One moment you see him riding his bike on mountain trails, and in the next moment you see him in a spacious meeting room leading his team to new coding heights. They call him “the last samurai.” Why? It’s a mystery, but what we know for sure is that Denis doesn’t say no to exciting challenges that come his way. How does he find the time and energy? Read and see for yourself. 

Tell us about what you’ve been up to lately professionally. 

I've been working at Endava for over a year, as part of the team that develops an ambitious solution for one of the biggest money transfer companies in the world. 

Our mission is to design and implement a next-generation system that will aggregate about 300 apps on a single platform.

The challenge is to develop a generic and, at the same time, highly customizable system developed on .Net Framework/.Net Core (MVC and WebAPI + Angular) and MSSQL DB and based on the microservice architecture, with a great level of performance that will support all the traffic generated by the legacy of the 300 apps.

From the beginning, I’ve been assigned to the core squad that works on the generic and most demanding part of the application. 

We had to learn and apply GRPC for communication, MEF technology for on-the-fly dll resolution, Elastic Search for quick data access, different types of caching and serialization and many other fascinating techniques.

Besides the application development, we did many infrastructure activities related to the AWS services, load-balancing, deployment. We had to improve our metrics and logging tools to provide better visibility on bottlenecks, and as a result, we make lots of performance improvements.

In time, once we started working with client teams located in the other corner of the world, I took on the role of coordinating the team’s activities and leading the Endava side development to support them. 

It means more communication with the client, knowledge transfer, code review, support and surely coding and ensuring delivery.

You are a very active member of the company’s social life. Tell us more about it.

I knew things about the Endava culture way before joining the company, from friends that work here. 

I was curious how it is, so once I joined Endava, I had the opportunity to deep dive into various company activities. After more than one year with the company my “assets portfolio” grew to becoming a member of the internal Agile community, mentoring newbies for two consecutive internship programmes, taking part in the organisation of a one-week long event dedicated to development tools and practices and presenting the discipline and Endava in a series of talks at universities. Not bad for starters, don’t you think?

What inspires you and pumps up your energy?

The answer is people. I entirely stick to the idea that society creates a man. So this is one of the most important aspects that inspires me at Endava – the people. People that I interact with in general and my teammates in particular. People who are committed and professional, who make me want to be more. 

I like that I can share with my teammates activities outside the work zone and the company supports us in doing so through Endava sports and hobby clubs. 

I look forward to spring and to start the cycling season with the Bicycle Club. During summer and autumn, we flex some muscles with my mates from the running club, so we are ready to take by storm the Chisinau Marathon. During winter we hit the slopes with fellow Endavans for ski weekends.

How do your hobbies contribute to your day to day job?

I will tell you about the one that exerts the most influence – Volleyball – for me it is the game that teaches me to play in sync with my team. For example, smaller players are disadvantaged in volleyball. I'm not an exception from this rule, so I enjoyed to be a setter - the player who raises the ball to the teammates, the one who load-balances the access to the ball equally for all members. The setter is also the player who is inspecting the opponent’s weaknesses to exploit them. It gives a good understanding of team spirit and fair play.

Tell us more about yourself outside of work

Of course, the most significant part of my free time is dedicated to my family and to the endeavor of being an extraordinary dad and an excellent husband.

I allow time as well for keeping myself toned physically and intellectually. 

Intellectually since there are always things to learn and books to read, physically, I think we all owe it to ourselves to take care of our health. In my case, I am actively involved in sports like skiing, running, cycling, playing volleyball and ping pong - depending on the season. The good thing is that physical activities can be perfectly combined with family time.

Name some books/tutorials/speeches that had an effect on your career path.

"I think that ordinary people can choose to be extraordinary." I am quoting here Elon Musk, the business mogul’s bold projects are a never-ending source of inspiration.

Currently, I'm reading his biography: "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future."

I like it so far and hope the book will not disappoint me, as it is quite lengthy. 

What advice would you give yourself if you were starting work at Endava today?

Choose to be Extraordinary!