Interviews

Daniel Sousa, A Certified Magento Developer With 8 Years of Experience, Shares His Journey With Us

Interview With Daniel Sousa

Today, we have another Magento Developer with us, Daniel Sousa, who works at Mini Exchange. With over 8 years of experience in Magento, Daniel is a strong evangelist of coding best practices and methodologies. And oh, he’s a Certified Magento Developer!

Let’s start the interview with Daniel!

Muneeb: Daniel Sousa, it’s great to have you with us today. You are currently a Magento Developer at Mini Exchange. Please share some highlights of your career with our readers.

Daniel: My experience with ecommerce started back in 2000 when I developed shops in OsCommerce.

I created a big florist marketplace for the portuguese market using Magento CE as base.

Later in 2012, I was invited to join Rocket Internet as the Team Leader and during that period I had to leave Magento for about 2 years in order to properly stay focused on my role. But that happened to be a good experience as I came out with more knowledge and know-how of other systems and frameworks.

2016 was a great year. I helped build one of the most successful online food delivery platforms in the Nigerian market, Chicken Republic, and then I proudly started working on the biggest marketplace in UAE, MiniExchange (recently rebranded as Sprii  both built on Magento. Getting my Magento certification was the icing on the cake!

Recently, I released a Magento 2 module that rebuilds URL’s rewrite.

Muneeb: How long have you been working with Magento and what’s your reason for connecting with it? What challenges did you face initially & how did you tackle your problems and difficulties?

Daniel: I have been working with Magento since 2008, and I confess I moved to Magento like a lot of other developers that at the time worked with OsCommerce.

The transition was smooth and was a jump to a reliable, solid, and powerful system. At the time, the lack of documentation was the biggest issue and the existing forum was my greatest help.

Fortunately, now we have much more documentation to read and a huge community that is always available to help.

Muneeb: You are a Magento Certified Developer. What’s your recommended learning platform for Magento Certification? In your opinion, what are the advantages of being a Certified Magento Developer?

Daniel: There are a lot of good knowledge bases but I used these ones to consolidate my knowledge:

The main advantage of being a Magento Certified Developer is that you’re a recognized professional. That enforces confidence from your clients, managers, and team mates.

Muneeb: With the release of Magento 2, there are a lot of changes in the platform as compared to Magento 1. What would you recommend to those developers who want to upgrade their skills from Magento 1 to Magento 2?

Daniel: They should consolidate their design pattern knowledge, unity tests, and start studying Knockout, jQuery, and RequireJS.

I think the most important thing is to know how to use all these new concepts and frameworks.

Muneeb: Magento is very popular around the world. What advice would you give to the merchants thinking about moving to Magento?

Daniel: Be prepared for a versatile platform that is growing everyday with a great community willing to help you out.

However, this isn’t a click and install system – it should be installed and maintained by experienced developers.

Muneeb: What advice do you want to give our readers about learning Magento? What would your advice be for Magento newbies?

Daniel: Start reading about Design Patterns and PHP 7.

If you have any doubt, I’m sure that Magento community is willing to help you: visit the community forum, create an account, and start looking for answers.

You also have Magento StackExchange. And look for a community nearby because I’m sure you will find developers working on Magento.

Muneeb: Please tell our readers about your typical day at work? How do you manage your work-life balance?

Daniel: I’m a remote worker, so I don’t leave my home to go to work. Yeah, I’m a lucky guy! That gives me more time to be with my family, to myself, and to invest on my career.

I start working at 8 am and finish at 5 pm. I have some Skype calls when necessary and the rest of the time I just code, code, code! Well, I also chat a lot with my coworkers.

I believe the secret to balance the work and life is to stick to my schedule because it’s easy to forget time when we’re in front of the screen.

Muneeb: What do you like about your job the most? What makes your office so special for you? Can you share a picture of your workplace?

Daniel: I’m always creating, solving problems, and helping others to solve their problems too – I couldn’t be more passionate about what I currently do. Well, my office is special because it’s my home – I have the opportunity to make it fit my personal needs and taste. It’s perfect and cosy.

Here is a picture of my workplace:

daniel sousa workplace

Muneeb: How do you enjoy your free time? Do you like playing games, watching movies, or hanging out with friends and family?

Daniel: I go to the gym twice a week and ride my bicycle at weekends – yes, I believe it’s important to keep myself active in my free time since I spend so many hours in front of the screen. I love to take walks with my friends and family too.

Muneeb: Motivators and influencers inspire each one of us. Where do you get your inspiration from? Name some people who have inspired you in your personal and professional life.

Daniel: From the Magento community, Ivan Chepurnyi, Marius Strajeru, Vinai Koop, Anna Volkl and Frabizio Branca.

 I’ve already had the opportunity to meet some of them in person and learn from their experience.

As a personal inspiration, I admire Leonardo da Vinci: he was a multitasking genius that broke limits and was always looking to creatively improve the world around him.

Muneeb: Who would you like to be interviewed next on Magenticians? You can recommend your friends or people who have notable contributions in the Magento Community.

Daniel: It would be great to see an interview of Ivan Chepurnyi. He is a great developer who has been bringing a lot of improvements to Magento practices. I’m sure he has a lot to share.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to be a part of Magenticians  ;)

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