Catch up with Senior Interactive Developer at Isobar World Sourcing Brazil, Victoria Aiello

In our latest interview, we caught up with Senior Interactive Developer, Victoria Aiello from Isobar World Sourcing Brazil to discuss how coding has evolved with new technologies, what it was like working on the Rio 2016 Olympic games project and key advice for first time coders.

Hey Victoria, first up — Why did you want to become a Developer?

I decided to become a developer after finishing at digital design college and noticed that only seeing layouts and concepts wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to build it and be able to understand every single piece of the construction.

Another thing that was key for me was to realise how friendly and helpful the tech community is with each other. I found myself in an environment with no-barriers to think and working with people that have the same goal as you, and better than that, want to work with you. Not against you or by themselves. You really can go far beyond our imagination with those tools.

Can you describe your workflow when you are tasked to create a new website? / what goes into building a responsive website from scratch?

My very first task is to analyse every single part of the layout, if there’s any special interaction or animations and separate them into sections, so it’s easier to write and organise the code and what to prioritise for better construction.

Then I share all of the information about the back end environment with the back-end team. This will define what the best approach is to code the front-end: frameworks, organisation, review flow, and so on.

How has front-end development evolved with the rise of emerging technologies and creative processes?

Front-end development is the connection between design team and information provided by back-end. In that position, we are able to help design teams to decide a better on the screen interactions or recognise potential issues. Also, how we can better use all of this information without losing performance, for example.

This point of view makes it easier for us to understand and join complex projects that can involve various digital touchpoints, like Amazon Alexa, bots, and a website for example, and whatever needs a connection between user and information with a flawless experience.

What has been your favourite project to work on at Isobar and why?

The Olympic games RIO 2016 project when I was with Isobar São Paulo in partnership with Microsoft was great. There’s nothing I can compare it to. I worked about 8 months with almost 100 developers on the project, plus 2 months of “on call” work on site.

The keyword for this project was “time”. The deadline of delivery, the time of reaction in case of real-time bugs, time of page-load for more than 33 million people accessing the site at the same time. All of this together was pretty exciting!

For sure, this was the project I’m most proud of being part of. Besides the team and code challenges, to see such an important event happening in your own hands still gives me courage and passion about technology.

Finally, what advice would you give to an someone looking to get into a coding role?

Coding is an every-day adventure. Sometimes it looks hard to get something done, but once you understand it, it’s the best feeling in the world. Also, be aware that logic is 50% of our work.

Communication and knowledge transfer is the essence of it. Computers were built by human hands, so even though you’re writing for a machine, people are going to be the people who experience what you’re building. Putting the consumer first is the most important thing to remember.

Also, the best computer in the whole world is your own brain, so if you feel trapped, communicate with others and you will find a good solution.