Val Karpov - Principal Engineer at Booster Fuels, Maintainer of Mongoose.

Val and David reveal key skills that define a senior engineer, how to develop said skills, and how to overcome anxiety in public speaking.
Talking Points: 
  • Open Source Project
  • Writing Skills
  • Self Promotion
  • Key differences in Junior and Senior Engineers
  • Developing Code Ownership
  • Creating Tech Talks And Blog Posts
Quotable Quotes:
  • “I absolutely recommend taking over an open-source project. It’s a great way to get experience.” - VK
  • “Writing is a very important skill, especially in modern times.” - VK
  • “Written [ instead of spoken ] information can be extremely valuable to people as they can search for it after.” - VK
  • “[ Promoting yourself ] can be off-putting to a lot of developers, but it is something if you want to get from junior to senior, you need to push through.” - VK
  • “To be a senior engineer, you need to be someone your manager wants to promote to a senior engineer.” - VK
  • “Being responsible for things going wrong you need to have both the self-responsibility to go in and fix it, as well as have the peace of mind that you are doing your best.” - VK
  • “Even if you can’t fix it now, you won’t get fired for it tomorrow.” - VK
  • “Always stay calm no matter what you see happening.” - VK
  • “Sharing your ideas in a confident manner is great for demonstrating your leadership.” - DG
  • “Giving talks and making blog post can give you the recognition you need to have your resume pulled out of the pile.” - VK