Meet Merix: Michał - Drupal Developer

Michał has been working with us since May 2012. He's a Drupal Developer with great experience, and we can rely on him no matter what size and what scale the project is. He saw the potential of Drupal some time ago and today he's a real virtuoso of that open source solution. Besides, Michał is a bike lover - he comes to work by bike even if it's cold and rainy.

• Tell us something about yourself.
  Drupal Dev. When it comes to code, I'm a stickler, but not in everyday life. I like what I do and I like do it right. Due to my age, some of the colleagues call me "grandfather".

• What are your main responsibilities at MerxiStudio?
  First of all, I create and develop sites based on Drupal. Besides, I have a lot to do - projects consulting, estimates, looking for the best solutions or being of help for less experienced buddies.

• What is important to you while working?
  The most important for me is an order - in a project structure and code. If I get sloppy code, I can be mean ;)

• Tell us something about beginnings in the company.
  I've been working here for more than three years. I remember my first project that I got after I grew into a job. And I correctly remember that I badly overreach myself. The project was rather big, but I was sure that I could handle it. However, lack of experience came into play and caused the delay (this was the only one commercial project when we worked on Saturday to finish on time). It wasn't edifying, but for me motivating to work harder and improve my knowledge. I learn from my mistakes and there was no more work on Saturday :)

• You've been working in MerixStudio for a long time. How has the company changed at this time?
  When I started working at MerixStudio, the company consisted of a dozen people (now in our team is over 40 workers what simply shows how MerixStudio developed). There weren't a rigid division of a frontend and a backend, so I did some front end jobs at the beginning. I think that division which we have now was a big step for the better quality of our works.

• Have you learned something while working at MerixStudio? What?
  First of all, I've learned how I should do analysis and estimates. My first estimate was flawed. Skills came in time, and with them, I got my experience. Now I know that good estimation of time is often priceless.

• What do you like working at MerixStudio?
  The separation of frontend and backend - those two departments have different competencies while working on projects.

• What cool things have you worked on at MerixStudio?
  The MBA course for WSB. A good specification is a happy developer. And in this case, we had it. Also, because it had a lot of ajax, the project turned out to be absorbing "from inside". Besides, it was necessary to write custom-made Drupal modules. When you look at that website, you might think that it is simple and not complicated. But under the hood of that site are offbeat, original solutions that any Drupal modules would provide. The project which I have to build from scratch, I like the most, because of joy it gives me.

• Why did you choose Drupal?
  It was a coincidence a little bit. I came into contact with different web technologies and tried to choose the one when I was working as a freelancer. And then I had to create quite a big service based on Drupal. Working on that project was a great lesson for me and I didn't want to waste that knowledge. This is how all of this started.

• First thing you do when you get to the office
  I open window.

• What do you do in a free time after work?
  Cycling. Running. Cooking (or rather learning cooking). Cabaret.

• Where is your favorite place in Poznań?
  The Zielonka Forest... in the suburbs.

• Beer or vodka?
  At the beginning two shots, then beers.

• Dog or cat?
  Dog, especially big and shaggy.

• The website you visit the most.
  Youtube.com

• If you could only visit one website for the rest of your life, what site would that be?
  Youtube.com... and I would watch some cabaret ;)

• If you could have your dream job, what it would be?
  Member of the Gaming Commission, or hotel manager on the Azores.

Read previous interviews. If you have some questions, let us know about it and contact us! ;)