Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Space Shard's Engineering Manager, Ivan Pavičić - Life as an engineering manager in Web3
30 Plays3 months ago
In this episode, I spoke with Ivan Pavičić, Engineering Manager from Space Shard.
Ivan introduced Space Shard and talked about how they make life easier for developers in the Starknet ecosystem. Ivan explained life as an engineering manager and shared lots of tips and advice for anyone looking to build a successful career as an engineering manager in Web3.
Not one to be missed!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Ivan Haficic
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Behind the Blockchain podcast. my My guest today is Ivan Haficic, an engineering manager at Shardspace. Ivan, welcome to the show. How are you? good Great, doing great. Glad to be here. Yeah, yeah thanks thanks for joining me. Hopefully I pronounced your name properly then. yeah yeah yeah Yeah, you did, of course. um Good stuff.
What is SpaceShart and StarkNet?
00:00:25
Speaker
Ivan, for people who don't know who you are, could you introduce yourself, please?
00:00:29
Speaker
Yes, sure. So my name is Ivan, as you already mentioned. I am an engineering manager. A company is called SpaceShart. It's before it was Shardlabs. Now it's ah sharded into a separate entity called SpaceShart that is now working exclusively on StarkNet, which is a layer 2 blockchain on top of Ethereum.
00:00:56
Speaker
And yeah, maybe later we can we can go more into into details about all of those things. But yeah, but basically we are a blockchain research and development company And we are building various products as I said focused focused on on start. So Yeah, that's that's that's maybe short short intro Sounds cool. Could
Ivan's Career Journey
00:01:19
Speaker
you could you take us back and and talk us through your career journey so far? Yeah, sure. So i'm Basically, all my life we're living in a coastal city called Split, Croatia, where I finished a computer science college here. and After that, I started working as a software engineer. and yeah It's been like 10 years now, almost, so 10 years in total in the industry.
00:01:50
Speaker
Uh, maybe around seven years were, were in a classic web to software development, where I went through basically the whole, uh, career progression from a junior, or like maybe even intern junior, uh, meet, let's say meteor engineer, senior, and, uh, at the end, uh, team lead slash engineering manager. Uh, so for the last, yeah, for the last, let's say three years, I've been more into, into management than then, then, uh,
00:02:20
Speaker
let's say, coding itself. ah do you miss Do you miss it? Do you miss the coding? Well, actually, to be honest, not that much in a production grade sense. So I don't know if if that makes sense, but because like I enjoy you know little puzzles and and doing it for fun. But once it grows into a product that users actually use, and then somebody you know potentially calls you at 2 AM, then that's kind of That's when the stress kicks in and and the fun stops. So yeah, I don't really miss that part, to be honest. Now I have like other other let's say other things are making me more giving me more joy.
00:03:06
Speaker
yeah Fair enough. Fair enough.
Essential Skills for Engineering Management
00:03:09
Speaker
Could you um you talk us through some of the skills that you've learned along the way and and along your career that have really helped you to achieve that engineering manager position? Because I think a lot of people listening and watching, maybe in the engineering space and say, you know what, I'd love to become an engineering manager one day. It'd be really useful to understand the the skills that you've developed that have helped you get there. Yeah, sure. Sure. so um it's it's It's a bit of a different mindset, I would say. so ah my for I mean, I already talked about with some people who were interested maybe in going into that direction, and I always say the same thing. like
00:03:51
Speaker
When you're an individual contributor, you have a pretty quick feedback loop when you do some some task or you code some solution. ah You pretty quickly can see if that works or doesn't, and you get that you know dopamine rush, you know and you're happy. you know if If you did if you did the everything great, then you're happy. You're pretty quickly happy. and Maybe it's a matter of days or or hours or whatever.
00:04:17
Speaker
but when you transition into into management or team leadership, it takes a bit longer. like Some decisions that you take can take maybe months or maybe even years in in maybe in terms of your some kind of CEO or something. some Some results will be visible after a very longer period period of time. And you need to be prepared for that. ah you know To get that you know dopamine rush that I mentioned already.
00:04:47
Speaker
It will take a little bit longer. So so that's that's maybe the first thing to consider. ah So what are some skills? Well, I would say maybe ah definitely
Advice on Transitioning to Management
00:04:58
Speaker
while you're still individual contributor, try to take up, ah let's say, some some project ah that you will oversee end-to-end.
00:05:10
Speaker
and maybe even mentor mentor some colleagues, that that's that's usually you know maybe some progression like mentoring and overseeing some smaller stuff on the project. And then you can see if it's something that you enjoy. you know Do you enjoy mentoring ah younger engineers? Do you enjoy you know being vocal on some decisions? um Do you enjoy talking to people? like the that's That's very important. like you You need to have so some interpersonal skills like ah Some engineers maybe don't have this ah maybe come to them naturally But so you know if if you if you have an inclination maybe to you know Maybe you're more talkative person you you really have interest in in other people not only work related But you know personal lives you can talk about some problems that they have tried to help them you know that those are ah I think all good qualities to to have if you If you want to you know go go further into that
00:06:10
Speaker
let's say, more management path. ah Yeah, I mean, definitely. like and And a lot of these things, they they have a common denominator of like getting out of the comfort zone. So you know if you if you're used to coding and you have your own little task and you don't bother with everything else, you don't see the bigger picture,
00:06:34
Speaker
then you should probably you know step a little bit outside of that, maybe take a bigger, broader picture, a couple of components inside of a system, try to take ownership, try to you know be responsible for some stuff. ah Yeah. See how it goes, basically. See how it goes. Do you enjoy it? At the end of the day, I think that's the most important thing. If you if you under if you recognize that you enjoy that, then you will be successful down the road. If you don't,
00:07:03
Speaker
Maybe after a certain period of you know getting along with with with the new work, after you go that through that period of you know settling down, if you don't enjoy it, then I think it would be better to you know maybe go back to to what you were used to before, because it doesn't help anybody. It's not helping you, and it's not helping the people that later on you will maybe lead or or be responsible for. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
00:07:32
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's most of it. Nice. Do you remember the first the first engineering manager job that you took? Was that a bit of a shock? Yeah, so um I mean, actually, I ah kind of already did bits and pieces on college when we were doing some projects, student projects. We we went to some, um back in the day, there was this Microsoft Imagine Cup competition.
