A situation like “You are missing one paper” is unknown to her. In her creative chaos, as she calls her desk, you can find every contract, invoice, greeting card, note or long-forgotten phone number. She is someone who laughs loudly and contagiously. Although she is mostly the oldest in the team, the spirit of the student did not leave her. That is why most of her colleagues would characterize her as - joyful. And for some unknown reason, she always has the strangest costume at masquerades.If the repairman is needed in the middle of the night, she has a man. If anything needs to be fixed urgently, she has a man. If you need to find a rare whiskey, a book, an animal :), she has a man.She is Dragana, known to us as Jana, and for 5 years we have had the privilege to spend every working day with her.Happy five years of work and to celebrate beautiful moments together for a long time.

• What would you advise yourself 5 years ago?

Nothing, just to take the best from every situation I’m in and to be patient. Time is the one that teaches you wisdom and gives you experience.

• Do you remember your first day at work?

I remember that I was very happy and fulfilled. We were in the old office, 15 of us. I had a beautiful welcome from the whole team. Everyone worked relaxed, with music, and then, I got the nickname Jana. I was not into it the first time, but later I got used to it.

• What people don’t know about you?

I don’t know why, but they don’t believe that I know how to cook. Everyone thinks that my husband does that in my house.

• What would you never give up?

Sea and chocolate.

• Which moment is most memorable to you?

Halloween, when we organised a celebration with cocktails and masks...and our New Year’s celebrations as well as Team Buildings and hanging outs till dawn… And of course you Nađa, as my roommate on all trips :)

• Do you hang out with colleagues out of work?

When we have time, we gather together and there is always some good food around. Now, with our kids, private gatherings became bigger.

• Which of your professional skills do you consider to be most valuable?

Persistence and communicativeness. I have a specific way of communicating with people that turned out to be very successful. To be honest, I really love my job and I think that communication is my strongest skill. There lies my success.

• How would your colleagues describe you?

I am someone who cheers people up and lifts the atmosphere in the office.

• How much paper went through your hands?

A lot. Tons, I think.

• What is the secret to keeping old binders?

We have to keep them for 5 years, that is the role…There is always documentation that is needed at some point, and I personally have a small archive in my desk that is not thrown away. Sometimes I’m the only one who can save the day.

• What are the verses of Jana that you like the most?

I don’t listen to that kind of music but I do like the song Hajde Jano konja da prodamo….Often Nebojša (my husband) says to me - Jana, please make some coffee.

• What kind of coffee do Neša and Đole like to drink? ( your postmen)

They eat candies, they are my super postmen who helped me a lot during the lockdown last year. Those two men are always willing to meet our needs.

• What is the difference between management and worker-ment? :)

It’s a great thing that when you know the difference and you don’t start to act arrogant once you move up to a higher position. That famous sentence came about when some young colleagues clumsily became interested in ‘who is who’, of course in a humorous way, while we played darts. Then I had to explain ‘who is who’, right? :) First ‘who’ is management, the second one is worker-ment :)

• Do you have some totally irrational fear of something?

Fear of loneliness.

• Weirdest food that you have tasted?

Chinese and I don’t like it.

• If you are not an administrative manager, what would you be?

Stewardess, that was my wish since primary school. And to study geography, that was my favourite subject. And then, I ended up studying law…

written by KIM NOVAK

Wouldn’t it be great if all of the code we work with was written in a way that it’s completely clear what it does? And that we could easily make changes without breaking it? Sounds good, but it’s not that easy to do so. To get to that level we need to change our mindset a bit.

React apps grow very fast. The project gets more and more components, the codebase grows, and just when you think you are done with a component and forget about it, there are change requirements for it. You analyse the code of that component, try to understand what the author had in mind, even if the author is you, and you stumble upon a condition that you have no idea why the author put it there. You start trying to understand why that condition is there and which use-case can trigger that path and that takes some time. Could all of that be escaped? Yes, at least partially. As a React developer, with or without experience we encounter these situations on a daily basis. What can we do to improve code quality and make our components reusable and maintainable?

