What you need to know before becoming a developer at bonsai.tech

How do you recognize a good developer? You may not see him for a few weeks or months, but you hear about his work and impressive results quite often.

That sums up our Mateo.

One of our developers who likes to work from home and disconnect from Microsoft Teams as soon as the clock ticks 5 o’clock. He has been with us since 2019 and we have been with him since the day he graduated.

Even though Mateo is a man of few words, we tricked him into answering a question or seven about being a developer at bonsai.tech.

Let’s see what he shared with us.

First things first - .NET or Java?

The primary technology I use at work is .NET. Honestly, .NET has grown to be my favorite - probably because I work with it every day. 

Because I worked a lot with Java through college, and switched to .NET just before graduating, the transition was not difficult since their syntax is quite similar. 

As for some other technologies, the second most used is SQL. Around 90% of the projects I’ve done have an SQL database in the background. We use React for the front-end part, but being exclusively a backend developer, I have no contact with React.

How do you describe bonsai.tech to your friends?

• We are a software company that is closely related to Span
• We do all kinds of programming work 
• And we have nothing to do with bonsai trees

And what’s the biggest work-related challenge you came across so far?

The biggest problem I met was the period when several colleagues left our development team at the same time in 2020. It was quite a difficult and tiring period because it was me and my colleague against all active projects.

What we did then was decide not to stress, but give our best. And with that positive attitude, we got it all done. After all, new colleagues did come shortly after and helped us with projects.

Could you share one bonsai.tech moment that left the most significant impact on you?

One team building comes to mind when we went to the Rizvan City Adrenalin Park, and it was a lot of fun. 

I really like sports activities and we did a lot of them there, from ziplining and swinging on a 15m high swing, to playing human foosball and riding on quads. So, Rizvan City is definitely the Bonsai moment I remember.

“Don’t be afraid to try. If you make a mistake, it’s no big deal. We will figure it out.” Would you say that this is the approach bonsai.tech lives by?  

That’s the way to go. 

First, you try something, and if you really can’t get over some problems, or you don’t think that the code you wrote is optimized, then there is a willing team that is ready to help you. 

In my opinion trial and error is the best way to learn, even though it can take some time.

But, what it’s like to work without a senior developer by your side.

Of course, it would be great to have a senior who can point you in the right direction and warn you if you are doing something wrong, show you best practices, etc. But we manage without a senior in a few ways.

We often have dev team meetings where we discuss best practices, so that’s the way we cover the lack of seniority. Also, this year we’ve introduced a new concept to our workweek – each of us has dedicated 4 hours to learning new dev things that interest us. I like it, it really gives you some room for your personal business growth.

Not to mention our latest practice, where we get to spend one day per week with a senior developer from our partner company. We can ask him for advice, for a code review, and talk about best practices.

Of all the things, what do you appreciate the most about your work/workplace?

Remote work. I love going to my hometown of Makarska, so it's great that my job allows it.