00:08:01
Speaker
And I personally really wanted to compete and in in that particular competition. And yeah, I brought together a couple of friends and we won the national, let's say Imagine Cup competition. And then all all the countries gather in one place. In our case, that was in Russia, St. Petersburg. Yeah, that was 2013, right? So 11 years ago.
00:08:27
Speaker
Uh, uh, it was a really cool experience, but that was like, you know, that project lasted for almost a year that we were working on that. So, so that was let maybe be the first, you know, first step in that direction, like where I was responsible for a lot of things, not only, you know, related to coding. Uh, there was really a bunch of stuff to do. We needed to edit videos, make, uh, you know, YouTube videos, uh, presentations, uh, doing the actual presentation, practicing, uh,
00:08:56
Speaker
you know, doing testing with users, trying to see if everything makes sense. Really really a lot of stuff went what went into that and it was really useful for me later on. um But professionally, yeah, I was before I was working for four years in the betting industry, online betting, yeah, gaming, betting and gaming industry. And actually there I became a team lead after like six months of working. Uh, and yeah, and that to be honest was, I think, um, at that time it was a little bit too early. So I think, uh, yeah, I was like six months doing that
Stepping Back for Growth
00:09:39
Speaker
job, but I felt I wasn't ready. And I asked my, my boss, like, you know, if if it's possible maybe for me to to go back and to maybe.
00:09:49
Speaker
take a bit more time as an individual contributor and learn more and gain more experience. And then later on, let's see if it makes sense to to to make that jump again. And actually that happened like some two, two and a half years after that. Again, the opportunity knocked on the door and then I accepted and I was more ready than before. So I think it was a good decision. So yeah, that would maybe be an advice. Don't be afraid, you know, jump jumping back and forth. There's there's there's no shame in that.
00:10:18
Speaker
and At the end, like the it depends on you. if you if you're If you're happy, if you're satisfied, if you feel comfortable, you will succeed. It doesn't matter if you're an individual contributor or a lead. Yeah, for sure. I had quite an interesting conversation on on the podcast a couple of months back um with um someone called Bogdan, who is the co-founder one of the co-founders of Unstoppable Domains. And Bogdan was ah explaining that he actually um was made a cto uh only a couple of years into his career and he said actually it was such the the wrong time for him to become you know cto and kind of step into that leadership role because he had so much to learn that you learn all the various different steps from a junior engineer mid engineer senior engineer principal or lead um then team leader and then and manager and this kind of thing there's so many different things that you learn at each at each level
00:11:13
Speaker
um and He said, yeah, he got he got put into that role way too early. So it sounds similar to what you were talking about. Yeah, ia for sure. Like if you take a look maybe you know at some leaders like CEOs and you know from that that grow together with some some startup, that's very rare that you have the same person, for example, like Mark mark Zuckerberg or somebody that's you know been there from the exact beginnings to all the way to the top, I don't know, a multibillion company.
00:11:42
Speaker
very, very rare, I think. So it's usually like, that that means that that person needed to grow together with the company, we need to change mindset, his mindset a couple of times with the growth, it's it's not the same, like having five people 50 and 500 and 5000, completely different thing. So yeah,
00:12:01
Speaker
So where is is there anywhere that you you went to learn, learn that change in mindset? Is it something that just kind of happened naturally over time or? Yeah, so I mean, in in my case, I think I always kind of had an eye on it, i thought that maybe it will come sooner, sooner rather than later. But ah I kind of I think I, you know,
00:12:29
Speaker
the the opportunity came I said okay I'll try I usually through my whole career and I very rarely said no to things and maybe that's also a good advice I guess I think even Richard Branson or somebody has a similar like say yes and then figure it out later so so I think that's that's something that I did a lot and
00:12:55
Speaker
Yeah, like after that, you struggle a bit, but I always learned ah on the job and outside of the job. That's something also that maybe at some periods in your life and you have more time and less responsibility, you don't have maybe a family and stuff like that, you can invest more time in your self-development. And that's what I did. i In the evenings, I would read books and watch, I don't know, Udemy courses. There's a lot of, especially today, you have millions of awesome materials to to work on basically whatever you want. I mean, not only coding, like leadership, there's a bunch of courses on Udemy, on LinkedIn, on on on wherever. So so yeah, that that's also something that I did. And books, for example, of course, like awesome books and blogs. And you can follow on Twitter various people who enjoy writing writing
00:13:48
Speaker
on these topics. So yeah, I think that that will be it. That will be it. And of course, if you're lucky, if you have a mentor in your company, that will boost you a lot. So yeah, that that's also something. But if you are um unfortunately don't have such a person, then I think books and videos, will educational videos will be the but second best resource to learn. I think quite a few people struggle to find good mentors really Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah for sure. And that's I think our responsibility as maybe emerging leaders or current leaders to be that person, you know, since you you've you've seen yourself maybe struggling and maybe trying to find somebody, okay, then you try to fill that gap, you know, not only in the company, but maybe with little kids, you know, and and people, you know, in your life in general, like try to try to, you know, maybe
00:14:47
Speaker
not to be a pain in the in the A, let's say, but you know try to set an example with with what you do, how you do things. And maybe people will, you know after some time, they will see, OK, these guys may be doing some things right. I should maybe ask him or you know try to try to learn some things. And of course, ah we all never stop learning. I think we'll learn for the rest of our lives.
