“Building Software Is a Team Sport. The Team Is Stronger Than the Individual”
How long will programmers stay this much in demand in Bulgaria, and what does the future hold for this attractive sector? Veli Pehlivanov, a cofounder of Resolute Software, talks about what sets Bulgarian IT specialists apart and whether a career in programming is still worth pursuing. With colleagues and kindred spirits he built a software consultancy that wants to offer a model of its own and already works with clients on four continents.
02Will There Be a Bulgarian Author? Book Picks from IT Leaders, Part III
Would you have guessed that Bulgarian IT leaders read Harry Potter, or even Dostoevsky? I wouldn't have, at least until a week ago, when I asked them and it turned out they do. On the eve of the Day of the Buditeli, I invited 30 remarkable people to recommend three favorite books to the readers of Digital Stories, and today I present the second half of their answers.
03“Anyone Can Be a Programmer. It’s Time More of Us Were Engineers!”
Ivaylo Kenov is an inspiring teacher who has helped countless people become programmers, a shy man who stumbled into the profession after realizing civil engineering wasn’t for him. After years at the head of SoftUni’s development team, he now leads a company with an ambitious goal: to remind the industry that building software should be an engineering process, not just coding. We talk about whether anyone really can become a programmer, why finding a first job feels so hard, and how the engineering approach got him from a doctor’s warning that he might never walk to 150-kilogram deadlifts.
04“Money Is a Poor Master. It Has to Serve Higher Purposes”
“Happiness is a state, but not a goal. It is a conscious choice.” Atanas Simeonov is a proven entrepreneur in many unexpected directions, who has gradually added the digital world to his traditional offline ventures. Digital Stories has hosted engineers, writers, even a priest and a conductor, but this is the first time the guest is someone who has made entrepreneurship itself his calling, and, through the Endeavor platform, a means of changing the world around him. Where would he start if he were starting today? Can entrepreneurship be learned, or is it a matter of luck or talent? Is artificial intelligence a good direction for investment, and is it the field that will let Bulgaria achieve real success? Where is happiness, and why are billionaires so often missing it? When will we learn to value our health and take care of it?
