This week’s interview subject is Wilson Garcia, who came in third place for our Code Maestro Achievement in February! Wilson is an experienced coder from The Dominican Republic who has been programming for over ten years and focuses primarily on mobile development. He has worked for some large corporations, such as Verizon, and has been utilizing Codealike for three months. We spoke about his background and his years of experience.
Q: First question, can you please tell me about your background?
A: I've been working as a software developer for over a decade. I started working as a backend engineer with big corporations, like Verizon. I worked as a backend developer with them for around five years. During that time, at some point, they decided to create a mobile version of the project that we were developing. I decided to take on that challenge. It was my first mobile-based job. I just fell in love with mobile development. I've been doing mobile since then. I've been working as a mobile developer for eight, or nine years. I've been part of a lot of different teams. I've been working on a lot of different projects, in different types of industries. I've been working remotely for a long time now, for around eight years.
I studied programming at university. I have a degree in computer science which I studied at a local University here in The Dominican Republic, and I have a master's degree from The University of Valancia in Spain, having studied remotely.
Q: How has Codealike impacted your daily coding routine?
A: I’ve been using Codealike for around three months. It's helping my work a lot. The first thing I noticed when I started using the tool was a pattern in my behaviour, a routine that I usually have. I never noticed before, but I will code for some time. And after that period, I tend to step away and return later. So that's something that I figured out, I have this weird routine for some reason, almost every day at the same time, I step away from my workspace. And I think seeing those numbers, the first time I saw it my reaction was that I should be working for eight hours without distraction or taking time away from my workspace. So thanks to that, I decided to start using a Pomodoro app to keep better track of my focus time. Now I can tell exactly how long I’ve been working and how long I’ve been away.
Q: Can you share a specific feature of Codealike that has significantly improved your productivity?
A: I think the most effective aspect is, and I don't want to use the word, but the most intrusive feature. The feature that you receive a notification, Codealike sends you information. I go to the website and see my chart and I see that my level is not quite as good as it was the previous day for example. So I need to adjust. I think that's something that helps me a lot. It helps me to challenge myself to be more productive than I was the day before. It is sending data, it is saying, we are recording your productivity level, here is how you are doing. It forced me to be more focused. And it's been fun, honestly, challenging myself. Today, let’s be better than yesterday. Discipline is important, especially when you’re working remotely. Codealike helps you stay on track.
Q: How did tracking your coding activity with Codealike help you identify areas for improvement?
A: Seeing my patterns, such as how much time I spend reading code, how much time I spend, outside my workspace, or at my workspace but not coding, going to different websites etc. It's helped me to see how much time I'm wasting on something that is not productive. I want to grow as a professional and the tool is helping me with that.
Q: Why would you recommend Codealike to other developers?
A: I like to think of it as similar to sport. In sports, you track your time and see how you are performing. Having that information helps you to see the flaws in your game that you probably are not aware of. Codealike helps you identify your flaws, and once you’re aware of them, you can start working to fix them. And again, we are in a remote working world. It's good to have a tool to keep you on track and keep you improving. That's the thing that I like the most. It helped me to figure out those bad habits that I have and put me on the right track to improving those habits.
Q: And finally, what feedback do you have about the experience and platform?
A: Right now, all the feedback I have is positive. I cannot think of something that I would change. Something that I would like to see added perhaps would be integration with Xcode. Also, if we can, instead of having to go to the website every time you want to check your profile, we could have something that you can see on your ID, because it's the tool that I use the most. So that’s it. Other than that, I wouldn’t change anything about how it works, or the functionality or anything like that. I think it's working exactly how you’d want it to.
Wilson received some great personal news on the day I interviewed him, which he was kind enough to share with me. He was in a very high-spirited mood when we spoke, and his passion for coding was infectious. We had a great time speaking to each other and I found him to be a very intelligent and insightful person with a real focus on self-improvement and being the best programmer he can be. Codealike has been helpful to him in that respect and he was very positive on the Codealike experience overall.