00:15:15
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. I agree. I agree. I think having that growth mindset is key, especially when you're when you're in an industry like Web3, right? I mean, everything's changing all the time. So yeah yeah if you don't have that mindset here especially, yeah yes that's tricky. yes it Did you always know that you wanted to be an engineering manager then? like that Was
Work-Life Balance and Leadership Approach
00:15:36
Speaker
your is that your goal when you started?
00:15:40
Speaker
Well, maybe not not in the beginning itself. I really enjoyed the coding and solving issues. As I said, at the beginning, guy it was it was like ah it's a super fun.
00:15:53
Speaker
But maybe some somewhere you know in in the back, I thought it it would go in that direction. I mean, it kind of always found me in the end, like playing sports, I was sometimes elected as a captain or, or you know, in in the classroom, you got elected as some kind of president or something. It's kind of, you know, it was like, I don't know, somehow somehow it always found me in the end. So yeah, it's there, it's there, I guess. And when I, when I thought I was ready, I jumped in. Okay. Got to give it a try, right?
00:16:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. as you said yeah And ah do you do you have ah goals to go on further? but Is the goal to be a CTO or the founder of your own project one day? Or do you have that goal in mind? Well, ah definitely, definitely. um You know, but I would say up to a point while it's fun, I guess i I want to have at least I personally want to have some kind of good balance you know between between having you know quality work fun. And I mean, it can be always fun, of course. But if you you you know if you do them you know like plus and minus, it should always be more pluses than minuses when you draw the line at the end. So that that's something that I would want to keep some kind of balance between those and to see you know how how far I can get.
00:17:27
Speaker
you know because I really personally don't believe in working, I don't know, some crazy hundred hour weeks and stuff like that. I think that's, that's, you know, kind of a problematic, uh, problematic mindset today. Um, and yeah, that's, that's something I wouldn't want. I mean, okay, for some periods of time you have crunch, crunch time, you need to release something. That's okay. but
00:17:58
Speaker
you know During extended periods of time, it will burn you out. It will burn everybody out. It's it's poor management. It's poor poor planning, poor whatever. you You need to do better before coming to this situation. So so yeah, that's that's that's that's my you know that's my view on these things. And if you know if i if I can get to higher levels ah with a nice work-life balance, then sure.
00:18:26
Speaker
But if not, I won't be sad. Yeah. I think i think it exists somewhere, that work-life balance when you get up to that level. I think it depends on all sorts of stuff, right? The team you have around you, the projects, maybe what stage you're at as well. Obviously if you're joining really early stage startups, you're probably going to have to work a lot and and all this kind of stuff, right? But ah but those types of roles definitely exist.
00:18:51
Speaker
but But you know, um like early stage startups, what do they do? They say, okay, I will sacrifice, I don't know, five, six, seven years of my life. I will work right like crazy. And then we'll see if we do an IPO or we sell the company, everybody will, you know, net.
00:19:08
Speaker
a nice sum of money. And then after that, we will see, we'll have fun. you know I think that's that's inside of everybody's mindset when they're starting into that. And that's completely fine. you know but i'm here like for the ten years I'm here in industry for the last 10 years, and I went through a couple of these cycles. And now I'm in a little bit different situation. You have like family, a couple of kids, and all of that. And then like do you really want to you know sacrifice not seeing your child I don't know, for two months. That's kind of tricky. Everybody should ask. I mean, that's up to a person. I wouldn't tell anybody, listen to me. It's just that if you're okay with that, then it's okay with me. It's just my personal opinion. Fair enough. So could you talk us through what a day in the life of an engineering manager at Space Yard looks
A Day in the Life of an Engineering Manager
00:20:05
Speaker
like?
00:20:05
Speaker
So as I said, I think a lot of a lot of people would be thinking, you know what? I really want to get into ah to engineering leadership. And I speak to people all the day that that maybe do similar things to as you described, where you know they think, you know what? I'm going to give it a go. They jump into it. Maybe it's not quite what they thought it would be. um Maybe take them too far away from the stuff they really enjoy in the tech things. And then they go back to being an individual contributor and and go down that very kind of technical path instead.
00:20:32
Speaker
I think it'd be really useful for people to understand what a day in the life of an engineering manager looks like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so just a disclaimer, like, I i think it all depends on the company. Some companies expect you to still have some kind of hands-on dedicated work, like, I don't know, 20% of your time, 30%, some maybe even 50% of the time ask you to do still coding.
00:20:58
Speaker
So it really depends on the company. You should be like aware, it's a broad term, engineering manager. some some Some will need you just to handle people related stuff. And maybe you know high level high level technical things like architecture, decisions regarding you know ah project project management. It's a combination basically. Yeah, so so that's something you need to clear up at the at the beginning.
00:21:24
Speaker
ah in your company or at the company that you may be applying to to to going to work. ah But in my personal case, currently, my day in the life, it looks like, you know, every morning we have a daily scrum. It's 9am.
