In this #KeysightLife interview, we take a look at Bogdan’s experience as a DevOps Solutions Architect at Keysight Technologies Romania. Bogdan’s journey with programming languages started early in his childhood and continued up to the point where his passion became his job.
How did you decide on a career as a programmer?
My passion for computers started around 2nd grade when I discovered an IT Club at the National Palace of Children. Later, driven by curiosity, I became very familiar with Basic, Pascal, C, Assembly Language, Cobol, and in the 4th grade, I joined the Olympic team.
In the next few years, I discovered more about databases (DBase, FoxPro, Access, and VBA) and built my first big data application (fully featured accounting software for my mom in 6th grade). During my high school years, I got my programmer analyst certification and started some part-time jobs. Everything from there was related to coding, testing, networking, test-driven development...
What projects are you proud to have been a part of?
I was lead QA for IxAdmin, Test Conductor, and Test Composer; as a developer, I started with HL API and IxNetwork.
I also worked (outside Keysight) on some very interesting projects related to automotive (CAN communication), solar energy, and energy storage (MODBUS communication and SCADA networks). For example, I studied and worked on a protocol to charge a certain brand of cars using the CAHdeMO protocol, which involved communication with solar inverters (MODBUS communication), controlling the charge of high power batteries (BMS), and learning a lot about battery chemistry and solar energy.
What’s a typical day in your life look like?
Busy :) When I have less work to do (holidays, for example), I usually start other programming projects related to IoT and home automation or some Scratch robot programming with my two daughters.
If there was one thing you would change regarding the open-source community, what would that be?
I don’t know… Open-source is full of unmaintained and unstable code but is also a source of inspiration and resources.
If you could choose to work on a project to make the world a better place, what would that be?
I’m still trying to figure that out, but if I knew, I would be working on it.
What are some of your hobbies?
Besides the IT fields (IoT automation), I also enjoy driving (though not recently), traveling to new places, hiking, biking, and swimming.
If you were to start over your career as a programmer tomorrow, what path would you choose?
Same.
What should a programmer expect from this career?
Nothing less than doing what you like… and, of course, many hours of debugging the missing “space” in your code :)
If you were stranded on an island and asked to do your job with only three things, what would you choose?
Besides my wife and kids, I would need my laptop and a car (I don’t go on stranded islands where I can’t drive).
What attributes/skills make a programmer successful?
Passion for what you do and trying to put yourself in the user’s place before actually building the product (trying to picture how the product should be used from the user’s points of view).
How do you get “in the zone”? Hyperfocused, not to be disturbed, only you and the code.
I just get there, usually by turning off my hearing aids.
Keysight Life is a series of interviews where we put a spotlight on different projects, with the help of the people who made those projects possible.