright Inventions now. It was quite long but passed quite fast (that’s what she said).

There’s been a lot of coding, a lot of fun. This team rocks, that’s for sure.

It’s a good time to summarize things — I’d like to tell you about 3 important things I have learned during the last 2 years at Bright Inventions.

Besides coding and great food I love drums. And it’s been like playing drums. :) Let me explain.

Good practices

Rhythm is crucial for drums. As important as good patterns and practices for coding.

There are many software design patterns, all very important, which we as developers should get familiar with. In general, they are reusable solutions to a common problem. The better we know them the more efficient (and effective) our code will be.

The same is with drums — there are multiple patterns which if mastered and played correctly, will repay you with a nice vibe and impression. You always have your own style, but there are moments when you feel in your guts the good old shuffle you have been practicing for months will nail it. And it sure will — just like good software design will make your project well readable, maintainable, easy to understand and test.

During these two years I have spent time on a few projects, designed in a really cool and elegant way, using nice and bright (SEO guy will love it) patterns, which moved my coding knowledge and style to a next level. I taught myself to stick to these rules and it has always been worth it.

Joy of impact

Rhythm section — drums with a bass or contrabass — is the core of the band. Of course, you can play a solo guitar or a piano gig, but that is not the case. The rhythm section provides rhythm (no kiddin’ Sherlock), tempo, balance, swing (and a few more) for the rest of the band. It is something like a “skeleton” for your sound. I used to play guitars, I enjoyed it, but it was always an “addition” to the sound we had, so I switched to drums to carry the sound my way and feel the importance of it.

Software projects vary a lot. There are developers doing TODO apps every week and on the other hand there are SpaceX Spacecraft engineers. Whatever we do, in my opinion, the most satisfaction we get from projects which have a concrete impact on users’ business or even life experience.

I have learned one simple super-important thing during these two years — my work will be full of joy if it has a true meaning to someone.

At Bright Inventions I have had the pleasure to create software for healthcare business and humanitarian organisations, which not only gave a gravity to my work but also improved my skills a lot.

We shall not forget — the importance of piggybacking responsibility. The more your work matters, the more responsible you are, especially for failures. It is not that hard to crash a song or a piece of software.

It is ok to make mistakes, better not that huge (that’s what she… you know what ;)), but there are people counting on us, so we need to put ourselves together and put out the fire. Clients do not need apologies, they need actions and solutions.

People (team) matter most

This should be the first one, but the whole drum-coding metaphor wouldn’t be so catchy then :).

You can play on your drum set all night long, either playing your own tracks or covering any shuffle you like, but it is nothing compared to even a short jam with people who enjoy the music and feel the beat as you do. There is always something you can learn from your band — you can play it a little different, you can play it a little better.

Once you master drum basics the next step you want to make is to play with a band. It speeds up your self-improvement a lot.

Working as a software developer is not different. I learned a looooooot from Bright Inventions as a team and each one of you guys — how to code better, how to be flexible, how to enjoy life at the office. I am super sure I would not have learned stuff I know now if it was not for the team. I can feel our band is playing some good music there, which is reflected in our Clients’ satisfaction. :)

It’s a really valuable experience to be surrounded with people who have bright (I’m wondering if the SEO team will pay me or something?) minds and ideas.
“Playing together” is the essence of any project we are on.

Thank you all for that opportunity! :)

Ba dum, tss

By Piotr Rutka, Android Developer @ Bright Inventions

Originally published at https://brightinventions.pl on October 12, 2021.