00:21:40
Speaker
And I personally try to put all meetings earlier in the morning so that engineers can have uninterrupted chunks of the day dedicated to, you know, focus and coding. Because you as probably or already maybe some guests mentioned, you know, all the all the time some interruptions and meetings is, is is you know,
00:22:03
Speaker
takes away your focus and then it's not ah not a good that's a good idea to do. So yeah, that's one that's one thing, trying to you know cram all those meetings as early as possible. So yeah, daily scrum. After that, we have some maybe follow-up calls, one-on-one calls. I usually do them once a month. If necessary, we do them more often, but yeah, usually one one-on-one call with with all of my,
00:22:31
Speaker
all of my colleagues where we talk about you know what could what's potentially bothering them, what is what could be better. you know what's Or maybe sometimes we just have a chat in general. like if if If everything's going fine, the project is fine. Then we talk, as normal human beings do, it's kind of a little bit relaxing. And you know that's that's that's the way we do it. um So yeah yeah, as I said, follow up calls on certain projects. I handle currently three projects in parallel. So you always have something you know that you need to discuss with people. ah you know Maybe try to you know put a little bit more focus on certain aspects because you know when you have a deadline, people maybe you know drift a bit. ah So you need to be there to steer the ship a bit. OK, please. Yeah, OK.
00:23:23
Speaker
For example, I know that there's ah i don't know three possible ways to do this. But let's let's you know take this more simpler simpler approach because we have a deadline. And then we will you know open an issue or whatever and solve it once we have more time later on. So that that's maybe just just one example where you can like gently nudge, let's say. Let's let's call it gently nudging nudging people into a certain certain direction.
00:23:50
Speaker
um oh So what as you already mentioned before, ah blockchain is a crazy space. everything is A lot of things are going on in parallel. So in my in my case, I check a lot of communication channels, Discord, Slack, Telegram, Twitter. There's there's a bunch of you know things that that you need to be aware of, what's happening, trying to you know trying to see potential opportunities. You know you never know what tomorrow brings. As you also mentioned in blockchain, things can change. The narrative can shift in maybe even tomorrow. like There will be some new you crazy primitive, and everybody will want to jump on on on the boat to make the next, I don't know, millions of of of of dollars. And you need to be on top on top of that that game as well. So yeah, that's exploration maybe. you know i'm Trying to you know be on on top of the
00:24:45
Speaker
the new cool thing. I mean, that obviously can come with noise. You need to be able to try, at least try to get the signal out of all the noise. That's not easy, but I guess yeah somebody has to try to do it. Now, what else? like We have meetings with various partners and stakeholders. In our case, it's it's Starkware and Starknet Foundation.
00:25:13
Speaker
ah Those are our partners that we collaborate with and have a really good and and pleasant collaboration. so yeah Shout out to to Starkware and Starkland Foundation. yeah and um After that, you have like various you know we all of our projects are are open source on GitHub. People can take a look. and I go through these issues. ah A lot of the times, some random people open issues. We always check what's going on. and um you know, you even if they if they do a PR or or they ask if they can do some work themselves. And that's when I maybe, you know, take ah get the contact of the person, connect with him on Telegram, for example, and try to explain him some things, how it's going, and try to help that person to to successfully contribute tool to our projects. So that's something that I do very, very often.
00:26:09
Speaker
And it's very cool. I really like that in in the blockchain space and in open source space in general so that you you never know when somebody will really help you with some maybe even crucial feature that that you maybe even don't have time um or something that's nice to have. You don't have time to do it. And then some random person jumps in and you know makes a pull request and everybody's happy.
00:26:35
Speaker
find sometimes there's a bit of an added Do you find sometimes there's a bit of an added pressure ah because everything is open source and everyone can go and have a look? Yes. ah In the beginning, definitely. I was like, you know, everything is public. Everything is like everything. Everyone can see you. It was kind of strange. It was different than than before when I was working in the corporation. But you get used to it, to be honest. You you get more relaxed and you know If you if you like really ah you care about things and it becomes second nature, I guess, writing messages and all of that, it's it becomes normal. yeah so So that's maybe something. Maybe people who are not used to it in the beginning, you'll for sure get used to it with time. So yeah. That's cool. That's cool.
00:27:27
Speaker
Uh, yeah, what else?
Open Source and Collaboration
00:27:29
Speaker
Like, you know, basically planning, of course, like you, you do planning of next steps and, uh, uh, prioritizing issues and tasks. And, uh, I sometimes even write blog posts when, when I have a little bit more time, when the pressure is a little bit lower. And, um, yeah, that's, I think that those are the most, most important, uh, it, it,
00:27:53
Speaker
I mean, code reviews, I don't know if I mentioned, but code reviews are something that's ah that's that's big on my part. At at least try to you know handle all of these external contributors and my own my own colleagues try to help them on that front as well.
00:28:12
Speaker
i called so I didn't code for quite some time now, to be honest. But maybe documentation and things like that, you know you you go through some things and you you know you notice maybe some um issues or something is not explained that well. And there's always work on documentation. And yeah, that's that's that's like that's a huge, everything can be better explained or or I don't know. You can always make some guides, examples. In Web3 and blockchain, that it's it's always something that's appreciated to do, to make it easier for the newcomers.
00:28:46
Speaker
thats yeahs something that I try to do as well. That's cool. Does chat GPT not do that for you yet? Uh, yeah, uh, we, we had a lot of PRs on one of our projects, uh, starting JS, uh, but, and they they are GPT generated, but once you dig a little bit under the surface, you see that, uh, it's nicely formatted garbage, unfortunately. So yeah, it's kinda, you know,
00:29:15
Speaker
I mean, it's, I wouldn't say it's a complete waste of time, but still, um, it's not very good. And I think it's useful for nice formatting and giving you some, you know, things that, that then somebody who knows what he needs to do can input like correct information in that documentation, at least for, for at least that's at least my experience with darkness. Maybe for for some better known libraries, maybe it could be better.
