Developer Spotlight: Asaf Menahem
Introducing Asaf Menahem, an eko software developer and the latest subject in our Developer Spotlight series! We spoke to Asaf about a variety of topics, including the many contributions he’s made in his 7 years at eko, working on eko’s latest open source project, iFramily, and bringing his dog to work.
What’s your role here at eko, and what do you like most about it?
I’ve been a full-stack software developer at eko for the past 7 years. My job includes everything from fixing minor bugs to designing and leading projects from scratch. I also do system designs, DevOps jobs, job interviews, employee training, and more. That’s something I really like about eko — I’m not just doing one particular job. It’s very diverse and challenging.
Sometimes people ask me, “What’s the point of working at one company for seven years? Leave and find another place, something that will challenge you.” But there are professional challenges here, and work is never dull. Why leave a place that good? Plus, eko is always growing and adjusting its business strategy, improving its product, and advancing its technology to build new things and make them a reality. I love it.
Other than that, the people here are amazing and fun to be around, in and out of the office.
What does your typical workday look like?
First of all, I open the day with tea! I’m a big tea fan, in winter and summer. I even had my own office cup, which everyone knew was risky to use since I didn’t wash it very often.
Then, I go through my emails, Slack messages, and task lists. Then I prioritize what to do first and hope I accomplish everything. I spend half of my time in meetings and working with other developers, and the other half getting half of my tasks done.
Before COVID, I’d bring my dog to work. Even though he’s huge, I’d forget that he was even there, except for when he’d bark at delivery guys.
Tell us about a time when your input made an impact?
Eko Studio, our creators’ tool, was and still is a web-based tool. It’s part of our original ideology that it should be free and easy to use for everyone. This approach was the backbone of eko Studio for the last 5 years. But I thought that for eko Studio to be even more impactful for production houses, we needed to make it a native desktop app — the premier software for interactive videos, just like Adobe is for video editing. This was a change in the company’s mindset and very different from what most companies do, move to cloud or web solutions. This paradigm shift was not easy to convey. But I started to convince everyone that it was the right approach. This opened the door for our new eko Studio 2, a tool for professional creators. It was a pivotal moment for the company.
What was your most challenging experience as a developer?
It’s a little weird, but I think my most challenging experience was when I started working here. I really wanted to prove myself. And as a first project, I was asked to write a system for running automated tests. In retrospect, I didn’t get that the first project was supposed to be fun. So, of course, I took it seriously and thought about it a lot, not only at work but also at home. I consulted with friends and built a very complex system. It turns out it was just an exercise to get me into things, but it was an experience that I remember to this day because it was so weird, and I was so invested since I thought it had to be perfect.
What are you passionate about? What do you love doing (besides writing code)?
Definitely music. I’m into playing the guitar, keyboard, and a bit of drums. My real passion is to create. I had a small band, nothing serious, for a short time. I love making things from scratch. However, I’m not some overly talented person. If you let me draw a cow, some obscure creature will come out. But when I play music, I really enjoy it, even if I don’t end up getting a final product. The process of writing and composing something is really fun. My roots range from ’80s electronic to old and progressive rock. There was a period when I liked blues more. Now I’m more modern, pop and electronic. However, beautiful guitar pieces are a weakness of mine. Writing lyrics is the hardest part, but when I create music, it’s incredible. Sometimes I find myself having more fun not aiming to compose something but enjoying the process; if something good comes out, then great, and if not, that’s also ok.
What’s your most memorable facepalm moment?
When I was a computer science student, Israel was at war, and we had many missile alerts. A few months later, I woke up to a very loud siren. I was terrified. I quickly got up and knocked on my roommate’s door to wake her up, but she wasn’t there. I went down to the shelter and waited and waited until the siren ended; I was alone. I went back upstairs and turned on the TV to see what was happening. I saw there were Remembrance Day ceremonies and realized that the siren was for that. I felt really stupid. I was so glad my roommate wasn’t there; otherwise, many people would have known about my horrible mistake. But now everyone will know anyway. :)
If you could choose anyone alive or dead to be your mentor, who would you choose?
Mentor is a hard word, but I would go for George Harrison from the Beatles because I’m crazy about him in many ways — musically, spiritually, and personally. I feel like he could be a good mentor. I’d like to be more like him. I also wouldn’t object to some guitar lessons.
What was your favorite video game as a kid?
Easy, a game I’ve played for hours on end for years: Quake II — a shooters game. It grabbed me so strongly because it was one of the first online FPS games. There was a community of people playing against each other, and you could expand and change the game with all kinds of mods they created. I was a teenager and had a lot of free time (at the expense of homework, of course). I got addicted. It was really cool.
What does success mean to you?
Is there a non-cheesy answer to this question? The most important thing is being happy and really having fun; otherwise, what’s the point?
What has changed for the better this year?
There aren’t many good things I can attribute to this year. However, I do like social distancing. I would be happy to stay at home, but I know it won’t last. And at least the traffic jams are gone for a while, though they’ll come back soon.
Also, great things happened in my personal life. My wife & I moved the family to a new apartment and had another daughter.
What are you missing from work pre-pandemic?
I miss the office interactions, being face to face or shouting at someone for a moment. Zoom sessions don’t convey the same feeling, and when I’m trying to do something, it usually comes out awkward.
Tell me about your Open Source project.
iFramily is a library designed to facilitate inter-frame communication. It wraps the cumbersome use of inter-frame communication today and provides a more convenient interface for the developer that focuses on ease and simplicity, especially when two-way communication and multiple frames are required.
We use iframes a lot at eko to provide the code with an isolated environment, even if those iframes are embedding our own sites. A few years ago, we wanted to simplify communication with these frames. I wrote an internal library that turns the basic communication that HTML provides (postMessage) into something more modern and convenient. At the time, I was looking for libraries that do this and couldn’t find any. Today it’s a different story, and there are quite a few similar libraries with different approaches. Over time, we saw that the library was really easy to use and started using it in various products. We decided to open source it because we believe in sharing it with other developers. We have other open source libraries like Sonorous and react-native-background-downloader.
Like what you’re reading? Check out iFramily, and learn more about the possibilities at eko Engineering.
Wanna bring your dog to work? Send us your resume!
And take another look at our Medium page to meet some of Asaf’s co-workers.