Improve Naming

You can improve naming by analyzing how the libraries you use named and designed the API you are consuming. Sometimes we tend to use names that are too descriptive, and you (most likely) won’t see such cases in the libraries you use. When naming functions or variables I ask myself these questions:

• What would the most intuitive (instead of the most descriptive) name for this be?
• Is there a standard? If everyone names the variable ‘i’, if I name it ‘x’ it might be confusing
• Is it clear what it represents?
• How much information can I get out of the context that my variable is in? If it’s clear that the variable is related to the context it’s in, there is no need to repeat that information in the variable name. (User.id instead of User.userId)
• Keeping names simple and intuitive makes the code more readable. Easy to read code is easier to understand and thus easier to maintain.
  
  Examples:
• filterWhenTimeUpdates() → filter()
  When a time update is an event that we will respond to by calling the filter function. In code it could be something like this:
• useEffect(filter, [time]); Which makes it clear that we will trigger the filter whenever the time is updated
• shouldFetchNewData → shouldFetch
  You most likely won't have a case where you would fetch old data
• hourOfDay → hour
  We would automatically put an hour in the context of the day
  allComments → comments
• It is used with the same meaning in mind as just comments. Usually, when the arrays are filtered, we don't mutate the array.
  

useLayout({                           useLayout({
columns,                              columns,
rows,                 →               rows,
spacing                               spacing
});                                   }, [columns, spacing]);

We can borrow the idea from built-in React hooks and design our hooks in the same way. We can pass a list of dependencies to our custom hook as a separate parameter. This way, in one component we can have this hook triggered onMount only, while in the other component it can be triggered whenever column or rows data changes. Since we are passing the list of dependencies as a separate parameter the same way that built-in hooks do, it will be intuitive to React developers what our intention was.

Don’t Put (a lot of) Logic Inside of the JSX

The Component will be easier to maintain if the JSX part or the Presentational part of the component contains as little logic as possible. If we had the need to refactor or modify the component for some reason, we could do it a lot faster if most of the logic comes from non-JSX parts of the app.

Reuse Selector Pattern Idea

If you have worked with Redux you’ve probably heard of the Selector pattern. This pattern lowers the amount of effort we have to put in when the data structure changes. A selector is a simple function that receives some data and returns only a (selected) piece of that data.
Data structures tend to change in the early days of development. When that happens, if we are using the selector instead of accessing the data directly in our components, we only have to make a single change. That change would be inside of the selector. If we didn’t use the selector we would have to make changes at each place the data was directly accessed.

What if we were to do something similar everywhere in our components?

If we don’t depend on the data structure or the source where that data came from, every change that occurs will be easy to implement. The goal is having to make changes in a single place only.
How can we achieve this?
We could write selectors and/or use object and array destructing. Note that this takes up more memory, but the code becomes easier to maintain.

Comment Your Code

You probably read that comments are bad and that code should be self-documenting. My opinion is that code can’t say everything. I have been in so many situations where I had no idea WHY the programmer wrote some piece of code. Not to be confused with WHAT the code does because that we can read and understand. What we cannot know is which use-cases the developer had in mind when the code was written. Maybe we will break something if we modify that code. There could be some business rules that cannot be explained with code or at least the person who wrote the code didn’t manage to do so. If the author of the code had left comments on why that piece of code is there, it would have saved our time. The problem with comments is that they usually aren’t maintained. People modify the code and not the comment. So the comment ends up having false statements. Thus, maintaining comments would be another tip. A stale comment could be worse than no comment if it misleads you.

Extract

When the component has more than a couple of hundred lines of code it gets harder to read (I prefer to keep it under 300 lines of code). More often than it happens in smaller components, the order of defining things gets easily messed up. It’s easier to maintain logical units when the component is fairly small. From my experience the bigger the component gets, the messier the code will become.
How can you ensure that your components stay small? By extracting! You can extract utility functions, custom hooks, new components, constants, type declarations and/or mock data to separate files.

Organize

Establish rules when it comes to organizing code. Make sure each directory and each file are organized the same way. Strive for consistency. Organized and consistent code will boost your performance because you won’t have to scroll through the whole file to find something, you will know exactly where to look first.

We can always apply these tips inside our React components and make them easier to maintain and reuse.

