Aljona is new to the PHOENIX MEDIA team. We talked with her about various topics such as her career, her everyday work and her fascination about programming. Find the answers in the following interview.
Interview with Aljona Hoffmann
Please introduce yourself and tell me why you decided to become a developer?
I'm Aljona, I'm 30 years old and I live in Emmerthal. After school, I first completed a business management training and then did an internship at a savings and loan association. What I liked most about the training was working on the PC. Whether playfully or technically, I always liked to create calculations with complex conditions using Excel according to my imagination. As a child, I already had a small website with a construction kit. I was always thinking that this might be something I would like to deal with later. So, after the internship, I started studying computer science.
What fascinates you about the developing world?
It’s very exciting to see how the world continues to digitize and how you can contribute. Our life is made much easier in many areas - precisely because of all the technologies. I am very excited to see how things will continue in the next years.
When did you start programming?
In 2013 I started my computer science studies in Minden and accordingly gained my first knowledge there. During my studies I discovered my passion for web development.
How did you become a Magento developer?
I wrote my bachelor thesis at an agency where I stayed for 4 years after my studies. There I was still working with Typo3 in the first few months, but after that the trend was towards Magento 1. After six months I focused on Magento only. And then after 2 years I started working with Magento 2.
How did you find out about PHOENIX MEDIA?
After gaining my first experience with Magento, it was time for a new challenge. I finally came across PHOENIX MEDIA through Xing. The first conversation with Björn was super pleasant. During the conversation I already recognized what I had missed in terms of the way I worked. That had a very inspiring effect on me. After that, I quickly got to know my current team. I still have very good memories of the first interview. And now, I've been at PHOENIX MEDIA since March.
What exactly is your position here at PHOENIX MEDIA? Can you tell me something about your daily work? What do you do and to what extent does that help the agency?
I'm a Magento Developer and I'm responsible for both frontend and backend development. For example, I take care of technical adjustments, work on extensions or the optimization of features. In principle, there is no special day-to-day work, as you never know exactly what challenges you will face. But that's also what makes it so exciting. However, our daily stand-up is on the schedule every day. There we discuss urgent issues or things we are currently working on.
Which projects are you currently in charge of?
Currently, I am mainly working on the Magento 2 platforms of DeutschlandCard and Bausep.
What do you particularly like about PHOENIX MEDIA?
I really like working in a team with customer projects assigned accordingly. As a result, the exchange between the project management, the developers and the customer is simply much more efficient. The project know-how within the team therefore is very good. Especially in this day and age, people want to reconcile professional and private life as much as possible. PHOENIX MEDIA enables me to do this through mobile working and flexible working hours. What I also really appreciated was the warm welcome from the team, even though I mainly work remotely.
What do you love most about your job? What do you enjoy the most?
I love analyzing problems and developing and implementing a concept from them. In addition to programming in PHP, I like to work in databases to get a better overview. When a customer gets a positive result and is happy about their shop or the new feature, it also gives me a great feeling.
What qualities do you think you should have as a developer? What is essential for the job and why?
As a developer you should always strive to evolve while having a deep interest in new technologies. Anyone can learn how to program. I also only started doing this when I was in college. It is important that you can motivate yourself to learn and not throw everything away when things are not progressing so quickly.
Why should customers choose Magento as their shop platform? Why do you think Magento is the right choice?
Magento is constantly evolving and already has a very good basis with which new customers who do not yet want to invest in many features could start. The integrated CMS system is also much easier to use than it was in Magento 1.
How do you spend your leisure time?
To balance my work, I spend a lot of time outside or do sports such as swimming, running or hiking. I also like to travel to new countries and learn more about their cultures. I like being active here as well. I also love to cook and bake and spend a lot of time with my loved ones.
Thank you very much, dear Aljona, for the very exciting and interesting interview. We are pleased that you are supporting our team and wish you lots of fun and success during your daily work.
Are you also interested in taking over a new challenge within the e-commerce sector? Then just have a look at our career page and discover our interesting job offers.
We look forward to receiving your application by email to jobs@phoenix-media.eu.
