Meet the Team: Paulo Silva, Senior Frontend Engineer

Paulo Silva is a senior frontend engineer based in Coimbra, Portugal.

He speaks Portuguese and English and has worked at zkipster since early 2015.

Paulo, tell us about your career before you arrived at zkipster.

"I started computer programming and building websites as a teenager, while I was in high school. I’ve always been interested in using technology as a tool to build something tangible and I still enjoy working on and developing my own ideas. Over the years I’ve worked on a few fun side projects with friends.

"I was born and raised in Coimbra and also studied for my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at the university there. I studied Computer Engineering and in my final semester I did some teaching at the university and worked in research. This made me realize that I wanted my career to have more of a practical focus, in which I could use the skills I’d learned.

"My first job was at Critical Software, a well-regarded software service company also based in Coimbra. It was a great place to learn and grow from being a junior engineer to a technical manager. I got to work on different projects and with different clients, and I really enjoyed the variety.

"Projects included ones for banking, telecoms and defense clients, but for my first project I helped test software for helicopter maintenance, to help guide ground engineers.  It was a really interesting project, and shows how many different uses software can have."

Tell us about your role at zkipster.

"When I joined zkipster in 2015 the Product team was very small and a lot was outsourced, although David Beinhauer had joined the year before and was already working on the backend. I took responsibility for working on the frontend of the zkipster web application.

"Back then the major functions were guest list and event check-in, and my goal was to develop new features, or ‘add-ons’, as we called them then. As a frontend developer, I build screens and user interactions with the web version of zkipster.

"Seating was the first big ‘add-on’ I worked on, and it was a big challenge. It has a different look and feel to other features and is more dynamic, and I had to learn and use new web technologies to build it. The project took several months and I was very proud when it launched, but I’m even happier now that it’s being used more and more, by different clients all over the world.

"Often when new zkipster features are launched they start out quite slowly, then quickly build as users adopt them. We are still improving the original Seating feature - it’s now better than ever - and I’m still the Seating expert! In fact I’m working on a Seating update right now, which will enable clients to have multiple floor plans for their events."

"Paulo is one of the longest-serving and brightest engineers at zkipster, and has been part of the incredible evolution of the platform over time. He has built some of the features from the ground up, making him one of our key experts who will take zkipster to the next level."

DÉCIO SOUSA |  CTO | ZKIPSTER

What’s the best thing about working at zkipster?

"The culture. When I talk with friends and explain what I do I find it remarkable that the company has managed to maintain its core values. The company culture the founders wanted to create when they started zkipster is the one we have today. It’s a real achievement, especially as zkipster is a global company and we mostly work remotely.

"Having worked elsewhere I know that when companies grow it can be hard to maintain their values, but the leadership team here does a great job taking care of the zkipster culture and making sure that everyone who joins shares our values."

What are the most memorable events you’ve been part of, whether for work or in your personal life?

"I didn’t realize how significant it would be at the time, but when I was at college I took a course that included planning an event. I was working with a group of students and we had to organize an event at our university: an annual conference on wireless technologies.

"In previous years the event had been small and not well-known, but that year we were able to sell lots of tickets, enough to fill the big new auditorium at our central faculty. The department heads were skeptical that we’d be able to fill the space, so it was an awesome feeling to invite them and show them that the first external event to be held in the brand new auditorium was such a success.

"However we surely weren’t professional event organizers and experienced a lot of growing pains - after the first coffee break we completely ran out of food, so had to run out and buy more! It gave me a lot of admiration for the event planners who now use zkipster: my university team was nowhere close to their level of organization and attention to detail. I gained great insight into our clients’ concerns about event check-in, as it took a long time to process all the conference guests. Having zkipster on the door would have been really helpful!

"Now that I’m working for zkipster, it’s rewarding and motivating to see the best events, run by the best brands in multiple countries, using lines of code I’ve written, sometimes several years ago."