Our Developers Know How To React!

Using React to it's fullest potential is not an easy task, but Quantox React developers are up to the task. Their goal is to improve the code quality and make the components reusable and maintainable, and create strong React apps and solutions for our clients. Do you want to build a React app? Let's Talk!

written by N. Stevanović

What is Grid?

Grid is a very useful CSS tool.  It is a two-dimensional system for website layout organisation and it helps a lot to present and place elements on it.  It can be compared to flexbox which is a one-dimensional system. The one-dimensional layout has elements in one row or column, and in a two-dimensional system elements have to be arranged in various columns or rows. Otherwise, both systems are better than the old ways of arranging layouts. The old way involved the use of float and in-line block options, within which the appearance of a website was often very uncertain. By using the Grid tool, you can solve layout problems and develop your website more efficiently.

When Do We Use It?

In most cases, Grid is combined with a flexbox tool. This combination can improve the whole layout organisation through the website development process.

Example

• In the picture below we have one container with container class and child elements (elements contained in a container) called item.

• We need to adjust the CSS by setting display: grid

• After container making, the next step would be to put sizes for columns and rows by using grid-template-columns and grid-template-rows options. Please note that here the sizes in pixels are given arbitrarily, while in a specific code you have to enter the exact pixel size for each row and column so that the layout turns out as you imagined.

• Setup of child elements by using grid-column and grid-row would look like this:

This completes the initial creation of the container with the grid elements and you get a nicely planned layout of the site. As with flexbox, the way grid elements are arranged is not crucial because CSS itself allows their reallocation. This is why creating a mobile layout application is much easier, because, through just a few lines of code in CSS, a grid layout made for a desktop can be adapted to a mobile one.  

When Can it Be Difficult to Use Grid?

Problems can occur if older versions of browsers that don’t support Grid are used. Fortunately, there is a Can I use website so that can be easily checked. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced programmer, you should carefully study the documentation before using this tool to avoid making any room for possible errors.

Quantox- Using CSS Grid for Better Results!

Quantox has the best way of implementing complex design layouts with CSS Grid. Masters of all trades, we know what to use and when to use it for incredible web development results that will promote and boost your business. No web design is to complicated for Quantox. Let's Talk!

As the title itself says, Ivan is a man with many talents. Besides coding, his passion is also fishing. He is a former amateur actor but also a painter, so when inspiration knocks on the door, it often means that his family will soon enjoy one more beautiful canvas.For the past 5 years, he has been part of our team in Čačak.  In his opinion, colleagues would probably characterize him as a strenuous man, but just so you know - when we asked our designer to do graphics for Ivan’s interview, her instant reaction was - Đorđević? The best team lead ever :)Thank you for your commitment. We congratulate you and can not wait to spend many more years working with you.

• Do you remember your first day at work?

Absolutely. It was much more relaxed compared to previous jobs.

• Who or what influenced you the most to become a programmer?

A friend from college who I tried to overcome, but without success :)

• What is that people mostly do not know about you?

I suppose a lot of things, especially because I am an introverted person.

• What would you never give up?

Coffee.

• Which of your professional qualities you consider to be most valuable?

Stubbornness always helps me to push till the end and not to give up even when it seems that I will not make it.

• How would your colleagues describe you?

Probably as a ‘strenuous’ or ‘hard’ man.

• How do you start your day at work?

Like most of us - with a cup of coffee.

• We know that you have a lot of talents. Tell us about the hidden ones :)

Acting and writing were things that I did a long time ago, and they are part of the past. Nowadays, when I’m not in the best mood, painting is sometimes a choice. When partying with friends is on the menu, me singing on the mike is definitely part of the night (even though I’m not a good singer at all, but others think that is not true :))

• The weekend is your time for?

Family, nature, fishing, a good movie.

• If you were not a programmer, you would be?

Probably doing some work related to cybersecurity or working in a department of high-tech crime :)

Initial recruitment steps in a fast-growing IT industry can be really challenging. The range of technologies and activities that developers use is really wide, and every day we have additional frameworks or language that show up and promise to put PHP out of use and charm developers, at least temporarily. Our job, as IT recruiters, is to recognize, approach and show interest in a certain profile of the candidate (often in a short time). It is important that we know what the company needs in the first place and that we base our search on that. What makes this process a lot easier is a large number of widely available tools. This time our focus will be on the LinkedIn Premium feature of Smart Search.

