Meet Iliya Idakiev. He is a Google Developer Expert (GDE) in Angular and Web Technologies and he has been working with JavaScript for over 7 years. He teaches at Sofia University and has been running his own company (Hillgrand) for almost 5 years where he develops various web applications. He likes to organize and participate in JavaScript events and he and his team have a YouTube channel (commitjs).
Today he is here to answer some questions you probably have about the process of becoming a GDE.
What inspired you to become a developer?
How did you become a Google Developer Expert?
What is the process of becoming a Google Developer Expert?
What is your experience with contributing to open-source projects?
“When you are working on some application and you are using some modules, at a certain point you will start to discover issues with these modules or new features that can be added. If you have time, you can fix these issues or add new features and make a pull request. This is a way to become a contributor.
Another way is to open-source the useful libraries that you developed in your projects.”
How do you relax?
What are the projects that you are working on?
“I mostly do private JavaScript-related training. I like live coding, which is much more interesting and effective for the students. One of the biggest projects we developed is the Front-End of a customer portal for monitoring and controlling off-grid and hybrid power systems. It was very challenging, and I am proud of this project.”
When do you realize that you are successful?
“This is other people’s decision, not mine. But I can say that I succeed when I accomplish my goals.”
What tips for success would you give?
How did you manage to stay motivated?
“Going to meet-ups and knowledge sharing is very good and useful. This will keep you awake and inspired.”
What advice will you give to young people who study at University?
Do you have a favorite book on programming?
“I would recommend books like “Clean Code”, “Clean Architecture”, and “Enterprise System Architecture”. It is wise to invest time in something useful for your field. Also, GitHub is the best “book” that I would recommend.”