Ramir Mesquita is a Fullstack Developer at X-Team whose main focus used to be Java, but who now focuses on JavaScript / TypeScript. In this interview, he talks about his day-to-day work, the technologies he enjoys working with most, and some of the challenges he has faced as a JavaScript Developer.

What are you currently working on? Walk me through a day-in-the-work-life of Ramir.

I'm currently working on X-Team's internal projects. More specifically, I'm working on the main HQ, both front- and backend. The team is very organized, independent, and super helpful, so it's pretty nice to work on this project. Everything is well-documented and tested, which makes it easy to onboard and start coding. It's been a super cool experience so far.

I usually try to start my day by reviewing some pull requests and by doing the hardest things first. But after our baby was born two months ago, that routine is now slightly more flexible, since our nights are sleepless 😀. The good thing about working remotely, and especially for X-Team, is that you have the flexibility to make your own schedule.

What's the technology you like working with most and why?

I started programming back in 2006, when I took a computer science course. From then up until only a few years ago, my main focus was Java. Many of my certifications and courses are about Java. But I increasingly enjoyed coding with JavaScript and its related technologies, such as Angular and React/React Native. So I decided to shift my focus to those languages.

I haven't regretted it so far. In fact, I'm so excited about the constantly improving JavaScript / TypeScript and its third-party solutions. The community is huge and every day it seems like new features and libraries are released. I particularly love what React is doing by increasingly simplifying things.

In summary, I've decided to focus more and more on JavaScript, which comes with improving my frontend skills, since my focus was mostly on the backend before. JavaScript is amazing, light, and flexible, and TypeScript adds to how safe it all feels😃

Tell me about the biggest challenge you faced this year and how you solved it.

My biggest professional challenges were almost always related to some kind of integration (or cache!). Particularly when you had to involve multiple teams.

The biggest challenge was integrating the authentication service of one of our partners into the solution we were building. The hardest parts were that there wasn't a lot of documentation, that it was difficult to test, and that the feature team was mostly in Asia. A global team usually isn't a problem, but there was no async-first culture, which made it more difficult to solve issues during the development process.

Still, we managed to solve it before the deadline hit, because we anticipated some of the integration issues that would probably come up and gave the other teams enough context beforehand so they didn't lose too much time on them. It all worked out fine in the end 😃

What were some of the biggest lessons you've learned this year, work-wise?

This has been my first year working remotely, so most of the lessons I've learned are related to that. They are:

  • Set expectations: Every time I did not properly set a client's expectations, by asking him about a deadline for a release, feature, or even a bug fix, things were more difficult. I learned that I need to actively ask for these things, so the partner has a better idea of what they can expect when 😀
  • Communicate more than you think you need: As developers, we tend to underestimate the importance of good, constant communication. As a remote worker, that becomes so much more important, and it's often the difference between success and failure in a project.

Amazing lessons! Thank you for your time, Ramir.