Why Premium profile?

Although it increases the initial cost of the recruitment process, it is really helpful to overcome many challenges that this process has. Advanced search and suggestions supported by artificial intelligence are very useful. There is a possibility for the direct contact of candidates without the need for connection and if a larger team uses paid services there is a possibility of organizing and tracking candidates in one place. This way, paid services to facilitate coordination and efficiency.

Advanced search advantages  

As with regular search, we use Boolean syntax during the advanced search because it makes it easier to search and target specific profiles. Quotation marks, parentheses, NOT, AND, and OR operators still have significant application.

For example, we will start with the maximum qualifications for the position itself, and use the NOT operator for systematic filtering and finally finish with the minimum qualification. Eg: A,B,C - desired qualification      D,E - must have the qualification and finally      F - implicitly desired qualification.

Beside Boolean, what else can be used?

Filters are something that a regular LinkedIn account doesn’t allow, at least not to the extent that is available within a Recruiter account. Filters are very useful in narrowing the criteria because we can target specific experience, skills, companies, schools/institutions, years of experience….

Example

We received a request for a new React position. It is stated that knowledge of JavaScript, React, Redux and MaterialUI is mandatory. It is desirable that the candidate knows and understands the Java language (because the Backend project was written in Java), and we want to target candidates from the Serbian market. Since the position is directed towards the medior level, we don’t want to go too much wide in our search, but to determine the years of experience in the industry. In that case, our filters will look something like this:

Advantages of LinkedIn Premium

LinkedIn Premium enables:

• Better and more relevant search results
• Creating a database of candidates for certain positions
• InMail contacts
• No limits for the searched number of profiles

When not to use a Premium profile?

If it is available to you, there is no reason why not to use its filters and all other advantages. However, it is a totally independent question whether the scope and specificity of the position you aim to fill justify investing in Premium features.These are just examples of the possibilities offered by Boolean and Premium filters. We encourage you to experiment, add, subtract and modify search parameters. The result will be closer to what you need if you can define what you are looking for. Happy hunting! Igor S & Igor S

At the beginning of this year, we set out a new business venture. After expanding to the foreign market, we are opening another office, the jubilee tenth in a row.We have been advocates of IT decentralization for many years. By opening another office in Serbia, in Ćuprija, we prove that we adhere to our ideology and we continue the trend of developing the potential of young people in local communities.

‍Why Ćuprija? The reason is simple. Many years ago, an idea was born right there - an idea that would be realized a few years later and become Quantox Technology.With 15 years of experience and a team of over 300 employees, the developers from Ćuprija will have full support in their work and further progress.In the last few years, we have had cooperation with the Gymnasium in Ćuprija.

‍We reward the best students with scholarships, and we also contributed to the development of the IT department in that school.Students' interest in the new program is great, which is reflected in the growing number of those who attend the new course. That is why we decided to give knowledge as a gift to Ćurpija- we will organize an internship program so that all those who sailed into IT waters have the opportunity to upgrade, expand and learn everything they will need for independent work tomorrow. Our experts from all offices in Serbia will be in charge of implementing the practice in the best possible way.

‍We invite you to join us. Take the opportunity to improve your skills by working on huge and challenging projects.

As part of the Quantox team, you will also be able to take advantage of the benefits we have provided. Our offices are equipped with special care so that the work runs smoothly and we have many years of experience in mentoring.Do you want to do the job you love in your city, among friends and family? Information about open positions in our company you can find HERE!

‍We are waiting for you. Join us!

What Are Live Templates?

Live templates are predefined functionalities in almost all JetBrains IDE programs.

When Can We Use Live Templates?

They are recommended if you want to increase your productivity by placing the code line that you would probably use the most into the Live template. It will save your time in further coding. Most people that are working in IT are looking for ways to cut time spent in development so they could do other stuff. Like working on some personal projects, or, in my case, playing darts with my colleagues. This is one example of achieving that.

