Boozt Technology Baltics

Today marks ten years anniversary of the VilniusPHP community - monthly developers meetups to share knowledge, get to know each other and grow together despite the company one works for.

We were with VilniusPHP from the very beginning, as the idea of this community was born to our then-colleagues back in the days when we were called Estina. Although they grew (to) other companies over time, we remained friends with organizers and supported the VilniusPHP community all these years.

Let’s take a moment to thank our colleagues who shared their know-how with community members:
🤝 Vytautas Verseckas (2 presentations)
🤝 Andrej Muzikovs
🤝 Marco Rosello (8 presentations)
🤝 Jose Lozenzo Rodriguez
🤝 Edvardas Kazlauskas (2 presentations)
🤝 Mattia Ziulu
🤝 Nerijus Bistrickis
🤝 Rimantas Liubertas (2 presentations)

At the same time, today’s festive meetup is the last of this long-lasting community. We thank the organizers of the VilniusPHP - Povilas, Paulius and Žilvinas - for building this Vilnius developers community for many years. We learned and gained a lot thanks to this community and the job you did behind the scenes!

Meet our people: Giedrius Sabaliauskas

Could you tell us what is one thing you like when working with us?
I’m a deeply technical person and I do like the possibility of solving various challenges through technical decisions a lot. If I see the possibility of improving something through the tech - I grab that opportunity. What I like the most is the possibility to work on something you find important for yourself and that will help benefit the entire company.

What was the first technical challenge you grabbed after joining the company?
When I joined the company 5 years ago, I saw the possibility of improving the code quality by applying my experience and the best practices in the CI flow, so I suggested this idea, and together with a few colleagues, we launched the proof of concept solution that was working fine for more than 4 years (yes, it was "temporary" PoC) until we migrated to GitLab. I'm happy my suggestions were heard and now automated testing is the common practice in the company.

How have things changed here over the years for you?
When I joined the company we were a team of 3 Samogitians and were working mostly with the product data and Partner Portal. The company was growing and the challenges related to the supply chain were growing as well. Over the years we consolidated a lot of business logic into new tools that automated a lot of processes and allowed our business people to work more efficiently with the same resources. Together with the tools, our amazing team was growing as well, so during the time I stepped up away from active programming and moved more towards management. The company allowed and helped me to grow and get more and more leadership skills, mentor, and build a team of professionals that I'm proud of.