"I'm Mikołaj Jacek Końko, 25 years old, and I have been studying for a BSc in Computer Science at Lancaster University in the UK. Now I am based in Wrocław, Poland, where I am living with my fiancée and cats. My interests seem to change daily, so it would be impossible to list them all, but currently (outside of work) I'm concentrating on foreign languages, air traffic, and high-fidelity audio.
As part of TimeXtender I work as a Software Developer, concentrating on Master Data Management and everything else that relates to how MDM behaves, works and fails (rarely!) 😊
I joined TimeXtender as part of the Exmon acquisition. My initial interest in the full-stack position lit up because I felt a strong urge to work closer to the product. In my previous role, I was part of a large international team and focused on just a few elements of a large ETL system. As a result, I felt disconnected from the product and like I was having little impact. So, joining the Icelandic office felt like the right choice. I was assigned MDM as my priority and now consider it my area of specialty across all the products.
There is no typical day, and TimeXtender's policies on remote and asynchronous work are absolutely perfect for my schedule. My ideal workday starts early, around 7 AM, allowing me to get a solid block of productive hours in the morning. I like to take a short break around noon when my energy dips, then jump back into work whenever I feel recharged again. My days are mostly 'lonely,' where I can focus on my priorities, with only the occasional meeting popping up in my calendar every now and then.
The most rewarding aspect is the moment I see the release published and my work distributed to our users. I feel equally happy—whether it's a small bug fix or a big functionality—because there's 'material' proof of my work.
After Exmon was acquired by TimeXtender, our task was to integrate the 'Exmon Login' system with the setup used across TimeXtender's other solutions. It was a large task that sometimes had us running in circles trying to debug all the issues. Personally, I found learning the quirks of authentication to be very rewarding. I enjoyed working on the project with my great colleagues, and definitely felt the team spirit every time a problem arose.
Hackernews.com is my go-to site when I want to read about the latest findings. However, learning hard skills comes from YouTube, Microsoft Learn, and other companies' study programs and documentation. It also helps to browse job postings to see what's expected of someone in my position and compare my current skills to what the market demands.
I think my resilience has been detrimental to overcoming all the obstacles. I am also a flexible individual and quick learner.
I usually treat AI as my first line of defense before pushing my code, asking questions and avoiding frustration while debugging. I do have a 'yellow duck' to talk through my code with, but ChatGPT is much more likely to catch that one small typo or obvious logic mistake that I would definitely miss.
2025 will definitely bring more models capable of using existing codebases to recreate, correct, and generate code snippets. Building entire solutions and systems reliably is still in the future, but I'm cautious about making assumptions—someone will make the breakthrough, and we’ll be here to witness it.
Don't shy away from new projects and ideas. Even unfinished work gives you a chance to explore your knowledge, review mistakes, and uncover follow-up ideas. Speaking of reviews: share your code and ask others to review it—it helps a lot, especially when you're starting out and making trivial mistakes. We all make them, but finding them together is much more productive (AI can help with that too)."