00:29:41
Speaker
But in our case, still like it's still a small, I guess, community. Maybe they they didn't still catch up with with what's going on here. I'm sure they will at some point. Yeah. at some point yeah yeah yeah do you Do you have a favorite part of the role of your job? um Well, well what what gives me personally most pleasure is that when you see that you made some bet that paid off after some time, for example,
00:30:09
Speaker
um One of the one of the key things I did early on when I joined the company was convincing a couple of friends to join as well. And then you were like, you know, it was a bet, you know, bet. You know, the blockchain space itself is is tricky. it's It's volatile. And, you know, we all said like, OK, we are we are betting on ourselves and on everything altogether.
00:30:37
Speaker
And after some months or years when you see it, it it really pays off, then then that's that's something that i think I think that's the most pleasant feeling, to be honest. so Yeah, like I can maybe touch upon that, expand really like the manager is nothing without his people. And especially if you have good people, it makes your life so much easier. If you have responsible people that you don't need to micromanage,
00:31:07
Speaker
i don't I don't recommend micromanaging. Maybe sometimes you need to do it if your people are not maybe that experienced, but when you have good people that that you can like tell the and you can like agree together what needs to be done, and then you can basically you know have peace in your mind that that person will understands it and will do it, that makes your life so much easier. And that's also advice for ah anybody, basically. If you are like an individual contributor,
00:31:35
Speaker
Uh, try to take off the plate of your manager, try to take stuff off from his plate and for him not to worry about it. That will, that will boost your career so so much. And because everybody can, you know, everybody needs, you know, some stuff taking out of their, of their, of their plate and we'll be so grateful. And that will be like for you, it will be a huge boost down the road. So yeah.
00:32:04
Speaker
I may be a little bit digression, but but yeah, that's something that. No, that's really good. I think that's, that's a really good piece of advice. Yeah. To be honest, you make yourself indispensable, right? And then if your manager can really trust ah that they can give you the work to to crack on and do, and you're making their life easier, then, you know, yeah you're going to be top of mind. Yeah, yeah of course. and And, and, and like, really like, for example, hiring, yeah, that's something that I didn't mention before. Like, you also do interviews with potential candidates and hiring That's a that's a big and important thing. But you never know, you know, yeah it's it's very it's not easy to recognize if somebody will really be responsible. And does he really know what he's saying? Or is he lying? Is he whatever? So ah if if you really like if you're that kind of person that's responsible and helping, you know, it spreads, it spreads, it spreads and and and you you make everybody's life easier and maybe potentially
00:33:05
Speaker
try to identify that people through hiring, that's that's a goldmine. Yeah, that's easier said than done when it comes to hiring. Yes, yes, yes, yes. No, I think nobody has quite figured it out, I guess. That's why I think recommendations work work the best, I guess. if you know and And that's actually, yeah, now that you mentioned that that I mentioned it, to be very honest, I got most of my jobs through recommendation. I mean, the industry was in a big climb.
00:33:34
Speaker
the last years maybe now it's a bit going a little bit stagnation but I didn't do um some some crazy interview for I don't know years and years it was mostly true recommendation and then you know obviously you have to perform once you're in the job but but yeah those those recommendations from previous jobs were were were massive massive Yeah, completely, yeah, you're completely right. I think LinkedIn released some stats last year that said that everyone who moved on the platform, ah ah no, sorry, 80% of people that move jobs on the LinkedIn platform moved through a trusted source or recommendation referral, ex-colleague, something like that, which is some crazy stats, considering there's something like a billion people on LinkedIn now or something crazy. Yeah, but I think it makes sense because, you know, even considering if I work to go to a new company,
00:34:25
Speaker
I also have fears and doubts, you know, I, and if I have some friend who is already there, he can, you know, explain to me very, you know, personally, ah like how he can, he can tell me the real story, what's, what's going on, you know? And yeah, I think it it works both ways, you know, for the candidate and also the people who hire, they get a little bit, you know, a little bit better, a little bit better and more, more human story from both sides, I guess.
00:34:53
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I think most of ah probably the last 60, 70% of roles that I've placed over the last 12 months have been through referrals or recommendations from ah people that I know and trust who said that, you know, this person is looking for a job, can you can you find them anything and and you end up placing them, right? um Yeah, such a such a powerful thing, you know, when you can really trust when you can trust that person and you, you know, they're good, like good people, no good people is a is a saying I quite like so.
00:35:22
Speaker
um Yeah, and completely agree. If I can break the fourth wall, I guess, and see what you are personally doing, I think you're doing a really awesome job. like You are really building personal connection with at least how long we know each other, like maybe even two years now. like i you know it's like I don't see you any more like some random guy. you know it's like And I think it goes a long way, you oh you know? And and that's that's that's something that's that's really valuable. And you are doing a really different and awesome job when compared maybe to some, maybe even 99% of recruiters, I guess, in the space. So and all in all tech IT space, not in Web3. So yeah, really, good kudos to you, Jack. Thanks. Thanks. I don't know what to say.
00:36:13
Speaker
Thank you very much. Well, them yeah, I think, yeah, on um I guess I'm on a bit of a mission to try and modernize the recruitment industry, you know, try and get rid of a lot of bad practices and yeah, try and rebuild trust with recruiters because I don't think people have that much trust in recruitment anymore.
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah, I appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thanks. Thanks. but um I know, obviously, even at the the start, you ah briefly introduced us to space shot. Could you just
SpaceShart's Mission with StarkNet
00:36:41
Speaker
give us a little bit more kind of in detail ah view of what it is that you guys do? Maybe some ah some of the types of things that you guys build and and what you're up to? ah Yeah, so so Yeah, originally our founder, founder he ah Eddie, he worked for the Theorem Foundation, like 2017, something like that, maybe a little bit earlier. And he at one point he decided to open his own thing, and that's how Sharp Labs started around 2020, if I'm not wrong.
