Jon and Shurakshya work in Digia's API team developing and building APIs. Both of them joined Digia after training, Jon joined Digia through API Hackatemia and Shurakshya through Coding Factory. They both encourage people to apply to these kinds of trainings.
Jon joined Digia after API Hackatemia 2017. Jon applied to API Hackatemia because he wanted to learn more about APIs and his school didn't have courses for it. At first he was nervous to apply because he didn't have any previous experience about building APIs. But now he is lucky that he applied. There were good lectures about basic introduction to APIs and chance to work with real-life business cases with the help of professionals.
At the API Hackatemia Jon was part of team that built an application that used AI and APIs to recommend clothing based on Twitter account. Their team won the API Hackatemia at that time. That was his first touch of building APIs. He thinks API Hackatemia is a good way to show your knowledge and motivation, and a chance to get a job offer. After joining Digia he has been working with Microsoft Azure, IBM DataPower and Amazon web services. He has been working in various projects building APIs and micro services to ease people's everyday life.
Jon is currently working on his thesis at the same time as he works full time in Digia. He says that Digia has been flexible and supported his studies and encouraged to finish school.
Shurakshyas first touch with Digia was in Coding Factory, where Digia was one of the companies providing the tasks for attendees. Digia's task was about using APIs and calling them correctly from back-end to make websites work properly. It was an individual task and Shurakshya was announced as winner. Digia was impressed by her solution and recruited her to work at Digia. Now she is working with Azure logic apps, publishing and creating APIs and building data integrations.
Shurakshay did her internship at Digia, she says that the practical experience has enhanced her studies and she has been able to benefit her studies in the real-life projects.
In the API team everyone is learning something new all time, since technologies develop, and new ones come up frequently.
They both think that it is important that Digia supports developing employees' knowledge and gives time to learn new technologies and education. They say that Digia's API team has a great team spirit and everyone is helping each other. Even though they started as junior developers, everyone in the team were supporting them and gave time to learn technologies. In the API team everyone is learning something new all time, since the technologies develop and new ones come up frequently.
They believe that in the future AI and IoT will be the next big things affecting they work. They also believe that API developers must think more and more about the end users and business cases where APIs are being used, not just the technical side of what makes a good API.
They like working with APIs because APIs are used pretty much everywhere, that makes it flexible to work with various projects in different industries. They believe that in the future AI and IoT will be the next big things affecting they work. They also believe that API developers must think more and more about the end users and business cases where APIs are being used, not just the technical side of what makes a good API
They encourage people to learn even the basics of APIs, since they are used more and more everywhere. They think that working with APIs is good for someone who is willing to learn new stuff and keep up with the ongoing trends. It is also important to somehow understand business side also, so that you can build convenient APIs for the end users. But most importantly to have good attitude and motivation!
They think that API Hackatemia is a good way to start your career with APIs. Since APIs are not taught in universities, it is important that these kind trainings are held. They encourage people to apply even if you didn't have any previous experience about APIs. They think that there are too many stereotypes that everyone else has been coding since they were five years old, but that's not true. Shurakshay would especially like to encourage more women in to the API world. She thinks that women are more likely to apply to front-end jobs, but she says that back-end, APIs and integrations are equally interesting to work with! If you can work with front-end technologies, you have as well of a chance to learn back-end technologies and APIs. Digia will also organize Women in tech breakfast in March. Stay tuned for more info.