Продолжаем серию интервью с докладчиками конференции PyCon Russia, которая пройдёт 16-17 июля в 95 км от Москвы.

Под катом — короткое интервью c Ниной Захаренко (Портленд, США), старшим инженером-программистом в Venmo, ранее — в Reddit и HBO. Нина рассказала, как начала писать на Python, какие проблемы есть у Python-сообщества и почему она ждет своё выступление на PyCon Russia.



— Hi Nina, please tell us a little bit about yourself. It looks like your family has an interesting story. You were born in Ukraine; how did your family get to the US? Do you maintain relations with the Motherland? Do you speak Ukrainian and Russian?

— I was only 3 when we left the country, so I don't remember much. I do speak some Russian, but not Ukranian. Unfortunately I don't have many Russian friends or family to practice speaking with. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to practice while I’m at PyCon Russia.

— How did you get into programming and specifically in the Python community?

— I always had a strong interest in computers and I started programming when I was 12 years old, by looking at webpage source code to teach myself HTML. When I was younger, we didn't have great computer classes in school. I learned most of the basics in University.

After University, I spent a long time working as an enterprise Java developer. At the time, I didn't know anything about the open source community because my job didn't expose me to it. I became unhappy with the beauracracy of larger corporations, so I took a summer off to teach myself Python at the Recuse Center, which is like a summer program like a writers retreat for programmers. Learning Python gave me the skill set to work for smaller, more creative, and more innovative companies. What sealed the deal for me was attending my first PyCon in Santa Clara in 2013. Everyone was incredibly friendly and welcoming. It felt like one big family. I've been lucky to be part of the community ever since.

— You work at Venmo and probably know what happens in the financial industry. How do you change the financial world? Does Python make a difference there?

— Venmo has redefined person to person payments, and come out on top even as big companies like Apple are struggling in the space. Python makes a difference by allowing us to be extremely agile: the time between dreaming up new ideas and innovations to launching features is much shorter than at other companies I've worked for.

— What are you working on currently?

— I’m currently on a small team that’s working to improve our internal engineering practices — optimizing our builds, and removing pain points from daily development work. I’m passionate about clean code and architecture, and I also work on tackling large refactoring projects in our eight-year-old codebase.

In my free time, I’ve been working on learning how to solder hardware circuits and program microcontrollers.

— You worked for such well-know companies as Reddit and HBO. What did you do there? What was the most fascinating / remarkable / surprising about your work there?

The best thing about being a developer for companies like HBO and Reddit is gaining experience — and contributing meaningfully — in many different areas. When I worked at HBO, the most interesting part of my job was working on software for satellite control computers.


Выступление Нины на PyCon 2016

— What’s the best and the worst part of your job as a programmer?

— I work 100% remotely for a company based in New York, which is a double-edged sword — It's amazing having the freedom to work in sweatpants, and I'm able to get more done with less distractions. The downside is sometimes working remotely feels isolating, especially since most of my team is three hours ahead of me. I'm trying to tackle this problem by socializing with other developers at co-working spaces, coffee shops, and meetups.

— What do you consider your biggest achievement in life / job at this point?

— That's a difficult question to answer. I believe life isn't about one great achievement, but all the small ones that move you forward and make you a better person.

The achievements I'm most proud of involve conquering fears. I was proud to graduate with an engineering degree even though I constantly battled unfounded fears of not being a good enough software engineer. I'm also proud to share my python knowledge with the community by giving talks and teaching classes. A few years ago, I had an extreme phobia of public speaking. I started small by speaking at Meetups to small audiences, but these days I'm much more comfortable at the podium. Developing these skills has given me the opportunity to speak at amazing conferences around the world, such as DjangoCon, PyCon, and WebExpo in Prague.

— What’s the biggest problem of the Python community?

— In my opinion, some of the biggest problems in the Python community revolve around open source projects. I’ve seen many new contributors get turned off by bike-shedding, or too many people giving comments and feedback. Unlike other communities I’ve seen, the Python community is actively aware of its issues, and works hard to make improvements. I was impressed with many of the project maintainers who sprinted at PyCon US this year because many of them made it a point to welcome new contributors. I also love seeing a more diverse collection of pythonistas in the hallway of PyCon every year, although we still have a long way to go.

— Which tools do you use in your everyday work?

For maximum productivity, I enjoy spending most of my day on the command line. I use emacs for my editor, tmux for window management, and oh-my-zsh for a shell. I tweet about some of my command line tips and productivity tools, on topics such as useful plugins, command line pro-tips, and git tips and tricks.

— Do you read any Python blogs? Which sources about Python would you recommend?

— I mostly keep up to date with the Python community on twitter. I like to keep busy, so it's great getting my news in 140 characters or less. I'm also a fan of the Python Weekly newsletter.

— You do lots of outdoor sports: skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, rock climbing. Which style do you prefer: reckless or careful? :) What’s your greatest adventure so far?

— I love adventuring, but I'm always careful! My brain is my money maker, so I take extreme care to protect myself. I have quite the helmet collection, one for each sport. I have gotten in some precarious situations, but to me the benefit of enjoying the great outdoors outweighs the risks.

I've had too many amazing adventures to count. Some of my favorite have been ski trips — to Argentina, Canada, and when I lived in Salt Lake City. There's nothing more exhilirating than standing at the top of a mountain peak!



16-17 июля на PyConRu Нина расскажет об общих антипаттернах в программах на python и покажет практические решения на python, как улучшить ваш код с помощью декораторов, менеджеров контекста, лямбд и миксинов. Остальных докладчиков можно посмотреть на сайте конференции.

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Спасибо нашим спонсорам, которые делают конференцию возможной: золотому спонсору — компании Adcombo, партнеру энергии и хорошего настроения компании ЦИАН, серебряным спонсорам — Rambler&Co и ДомКлик, бронзовому спонсору — MediaScope. Спасибо за поддержку Python Software Foundation.