One year at Namshi

One year at Namshi… and it feels so good!

When I decided to leave Malaysia I had several options: London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Singapore and New Zealand. In the end I chose Dubai, or better, I chose Namshi. I had positive vibes, so I told myself, “Let’s move to Dubai!”.

In my career I had other awesome, engaging and knowledgeable experiences, but there was always a missing piece. At Namshi I can finally say that I found the working and challenging environment I was looking for.

Working on a product

I think the best way to professionally grow as a developer is by working on a specific product and then seeing it evolve. It’s amazing how you can fall in love with it and be eager to push it forward.

I still remember how excited I was when we improved our API performance, you should have seen my face: like Charlie in the chocolate factory.

Of course, working on a product is not enough; you need a really good working environment and an enlightened management to complete the scenario.

A young and informal environment

At Namshi I found people from all over the world and everyday I can learn (and eat :D) new stuff from different cultures. It’s also funny when we start making jokes about cultural stereotypes with each other.

Another thing I really appreciate is that even if you are an intern or a junior, you can still make a difference: no matter your “level”, your thoughts and opinions are always welcome, even if you discuss with a managing director.

For me it’s the first time working for a company with different teams, who I have to interact with everyday, not just the IT team (IT CROWD anyone? Well, it’s the opposite!).

These are things that you can’t take for granted.

A well established Engineering culture

This is what made me choose Namshi over the other offers. Being a good coder is not enough to be a developer, it’s just part of the job, there is more.

For me, and for Namshi itself, a developer is someone that understands the domain, someone that loves to share, someone that helps other people in the team. Additionally, someone who is always curious about what’s happening in the IT world, someone who is not afraid to experiment with new technologies and someone that is more product-and-customer-driven than code-driven.

That’s why we, from time to time, publicly release code on github, or post on a tech blog or have a pull-request-review process where everyone in the team is encouraged to take part.

That’s also why our tech stack evolves quickly, embracing the latest technologies and platforms: it’s like being in wonderland. Creating and maintaining such a culture is not easy, but it’s really rewarding (thanks Alex for starting this ).
As a friend of mine once said: “Lone developers are gone”. You can’t build a successful product alone.

Personal Growth

Thanks to Namshi, I’m not only growing as a lead developer, but I have a chance to show other devs at conferences what we are doing from a tech point of view: This year I went to the US, for the first time, and Germany as a speaker: it was amazing!

It feels so good to work at Namshi where valuable people sometimes leave the company for a new opportunity and then they come back!

So what more can I say? Thank you Namshi!