How Can We Implement Live Templates?

My advice is, whenever you come across a block of code that most likely will be used occasionally in a short period of time, take a few minutes to add it inside Live templates in order to save time by calling it with a small change.

• Dialogue with live templates can be found inside Preferences -> Editor -> Live Templates and it looks like this:

Even when you install PHPStorm, you can find some predefined templates which can be a good base for you to learn how to create a structure for new ones.

• You can also choose the way you want to call templates. It can be ‘Tab’, ‘Space’, or any other key combination.

• Let's go through an example of adding one template for Laravel Framework. One of the ideas is to use it as relations inside models. The first step is to click on `+` and choose `Live template`.

• Next, you need to fill out a new template.

-Abbreviations (text that you will type in order to call the template)

-Description (description popup)

-Template text (template body)

-Context (the context in which the template applies)

-Edit variables (dynamic part of the template)

-Expand (button to call the template)

• After adding the template, next thing is to continue with editing the dynamic part of the template by clicking on `Edit Variables`. Save all progress and go back to the Editor.  
• Let's see what happens if you open Post model class and you add-relation with User class.

By typing template abbreviation that you`ve just created, you will get a popup with a suggestion.

• Use the `Tab` button to fill out the block code on places where the cursor is and places you have chosen to enter manually. Every next Tab press will lead you to the next place until they are all filled out.

The final look of block code would look like this.

When Using Live Templates is Not Recommended?

If you are a beginner and want to go through the complete learning process step by step, then it would be better not to use this functionality. Later, when you need to be faster, use Live templates and save your time.

4What's Behind the Efficiency of Quantox Developers?

Using Live Templates is just one way how Quantox developers can expedite the software development process. We know how to use IDE programs to increase our productivity, while keeping the code readable, reusable and secure. If you need an IT solutions fast, we have ways of cutting the development process time. Let's Talk!

When we asked how his colleagues would describe him, the answer was simple - Liverpool. Besides being a huge and passionate fan of this club, Sladjan has been part of our team for 5 years, and our Joker - at the masquerade. :) He is working in our office in Čačak as a Backend programmer and he has a lot of experience and achieved results. Hanging and working with Sladjan is a great pleasure, we congratulate him for 5 fantastic years and say a well-known quote - With us, you’ll never walk alone!

• What advice would you give to yourself 5 years ago?

Don’t be afraid and have more confidence in yourself.

• Do you remember your first day at work?

Yes, I was extremely nervous.

• Tell us something that people don’t know about you.

I’m afraid of public speaking.

• What would you never give up?

My family.

• Which moment was the most impressive for you?

First New Year’s celebration with the company and getting know people in the right way :)

• The weekend is your time for?

Rest. And some beer if the situation with covid allows.

• Something that you did and wouldn't do it again?

Trying absinth. That green fairy is definitely not for everyone. :)

• What is the weirdest food that you ever tasted?

Bear prosciutto

• What would you be if you weren't a programmer?

Definitely some other job that involves working on a computer.

Today, you will see a valuable member of our team in front of you - Miloš. He has been training karate for many years, he loves chess, music, movies and besides all that, he says that his favorite hobby is work. He also participated in our conference and you can see his lecture here.

• Is it necessary to have an artistic spirit to be a designer?„Yes, but practice and the will to work and study mean a lot more.”

• What else does it take to be good at your job?„First of all, you must regularly follow the trends and always keep up with them. Important factors are perseverance, motivation, and inspiration.”

• How did you learn?„My interest in design arose fifteen years ago while I was working in printing houses. First I learned graphic and then web design (along with HTML and CSS) which I still do today.”

• What’s the most interesting thing you’ve done so far?„I participated and won international competitions, and as the most interesting thing I would single out the fact that I designed a can for Heineken beer for domestic markets and won first place in the Carlsberg regional competition.”

• Would you like to learn a programming language?„Yes, PHP and Java. And I would also like to perfect the HTML and CSS I learned at the beginning of my career.”

• What attracted you to work at Quantox?„The fact that the company is serious and the team is great. Before I started working, I received recommendations from colleagues, first hand. I also liked that the company works with strong clients and that there is room for improvement.”