00:37:15
Speaker
and ah I mean, Eddie was already well, you know, connected with the in the blockchain space. And he was, you know, he's he was always flying to some conferences and and, you know, very active in the community. And they worked with ah Polygon near Ethereum Foundation, obviously. And at some point, a Lido as well. Yeah, Lido, they built ah actually Lido on Polygon.
00:37:45
Speaker
the liquid staking of of the Matic token on on on Polygon. And at at a certain point, they got into contact with the company Starkware. And they said, OK, it was pretty new. it was They didn't even have wallets at that time or anything. It was just like, yeah, let's try and build something cool. And that's how Shardlabs came into partnership with with Starkware.
00:38:14
Speaker
and And that at one point, I'm not sure now which exact date was it, but yeah, I came i came in this phase when maybe a couple of months after ah the partnership with with Starkware was official, I came into the story maybe a couple of months after that and took over basically leading the team of that's building all of these in In my case, developer tools and tooling for developers and some other products like DeFi pooling on top of StartNet, the layer 2 on Ethereum. So yeah, at at at that point, they decided to be maybe good to separate, let's say,
00:38:58
Speaker
you know, space shards will be completely focused on StarkNet, will have nothing to do with with any other ah blockchain or whatever. So so yeah, that's thats that's the that's the story of how, let's say, space shard sharded from shard labs. You know, there's this sharding in in blockchain, the term, so that's that's what we basically did in in our case. And yeah, it's it's growing now. it's it's it's Yeah, partnership is is kind flourishing now in the third year, I think.
00:39:26
Speaker
Yeah, so so it's it's going pretty well. That's cool. So you guys develop tools that help developers ah build better things on StarkNet? is that Yes, yes, yes. yes so So yeah, obviously Ethereum itself has the best tooling and on every although i blockchain, which makes sense because it's the first one and most developers work there and there's most of the money is there.
00:39:53
Speaker
But ah StarkNet, they decided, StarkWare and StarkNet, they decided to take a little bit different path because they valued performance. So they didn't go the the classic EVM route. So they baked in, for example, account abstraction is is baked into the protocol. And you have all of these, you know, now wallets are a little bit different than maybe people are used to on Ethereum.
00:40:20
Speaker
it' ah It gives you better user experience, for sure. But it's a little bit no trickier to to come to onboard on Startnet itself. And you have this new and new like new programming language called Cairo, which is very efficient um to build dApps on top of Startnet. But it's a learning experience. So our mission is to make that developer experience better. And we we have built a couple of couple of tools For example, a local DevNet, which is very similar to Anvil that exists on on Ethereum. It's called Startland DevNet RS. RS meaning Rust. It's written in Rust. So yeah, it's a local local blockchain for testing. The other is we built a plugin for Hardhat. Hardhat is a popular SDK for, for you know, right for writing tests and
00:41:19
Speaker
Yeah, basically trying out your DAP protocol before you ship it on on the mainnet. And the the biggest one probably would be Startnet.js. So it's a JavaScript client for for connecting your DAP to Startnet itself. So yeah, we are maintaining those three libraries.
00:41:40
Speaker
ah We are building one more, one more cool tool that I will not reveal at this point, unfortunately. But we we are keeping this for the StartNet CC now in two weeks, it will be in in in in Brussels. There will be ETHCC conference and StartNet CC and our plan is to reveal it on stage like what will be cooking the last couple of months. Nice. so yeah But yeah, the whole goal is to improve the developer experience on StartNet.
00:42:10
Speaker
in that in our case. That sounds cool. And what is, what's Cairo based on? Is it similar to any of the languages itself? Yeah, originally it was more similar to assembly, I would say.
00:42:24
Speaker
but now it's like an, you know, assembly is like an old machine language before C, but now now it was like a mix of assembly and Python, but now it's more similar to Rust. So if somebody knows Rust, it won't be that hard to to jump over to Cairo. Okay. Yeah. Nice. And are you seeing a developer ah ecosystem growing Uh, quite a lot in, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. Because, uh, we have, uh, I mean, they, they are, uh, investing a lot in in this regard and there's a project or a company called only dust, which is, which is a very cool initiative. They offer, um, ah rewards in terms of in this case, starting tokens before it was USDC. Now it's starting tokens for developers who.
00:43:15
Speaker
want to contribute so that's also some some very very cool thing like you can if you're not sure about the ecosystem whatever you can come to the projects you can see what issues are up for grabs you can try to solve it and you will earn money at the end of the road so it's a very very cool cool way to to onboard the developers and some of them i mean a lot of them actually came and joined the ecosystem full-time after and true true only dust. So, yeah, I encourage everybody who is interested to take a look at only dust and see. For example, we on StackNet.js and DevNet, we have a bunch of open issues that we that are waiting for new contributors. And you will but get paid for that for them as well. Yeah, cool. So like a lot of open like bounty type stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, bounty bounty type stuff. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. That sounds that sounds cool.
00:44:08
Speaker
why Why did you initially take an interest in Web3 and blockchain?
Introduction to Blockchain
00:44:13
Speaker
ah yeah yeah yeah Yeah, so um actually, um it was a bit of coincidence ah around two thousand and sixteen a a mutual friend introduced me to a guy who was building a cryptocurrency exchange in Croatia.
