QUALITANCE is a place of people. We, the people, build this place into a great environment to grow and expand skills. Learning, work shadowing and teaching others how to code are things we do to grow and flourish.
Our colleague Andrei, Front End Dev and one of the mentors in Q, says the no.1 reason someone would come working at QUALITANCE is the thriving space in here.
“People can learn a lot and grow around our seniors. You can find nice projects elsewhere, but having both great projects and great people to work with is not easy to find”, says Andrei.
Learning and teaching go hand in hand
Andrei points out that everybody here stands in the shadow of somebody else and learns from somebody else. “If you walk in the open space, you’ll always see groups of people talking about projects. It’s OK to ask questions and you’ll always find someone willing to help. This is something I’ve always appreciated in QUALITANCE”, says Andrei.
People in Q see Andrei as a Thriving Space Creator. And he’s not the only one around here, for sure. Lately, Andrei taught many courses and workshops: Tap That Job and eBusiness Master courses at Cybernetics Faculty, JavaScript ES6 workshop dedicated to people in Q – just to name a few. In his everyday work, he is constantly teaching others. He’s familiar with having shadowing colleagues around all the time.
“You have to share your knowledge”, says Andrei. “Any opportunity you have to teach someone something, why not take it?”, he adds. His mentoring skills helped many colleagues figure out what front end development is all about.
Learning to focus on quality
The first official shadow colleague for Andrei was Paul, who had just finished the Q internship. Andrei was coping with a lot of work back then. He didn’t have the time to guide Paul as much as he’d have wished.
From that moment on, Andrei decided to do shadowing only on long-term projects, with no immediate delivery. “The way people begin working shapes their style of work”, Andrei explains. “They might feel under pressure and do things in a rush, just to finish them. They have to be taught it’s important to have patience and focus on quality”, punctuates Andrei.
Everything is dynamic in our kind of work and one cannot know the absolute truth. Even if you know you are right, hear others up because they might surprise you.
For Paul, Andrei is the guy who can make anytime a quick sketch on his agenda for you to better understand. “We had around 1-2 hours per day of peer programming. After working on something, he verified the code and gave me indications for best practices. He used to make sketches on his agenda. This is Andrei, always with his agenda! It’s actually useful – it helped me better visualize”, says Paul.
Going deep into mastery
The next colleague Andrei mentored was Mihai. Things went differently this time. They both had plenty of time to discuss and learn together. “Our relationship worked like this: I gave him things to do and when he was done, I let him justify his options – I wanted to know why he did things in a certain way”, recalls Andrei.
He planned the work. The tasks he gave me were never too easy, to get bored, or too difficult, to not be able to do them.
He gave Mihai suggestions of how things could be done, and let him decide in the end. “I tried to treat shadow colleagues as equals, no matter the experience. Everything is very dynamic in our kind of work and one cannot know the absolute truth. It’s important to listen to others. Even if you know you are right, hear others up because they might surprise you”, Andrei explains.
Angular 2 – this is something Mihai learned thanks to Andrei. “I knew nothing about Angular 2. He managed to initiate me in this in a short time – 2-3 weeks. He knew how to explain so I can understand the basics”, says Mihai. And the way he learned, step by step, was very well thought. “He planned the work. Based on what I’ve already learned, he thought of the next step that would have challenged me. This was a great thing – the tasks he gave me were never too easy, to get bored, or too difficult, to not be able to do them”, adds Mihai.
Golden rule when learning: Do not panic
Andrei is someone who is still learning, and figured out in time that it’s important not to panic. “Don’t panic when you don’t know how to do something. Assume that you will never know everything, no matter how much you’d learn. Assume that you will find a way to solve things. Take it easy, learn step by step and you will make it”, concludes our Thriving Space Creator. You can read more about Andrei’s work style, favorite apps, music & many more in this article.
Keep up with the news about our Magnificent Six! We already know three of them – Andrei, the Thriving Space Creator, Radu, The Great Listener, and Dragos, The Captain of Ownership. Three more to come, representing each of the other Q values – Naturalness, Building Trust and Aiming High. Stay close!
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