Remote Flutter Power, brought to Angle by Ulugbek
In March of 2021, our team decided to put more focus on the product development of the Angle apps. That plan also included the decision to grow the engineering team, which at the time, consisted of Valerius and Raphael. 100 application reviews and 20 interviews later, the team met Ulugbek Isroilov and was impressed with his background, expertise and excitement about Angle. Living in Uzbekistan, he became the first remote team member at Angle and the third engineer in our tech team.
You are based in Uzbekistan, which is 3h ahead of Switzerland, where the rest of our team is based. Do you enjoy working remotely?
The most important thing in remote work that should always be addressed is the time zone difference and how you and the team decide to deal with that. It might be critical when your team has a usual morning daily meeting, but the day for you has already ended and you are watching your third dream 😁. Luckily for me, the Angle team is only 3 hours behind me (and they do not mind waking up early 😄), so we quickly agreed on daily meeting times and the overall work process. Although there are 1,000 kilometers between us, I still manage to experience the startup atmosphere and spirit and feel like part of the team. In any case, I hope to meet my new friends in real life soon! 😉
How did you find Angle and what convinced you to join the team?
At some point, I looked back on the projects I worked on and found that most of them are FinTech related. So I strictly decided that the next project should be something different and started my research. It was yet another morning of surfing LinkedIn for job offers on Flutter: I was applying for anything I found interesting and Angle doing social audio really sparked my interest. And then I talked with Valerius, who is the CTO at Angle, and was amazed by his passion.
So I think it’s fair to say first the product itself and then the team building it convinced me to join.
What was your favorite conversation on Angle so far?
Once I participated in a very funny conversation on Angle. The thing that made it funny was one particular moment when the host (who is from South Korea) was discussing the president of Tanzania and rumors about him being missing. At this moment one of the participants started to talk about the actual situation in the country like “from the front row”. After his speech, he was asked how he could know such details, to which he answered that he is from Tanzania! I love how Angle is bringing people together from around the globe.
From April 12th to May 12th, you were practicing Ramadan — the most sacred month of the year for Muslims. What do your days during Ramadan look like?
As all Muslims during Ramadan month, I am fasting from dawn to sunset. In the evenings I go to a mosque for Taraweeh prayers, where the complete recitation of the Quran happens during the whole Ramadan month. In general, I try to improve my knowledge of religion and reflect on it. Other than that I still work and do the usual stuff, because fasting doesn’t mean that you should sit or sleep, not do anything to keep as much energy as possible 😁.
What do you enjoy about Ramadan and what would you like people from other religions and cultures to know and understand about it?
Ramadan is the month, in which the Quran was revealed. During this month all Muslims have to fast (retain from food, drink, sinful behavior) from dawn to sunset and devote themselves to prayer, recitation of the Quran, doing charity, spiritual reflection, and self-improvement.
I would like to discuss a little more about fasting: Fasting teaches self-discipline, sacrifice, and empathy for those who are less fortunate. Besides the spiritual and mental components, there is a positive contribution to the health of a person too. It was actually scientifically proven by Japanese cell biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2016 for his research. He proved that fasting leads to cell recycle and renewal. If you think about it, humankind researched came to these conclusions about fasting in the 21st century — whereas, in our culture, it was obligated to practice it already 14 hundred years ago…
“But perhaps you hate a thing and it is good for you; and perhaps you love a thing and it is bad for you. And Allah knows, while you know not.” (2:216)
When did you start working with Flutter and what do you like about it?
I started working with Flutter during my senior year at university. At that time Flutter was in alpha-beta status and nobody really knew about it. I took it because I wanted to create a mobile app as part of my final diploma project work, but I didn’t really have time to learn Java/Kotlin in-depth to do it natively (thanks to procrastination 😝). And here came my friend and advised me to try this “new super technology” called Flutter. At first, I was skeptical about it, but then… I just “fell in love” and it all started. I like the development experience you can get with Flutter. You can “easily” build beautiful cross-platform apps in a “very short” time period. Now with more and more developers and companies looking into using Flutter, its ecosystem is expanding and becoming more mature every day.
Is there a product or project you are really proud of?
One of the projects that I am proud to be a part of was the mobile payment app called Upaynet, which is targeted at Uzbek immigrants (mainly US Uzbek diaspora). The app enables a person residing in a foreign country to help their family and relatives by making money transfers or direct payments for services in Uzbekistan. In this project, I led a multifunctional team of 4 people and we accomplished it from scratch in 5 months. It resulted in an invaluable experience and professional growth. However, the best outcome is the positive change we made for thousands of people who can now easily get support from relatives abroad via our solution.
Coffee or tea?
As a person born and raised in Uzbekistan I cannot not choose tea. Drinking tea is an integral part of the culture in Uzbekistan. Every neighborhood has a so-called teahouse — “choyhona” (although it’s not only about tea 😆), where men gather and cook food, sit and talk, in one word: chill 🙃. It is worth noting though, that coffee is getting more and more popular too, as a result of the increasing number of coffee shops openings in the city.
What’s the most beautiful place or spot in Uzbekistan that people should visit?
Ooh, that’s really hard to choose! I would say it depends on what you are looking for. If you want to see the history, you should definitely visit Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva. If you are into mountains you should check out the Chatkal Mountain range (the Western Tian Shan) which is located in the territory of Tashkent region. If you want deserts, Uzbekistan can offer Kyzyl-Kum, Ustyurt plateau and Aral (former Aral sea — the only sea, humankind managed to kill 😣) deserts. In any case, I encourage everyone to visit Uzbekistan, explore beautiful places, try delicious cuisine and have a great time!
Fun fact: there is a small area and town in Fergana Region (in eastern Uzbekistan) named Shakhimardan, which is also often being called “little Switzerland” because of the mountains and scenery ⛰.
How do you fight the lockdown blues?
Currently, the lockdown rules in my country are not that strict: wearing a mask in a public space, no large gathering, no big events. To fight any “blues”, I usually try to escape the city and all these problems and spend some quality time hiking in the mountains. It really gives an opportunity to refresh your mind and to be alone with yourself, your thoughts, and nature.
Who would you love to have a conversation with on Angle?
I would love to have an Angle call with Guy Raz, host of my favorite podcast “How I built this”.
Connect with Ulugbek on LinkedIn if you would like to talk to him in person, rumour has it, that he’s usually on seen in Angle conversation in the early morning hours (CEST). 😉