00:44:31
Speaker
and It was a crazy story. like This guy had ah he he has a shop with sunglasses, but in his free time he was trading crypto and and he was a trader on you know stock stock exchange trader and stuff like that. And he really wanted to to and he actually built they built a small cryptocurrency exchange from Roundup.
00:44:53
Speaker
It's called Bitcona. It's still alive, but now it's completely different. so like he like The guy, he needed some new features and that's how he introduced me and it was like a side gig ah to help him build some couple of stuff on that trading platform. And that's a that's my that was my first, let's say, exposure to you know blockchain and cryptocurrency. And then I got hooked and started you know trading as everybody else and you know earning money, losing money.
00:45:22
Speaker
ah You know, the whole, you know, 2017 bull run and you were on the top of the world. Then a couple of months later, you had like, I don't know, 99% less than you had before that. But yeah, it was crazy ride, but I learned really a lot. Really, really a lot. And that's how it started, basically.
00:45:47
Speaker
That's cool. And then you went from there and then did you then start doing some more things in your spare time? Like when, when did you decide, you know what, I want to make the leap full-time into web3? Well, ah full, like I had like this transitioning period where I continued working on this, on this exchange, and doing, doing stuff for them, but then like two, a little bit more than two years ago, I went full-time, like, yeah.
00:46:14
Speaker
early 2022, I made a full-time switch to Web3. Nice. And you do you notice much difference between working in Web3 compared to your time in Web2? Yeah, of course. because um and we We mentioned a couple of times until now, it's it's it's everything's changing very fast. There's a lot of things things missing, which is a minus and a plus, depends on how you look at it. It's a minus because it's harder to get into it, but it's a plus because it's a huge opportunity. You can see things that are missing and build them yourselves and you can gain the reputation and gain, you know,
00:46:57
Speaker
Exposure and fame let's say in the space so that that's why it's kind of ah you know It depends on how what kind of person you are if you see these these Let's say roadblocks is an opportunity. You can really really massively it can Be an upside for you down the road So and I think it's still the case you're still a long way to go to to become like a boring Industry, let's say web 2 maybe most of web 2 I guess ah it will for sure come at some point But I think we are not there yet. So let's enjoy it while while it lasts Yeah, I agree ah Yeah, so I think that I think that's that's that's one of the key things that I wanted to point out like There's a lot of things missing and it's a big opportunity so for example compare it if you want to break into the react you want to become like a
00:47:52
Speaker
I don't know, React's a native influencer in Web2. There's millions of people doing that. You need to be really, I don't know, really, really, really special to maybe get you or build some crazy new library that everybody will use and you'll become famous. But I think in Web3, it's a lot, lot easier.
00:48:13
Speaker
For sure. For sure. And did, did you notice any difference in the way, uh, in your style of management or how you like manage projects, that kind of thing, or is, you know, building software and managing engineers, is that the same in Web2 and Web2? Um, yeah I think, yeah, I think most of it is the same. It's in the end of, in the end of the day, it's only technology. It's a different technology, but it's technology and a lot of, actually a lot of principles that are well known in IT in general, are are are you can see them in in in Web 3 as well. Like some of the, let's say, breakthroughs that are happening are, let's say, some some concepts that are known for a long time in in classical a Web 2 space. So maybe that's that's also something that's still kind of a good, I don't know how to say it, because if, for example, if you're an experienced Web 2 engineer,
00:49:12
Speaker
I think it would be a little bit better to then jump into Web3 than to be like like ah you know just Web3, just going you know deep dive from the beginning. I think i think it's still you know it's it's mor you you'll gain more, maybe, general knowledge. And then you can see the patterns and then apply them and fix stuff on Web3.
00:49:37
Speaker
um Of course, he it may be it's not applicable to every scenario, but I think in average, I think it's a little bit better to go that path. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. You're not the, you're not the first person that I've spoke to, uh, that believes that as well, um, to, to get a real good grounding and understanding of how to build good technology and how, uh, teams i ran in, in web two and then try and then bring some of that across into, into web three. Um, yeah, it's very important to know the domain, like you need to know the domain of any business. Like if you are.
00:50:13
Speaker
developing software for betting, you need to know that domain. You need to know if, or medicine or, or I don't know, you need to, and that's blockchain. Blockchain is just another domain. It has these certain laws and how it operates. Once you learn it, you abide to those laws and try to build on top of that, try to improve it. So yeah, but down the road is is just tech with some limitations, but yeah, trying to come to get through it.
00:50:43
Speaker
Do you think blockchain will ever just kind of morph into the other industry? So obviously at the moment, Web3 is seen as its own industry. Blockchain is seen as its own, you know, industry. But at some point, there will be companies in, let's say, traditional Web2 in, you know, retail or finance or ah Regtech or InsureTech insurance, like whatever it might be, that will start to use blockchain. And then at that point, do you think it will not be not be its own industry, it will just be a technology that's used in the world? Yeah,
Future of Blockchain in Industries
00:51:21
Speaker
I think that's what everybody who is really building in blockchain, who is not here just for, you know, doing meme coins and stuff like that, maybe quick get quick, rich schemes.
00:51:34
Speaker
I think everybody would really love that for it to become like, let's say, invisible, you know, invisible to the end user and just to more morph into everything. I think that would be the end goal. um It's tech, it's here, it has his it has its advantages, maybe some shortcomings, but yeah, like, it's it's I think it shouldn't be seen as a some separate world. I mean currently it is but because because it has its own culture and you know way of speaking and you know everything but it's it's fun in my opinion it's it's it's fun and it's it's kind of gives you a little bit you know some sense of you know community and and everything and yeah I think it's very nice but down the road I believe it will both
00:52:24
Speaker
as you said, and it it should become invisible. like i if if you I mean, if if in 10 years from now, people still need to download MetaMask and install it and hold their private keys somewhere. I don't know. I think it will be a bit... I don't i don't think it will ever reach like billions of users that way. No. I think there'll be maybe different ah different levels of security.