• What would be the best project for you?„My best projects are those where I have no restrictions, ie. I have complete freedom.”

• What are your impressions of the conference?„I would have preferred if the conference was live, but now the situation has dictated that it must be held online. That would be a bigger challenge for me.”

• Are you satisfied with your performance?„It's weird when you hear yourself teaching. It helped me see some things about myself, and to know which segment I need to progress. Certainly a very big and nice new experience.”

• Did you have stage fright?„Yes, for the first half-hour of the lecture and not for the last 10 minutes. 😁 I realized I knew what I was talking about and that there was no need to be nervous.”

We did an interview with a guy who knows how to rule the chaos. Yes, we are thinking about the chaos caused by programming. 🙃He is 27 and he works in our Ukraine team. His name is Ivan and he is PHP addicted.

• How did you decide to become a developer?„That was plan B if I don't succeed as a Sound Engineer.  Programming was pretty easy for me, and university teachers said that I`m pretty talented. I’ve read a lot of material, learn how to develop in my free time, and in the last year of study, I found a great opportunity to start a programming career.”

• Do you know or would you like to learn any other programming language?„It would be better to learn some additional technologies that could help me in the working process. I'm a PHP evangelist, so for me, there are a lot of great languages, but PHP is a leader of web development and kind of compromise over different language approaches.”

• What motivates you the most at work?„When I see that my job brings results - the happiness to clients, money to the company, and developers.”

• What do you like the most about working in Quantox? „I am free to choose hours, and there are a lot of experienced colleagues to help me with troubleshooting.”

• If you need help you go to (which colleague)? „Ivan Karanjac supports me all the time, and for the “developers discussions” I have Movsar.”

• Laravel or Symfony?„Symfony.”

• Work from home or from the office?„Office - like it a lot!”

• What are your impressions of the conference?„That was my first experience with conferences as a speaker, also the first time I was speaking in a non-native language. But I did it well because I prepared in time.”

• Are you satisfied with your performance?„Yeah, sure! Next time will grab more time for speech.”

• Did you have stage fright?„Not a lot of, but got a little shivering. 😅 I have a lot of experience in public communications, but not related to developer stuff.”

Damjan is a developer, animal lover, horse rider, MTB biker, scuba diver, tennis player (veterans league), and the pilot of ultralight planes. Besides all this, he is part of our fantastic Macedonian team for the past 9 months. Read more about him below, and watch his lecture at Quantox Virtual Conf here.

• How did you decide to work with Android Security?„During my career, I had the option to work in a security area. It was an amazing experience and a really big challenge for me. Also, I learned a lot of new interesting things and increased my skills. It's a really big plus in my career.”

• Do you know or would you like to learn any other programming language?„I'm working with PHP and Python (including DBs, REST API, microservices, servers, payments, etc). My next goal is to learn Machine Learning. I passed the intro course and I hope that I will have an opportunity to become more advanced in the ML area.”

• What do you like the most about your job?„Quiet environment with great benefits like flexible working hours, working from different places, and solving the problems as a team.”

• Why did you choose Quantox?„Q had the best offer on the market compared to other companies.”

• What do you like the most about working in Quantox?„First and foremost I would like to highlight that I meet great colleagues. I would also mention the opportunity to work on interesting projects.”

• If you need help you go to (which colleague)?„Vladyslav Skliarenko & Anton Homutenko.”

• Favorite Quantox benefit?„I like the option of working from home and/or working from any of Quantox's offices.”

• If you weren’t a programmer what would you do?„Most likely a farmer.” 🙂

• What are your impressions of the conference?„The conference was a good idea in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. A great opportunity to learn something new (especially for the new guys/ beginner developers), an opportunity to check your skills, to investigate something, to spend your time quality instead to sit in front of the desk, and to do nothing.”

• Are you satisfied with your performance?„I had a huge stage fight. Every time when I need to do something in public, in my head I'm doing it the worst possible. Maybe it is because I didn’t have much experience. But one is for sure, I would do it again only if I have a very good reason.” 🙂

Petar is a passionate coffee lover and a master at preparing it. So it is with programming. He uses various technologies - Front End, Back End, DevOps. He loves hackathons - he was in the winning team twice. Peter also likes to participate in meetups and conferences, he is the organizer of NišJS meetup.Besides that, he was one of the organizers of our Quantox Virtual Conf and his lecture is available here.

