Meet the Techie | A Day in the Life of Hakan, a Software Engineer

In 2013, not long after finishing his studies in software development and business management, Hakan Özkan was living in Vienna and looking for a job. “I saw a description and I applied on a Wednesday,” he says. “I got a response from the company soon after. We did an interview on the Friday, then the next week they let me know I was hired. I started a week later.” The company was sclable, and now Hakan is one of the studio’s longest running team members.

Though he’s a constant for sclable, Hakan’s job has evolved (“A LOT!”) since he started. He explains: “Software is my passion. I’ve always loved it and still love it, but it’s the different teams, projects and challenges that have made me happy to stay with sclable for over 11 years. Back in 2013 we had our own frameworks with our own business concepts, and we used PHP as a programming language. Now the tools we use, and how we build software, are fully adapted to the client’s needs. I like it. It’s more flexible, and I’m more flexible too.”

7AM

sclable’s flexible attitude also influences where Hakan chooses to work, which at home, about an hour from Vienna. There, Hakan takes the lead in getting his son ready for school. The little guy wakes up at 7AM, at which point Hakan begins getting him ready. “It’s two guys, so it’s time consuming and not always easy,” he says, but eventually he gets his son fed and off to school in time for 8:30AM. Until recently, Hakan’s done this routine while his wife commuted to her teaching job in the city. Now it helps give her the time needed to focus on their newborn daughter.

When Hakan does make his bi-weekly trip to the city, he makes sure to get some valuable facetime with the team…and to partake in the afterwork Dungeons & Dragons group.

9AM

Upon his return, Hakan fixes himself a coffee or tea and settles in for the software team’s 9AM daily. During this meeting, they’ll review ongoing tasks and discuss any blockers. Once that’s done, Hakan can make a rough plan for his day, which generally includes designing systems’ architecture, implementing new features, maintaining and optimising running systems and mentoring junior developers. If there are urgent client requests, he’ll start the day with fixing bugs. Since not all projects are greenfield (projects built from scratch), this can be an interesting challenge because he’s troubleshooting software sclable has taken over, rather than developed. “You often won’t have the bug history,” he says, “But it means that my work is always new, and there’s always something to learn.”

1PM

Whether Hakan takes a lunch break depends on if he is picking up his son from school. If he is, he’ll simply work through the day to ensure he’s done all his tasks before signing off. If his wife is at home and picking up their son, they’ll eat together around 1PM.

4:30PM

Typically, Hakan clocks off at 4:30PM to collect his son from school and then prepares him an after-school meal. Hakan likes to hang out with his son while he eats. Working from home, rather than spending hours commuting every day, affords him the time to do so.

Evenings are spent with his wife, having dinner and caring for their young family. It’s a change from when Hakan spent his time gaming, or on the football pitch (as a player, as a head referee, and as a linesman for the women’s national league). Being a husband and father doesn’t afford him heaps of extra energy for such activities, but he’ll pick them back up one of these days. In the meantime, he’s learning how to develop his own video game. “I’m starting small,” he says. “Just watching tutorials to get into the mechanics and techniques. It’s been interesting to learn something new!”

Can’t wait to see what you come up with, Hakan. No rush though. We know you’re busy!

Want to meet more people from our dev and tech team? Check out the profile of Frontend Developer @Marko Mlinaric, Software QA Manager Veit Poigner and Senior Frontend Developer @volodymyr Samoilenko.

This article was written for Sclable by our copywriter, Liz Hendriksen. Check out our website to see the work we do at Sclable!

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