Dev Interview = Success!
Starting this journal entry by quoting myself feels a bit self-entitled, but then again, I did end the last journal entry with this:
“My hope for the dev interview process is that it will lead to interesting case studies that we can include in our documentation as neatly detailed ‘how-tos’ (referred to as Recipes in our docs).”
I think it’s just awesome that right after this was published I had another integration dev interview which led directly to a Tutorial (ok, not a Recipe, but still…).
I wanted to follow the customisation process top to bottom, including the creation of TypeScript interfaces for the Events being treated (which the project I took inspiration from didn’t have).
As I had hoped to, I ended up having to get my hands dirty. We don’t provide a types-bundle for the network in question (but we will soon — big partnership announcement coming!), so I had to create one manually with the help of one of our devs.
I initially got stuck, but facing problems, getting some help, and overcoming them is part of the dev experience. It was necessary for me to get through it!
So all in all, I feel very happy about this, and it makes me look forward to the next adventures! 😛
The Open Ocean Council Program
Another very positive event since the last entry is the Open Ocean Council Program picking up steam with the Quest to build a Quest Management System (insert ‘Inception’ memes here…).
In order to get this off the ground, I had to design the workflow for the Quest, draft the specs, and spend some time researching if a Discord bot could do what we needed it to do in the first place. Furthermore, I had to look into the Discord bot library documentation and explore what was actually possible. I didn’t want to ask for something that was impossible to develop!
This is quite an interesting aspect of this role, as it gives me the chance to engage with the developers who submit proposals for tools like this. It’s also part of the community-building efforts I hope to provide to Subsquid on an ongoing basis.
Part of the reason I enjoy this aspect of my role so much is that growing up, the idea of being a freelance or external participant in an open source project seemed outside the realm of possibility. In my family, the security and stability offered by working for a company was paramount, so I ended up working for a few companies in my career while living in several countries across Europe.
I have never worked for a “big corporate” company and instead joined two different startups among my various roles, and yet I remained curious and a little jealous of independent developers. It’s still something I am attracted to, and it’s a joy to be able to collaborate with them and hopefully help them thrive by providing interesting challenges for them to solve. I’m really looking forward to doing it more!
Docs update
The documentation for our v5 has finally been published. I don’t consider it a final product, however, as only the more introductory parts are done, but this is an important step.
I’m talking about the Key Concepts section which explains our architecture, the foundational notions of our software, the Tutorial section, and some Recipes.
Likewise, I am optimistic this will prove to be useful to all the new devs stepping into the environment, who are in dire need of a data transformation solution for their Web3 projects.
What’s left now is the juicy bits, the more tech-infused and denser pages, destined for those who already know their way around our SDK and only need a refresher, or perhaps some very specific information.
Our CEO, Dmitry, has given me some useful pointers on how to progress on this, so I have a lot more studying, testing, playing around, and, ultimately, writing to do in the following days! Stay tuned for updates, especially regarding the Reference section.
Parting words
I have always been a user of open source projects, and now, for the first time, I am part of one. This gives me the opportunity to watch from up close the development of software from a new perspective, which is already a thrilling experience to me.
This is what I have been searching for since my university days: engineers converging to work on something out of passion for a shared interest. The best part of being here now is that it reassures me that my hopes and dreams are real and attainable. I am seeing the results with my own eyes.
This community is full of great people and great minds, and it is exciting to think about what can be accomplished. I want to contribute by making the Subsquid ecosystem grow and prosper.
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