• What did your development path in Quantox look like?„When I started, I only did Angular (Front End) but I learned fast and I started getting involved in BackEnd tasks. After only half a year, I became team lead. More projects and dynamic business has led to more engagement. Then we started working on our big project Review Network and after that, I was a CINO.”

• What motivates you the most at work?„The feeling when you have a problem and you solve it. And when you imagine something and then you do it in reality. That is a great satisfaction.”

• Do you have a secret source of creativity?„Cool ideas for the applications often come up from the daily chat with Hamato.”

• When did you realize you wanted to be a programmer?„As a very young child because my dad is a programmer. From a young age, I watched him do something and then I would try it too, so it would irritate me if I didn't know how, and that's why I was determined to learn.”

• If you weren't a programmer would you do?„I would work in a coffee shop.”

• What attracted you to work at Quantox?„The dynamic atmosphere, cool people, plenty of room to progress. I immediately liked the fact that I didn't feel like I was at work, but like I came to enjoy, hang out and do something useful.”

• Tabs or Spaces?„Spaces all the way!”

• What are your impressions of the conference?„I think it was great because everything went spontaneously and since it was our first, it went well. There were no major omissions and there were a lot of people making me happy. I also had fun making a conference site.”

• Are you satisfied with your performance?„Yeah, I'm always satisfied when I prepare something in one day and it comes out to be good. We had some changes in the schedule and I had to "hoop-in" at the last minute, but I didn't mind.”

• How did you gain experience as a lecturer?„I have always loved to share what I know and to teach others so I have always been happy to participate as a lecturer at meetups. But I did not enjoy preparing the lecture but the improvisation itself. So when you do that a lot of times it becomes a habit.”

• Do you still have stage fright?„I have, but it's not the same anxiety as before, because when you have a public appearance several times, you know that nothing bad can happen, and even if it does, it's not a big deal.”

Igor Stamenković comes from Niš. He is part of our HR team and works as a recruiter, and was also a lecturer at our recent conference. He says he has always wanted to be involved in programming and software development. His father was involved in programming and design too, so that love for computers was born at a very young age. He graduated from the high school "Bora Stanković" in the field of informatics, but he realized that it was not his calling and then he decided to enroll at the Faculty of Philosophy - Department of Psychology. His fields of interest are social psychology and learning theory. Quantox was the company that gave him the opportunity to unite his two loves. 

• Is the job of a recruiter difficult?

„My feelings for work are mixed. I think that it is not emotionally difficult because working with people and the desire to contribute to their success is noble and that is what fulfills me. We, recruiters, are fighting for a better future for people because we give them the opportunity for a new, better job and at the same time for the benefit of the company and the general growth of the IT community in Serbia. But I must admit that it can be hard when the workload is increased.” 

• What is the hardest thing when it comes to working with people?

„As I mature, I think that cynicism and passive aggression are the hardest for me. When people are not honest in communication and conceal their motives and thoughts. This makes every conversation quite difficult, not only in the professional sphere.” 

• Have you ever regretted your choice to become a recruiter?

„I haven't had a chance yet and I hope it will stay that way in the future. Every job has ups and downs, so, sometimes I think I made a mistake but these are brief moments of reconsideration.” 

• What prejudices did you have about IT people before you started working with them?

„The truth is, I had prejudices. I thought that everyone had to be university educated and that they necessarily had to learn more about engineering, but as I became more and more involved in IT, I realized that it was not necessary.” 

• Recruitment or HR?

„Both because it is ideal to do tasks for both. It gives me the impression of how we function and on the other hand it brings dynamism to the business and prevents monotony.”

• Favorite Quantox benefit?

„It used to be remote but now it is not a benefit but a necessity. I liked the attitude of the company, that the health of the employees is in the first place, so with the first signs of the Covid19, the team was sent to work from home. In Nis, we were one of the first companies to decide to take that step.” 