00:52:49
Speaker
So I think you'll always have the, there'll always be the people who want to hold onto their keys and everything, like want to write them down and, you know, put half of them in one safe in a house, a part of them buried under the back garden or, you know, wherever you keep your keys. And then I'm sure there will be other people who want to get involved that aren't really that too concerned about the security aspects of it. We just want to get involved. I think they'll probably be a variety of things, spectrum of yeah spectrum of things. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's it's it's happening already. It's happening already. So.
00:53:19
Speaker
Yeah, but yeah, we still have a lot to do on that front. It's your experience for sure. Definitely. if if someone is If someone is stepping into the Web3 space for the first time, you know, they want to build a career in in the industry. um Is there anything you'd really like people to know or really like people to understand before they become a part of it, before they join the space? Well,
00:53:49
Speaker
rick I would maybe focus on the personal aspect, so I would love for everybody to be enthusiastic and be open-minded and really see, not not to get frustrated with the things that are missing, because as as you already mentioned, there's a lot of things missing, but try to really see that as ah as um as an opportunity to you know hope help the community, help everybody. We're all in this together. And if you if you do ah you know you do a couple of PRs into a couple of libraries that are trying to solve some stuff, you will be happier. The maintainers will be happier. And it's kind of really rewarding. In the in a sense, so I mentioned only dust. You can even earn money that way. And yeah, I think that will be something. like Don't be toxic. Don't be you know don't expect that.
00:54:42
Speaker
everything is solved because it's not. go Go into this space with an open mind, open eyes and try to help everybody and in the end they will help you. I've seen it more than once, you know. People had like, they came into this space and they had a meteoric rise, rise in all aspects, experience, money, whatever, like It's really rewarding if you if you come into this space with ah with the with the right mindset. Because, you know, there's still not that much, I think, ah people in blockchain compared to a regular IT world. So, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Ivan, to finish up, there's there's a question that I i like to ask everyone.
Following Gut Feelings in Career Decisions
00:55:35
Speaker
ah Knowing what you know now about engineering, about technology, leadership, blockchain, Web3, what advice, if you could go back to the start of your career, what advice could you share with your your younger self?
00:55:54
Speaker
Well, ah i I think One advice for sure would be to ah not being afraid of following that some some gut feeling, I think. Because I had some situations when I was a bit younger that I had this gut feeling that I wanted something, but then people would try to maybe you know tell me that that's not right or don't do that on or you know whatever.
00:56:24
Speaker
And I was a bit maybe stressed at some some situations because of that. And now when I see it, when I Think back. ah I did some right decisions. Maybe some of them weren't right, but some of those that were right, I saw that maybe a couple of years later. I saw that they were they were a good decisions. So I can give you a concrete example. When I was younger, I changed pretty quickly three or or even four companies.
00:56:54
Speaker
I was like, I don't know, some would say job hopping, but it was like I didn't find a good place for myself where I had like a good team, um exciting tech, and maybe, you know, a couple of those things. There was always something missing, you know. I tried to learn still while staying at those jobs. I tried to take the best of it and learn as much as I could.
00:57:20
Speaker
But yeah, I kind of had a bit of a reputation among my friends, you know, like, oh, yeah, these guys is hopping around and he's not serious. But I really didn't find a home, you know. And then when I finally found it, that's when I like, you know, sometimes you don't know something and until you see it, until you feel it. And when I found a home for the first time, I was like, yeah, this is it. And then I was at that place for more than four years in in one company. So it wasn't just you know It wasn't just me, it was just like you all trying to trying to find somewhere where you're where you will really ah have the opportunity to shine and show yourself and and you know flourish.
00:58:03
Speaker
So yeah, that would be something for sure that i would I would give advice to my younger self, like don't be afraid. Don't be afraid of following that gut feeling. it will If you're positive, if you're not toxic, you are not the guy, you need to be introspective and you need to be you know sure that you are not the guy who is you know carrying his problems, baggage everywhere. know You have to eliminate that. And after that, you you try to find somewhere where you will be happy.
00:58:31
Speaker
And yeah, don't don't be afraid to to to try and and find find that place. That's great. i Yeah, I hope it makes sense. I like that. Yeah, I like that. that's ah Yeah, that's some some really good advice. But ah even thank you very, very much for taking the time to have a conversation today. You shared some some brilliant tips.
00:58:50
Speaker
and some great advice yeah it was really yeah really cool to listen to your your journey and obviously what you guys are up to um that ah at the moment and and and what you're building if if anyone's listening has any extra questions or they think as we said about like mentors and and things if anyone is thinking you know what i'd love to reach out and ask you some questions about or advice about their career or your journey or more about what it is that you guys are building maybe they want to be part of the ecosystem Are people able to reach out to you on on Twitter or X? Yeah, LinkedIn, Twitter. ah Yeah, for sure. I can you can share um i can share share my contacts wherever, maybe. I don't know how how usually you do you do it, but i'm a I'll maybe write it down here. This is my handle.
00:59:43
Speaker
This is my handle on Twitter and GitHub. So yeah, people can people can reach reach out to me. And my name is on, LinkedIn is just my name, so yeah. Great stuff. Well, yeah, i'll ah I'll tag that in the in the comments and in the description so that anyone listening and and watching can go on and yeah, track you down um yeah online. Yeah, of course, of course, of course. um Feel free to connect wherever and yeah, hope to see you hope to see you in in the StartNet ecosystem.