• What are your impressions of the conference?

„Mixed but definitely positive. I really liked the idea as well as the range of topics. The lecturers were qualified and professional to talk about their topics.” 

• Are you satisfied with your performance?

„Yes, I am. There are things I can improve but overall it was good. I wish I had a live audience.” 

• Have you had any experience before?

„I had experiences when I lectured to college students. I like to have performances and to address people.” 

• Which other lecture did you like the most?

„Although I've watched almost all the lectures, I can't decide on one. Džavrić had a very nice lecture and I also liked Vojo's, which was concise and specific. Uroš explained everything thoroughly and impartially. Petar's lecture was also honest and interesting. They were all great and quality.” 

This time, our interlocutor is Vojislav Branović. Vojo is 31 years old and lives in Čačak. He has been working at Quantox for almost 8 years and he has started as a content writer. Two years ago, he decided to study for QA and officially changed his position (and job) a year ago. In his free time, he plays basketball, likes hiking, and reading books.He was also part of our recently held Quantox Virtual Conf and you can see his lecture here.

• How did you decide to embark on an adventure and re-qualify?

“At one point in my career as a content writer in the BPO sector, I reached a level where there was no room for advancement and then I realized that I wanted and needed to learn something new in order to improve. and increase earnings, and the company met my needs.”

• Was it hard?

“It was not difficult, it was very interesting for me and I would do it again.”

• Who helped you the most in your studies?

“Mentor on the course I attended. I learned the rest myself, from the internet, and the material I got from school.”

• Do you have any advice for people who are thinking about retraining?

“Learn something new every day because in that way you can advance in your career and avoid the monotony of working in the same job forever.”

• What are the biggest challenges in working with clients?

“To understand what they want because they are generally not precise enough when setting tasks.”

• The favorite anecdote with colleagues

“It's hard to say because things that happen spontaneously and remain as a fond memory for us might not be interesting or funny to others, but I'm happy that I work in a company where situations like that occur on a daily basis.”

• Can you recommend some books?

“Yes, "Dark Tower" by Stephen King, "Kosingas" - Aleksandar Tesic, and "The Shack" - William P. Young”

• Favorite Quantox benefit?

“Friends.” 🙂

• Are you satisfied with your lecture at the conference?

“Considering that I have never given a lecture before, I think that I was solid. I would love to do the same again.”

• Did you have stage fright?

“I would be lying if I said that I was not, but I learned in sports to turn it into a positive stage fright that better affects my performance.”

Our colleague Uroš Anđelić from Belgrade took a few minutes and chatted with us. He revealed to us that he has been working as a programmer for 3 and a half years and that he is self-taught. He first learned Java and then PHP, Python, and JavaScript. He also shared his knowledge and experience on Quantox Virtual Conf, and anyone who hasn’t watched it can do so on our Youtube channel.

• Which programming language would you like to learn?

“I try to keep up with new technologies. At the moment, Node is interesting to me, I would like to learn GoLang as well.”

• How did you decide on Java?

“I wanted to make Android apps so Java seemed like a good first and generic language. But by chance, I started doing backend with PHP and I stayed on it.”

• Do you have ambitions to become a full-stack?

“I would like to have my own start-up one day, and in order to be able to do that, I need to know how to do "everything". So, yeah, I do think in that direction.”

• Recommend a book or tutorial that you used while learning?

“The book “You don’t know JS” is one very handy source. There is no single author, but a group of professionals is constantly updating it in accordance with the development. It's free and available on GitHub.”

• What misconceptions do people have when it comes to learning programming languages?

“You need to pay for a course and give money to learn to program. Plenty of quality content is available online and for free.”

• What was the best project in Quantox you worked on so far?

“I bring the best experience from one short project. It was made from scratch and with the latest technologies like Laravel and React. It is in my opinion a kind of ideal project.”

• Laravel or Symphony?

“Laravel.”

• Angular or React?

“React.”

• Tabs or spaces?

“Spaces but by pressing the tab.”

• Are you satisfied with your lecture at Quantox Virtual Conf?

“I am. This was my first experience of this type, and I would definitely try again as a lecturer.”