Meet Peter Kanev - October's Featured NativeScript Engineer

Peter is the the first in our series of featured NativeScript Engineers. It's also his birthday today!



What's your role on the NativeScript Team?

I'm an Android Runtime Engineer

What's your background, professionally?

I don't have previous professional background in IT or Engineering. I graduated from Telerik Academy in Feb 2016. The format is kind of like a year-long bootcamp for programmers where I learned the core principles of Web and Mobile development.

What challenges have you encountered while working on NativeScript?

Most of the features and bugs that I've worked on have been nothing short of challenging. Take the workers story for example - that was the first time I had to really deep dive into the system internals and try to understand how things operate under the hood, and then synchronize both JavaScript and Android. Troubleshooting garbage collector issues is also something that I find particularly challenging as they can't be debugged using the conventional Android Studio debugger. Improving APK package size, startup times, and runtime performance is of course a constant struggle, and something that we evaluate and look into improving every other month.

What is the most rewarding experience you've had while working on the team?

Sharing knowledge with my colleagues that I acquired through a lot of research and effort is really rewarding. I also love reading satisfied users' stories about how a feature I've worked on has helped in their development workflow or app development.

Tell us something interesting about your personal life!

I love crafting stuff! Just this year I started cosplaying - the art of crafting your own book/game/film character costume and going out dressed like them. My latest costume was of Death from Darksiders 2 - a badass ripped guy with a pair of oversized hand scythes. That project involved a lot of sculpting, casting, foam carving, foam fabrication, painting and weathering. The hobby teaches a lot about materials, colors, crafting techniques. It's also how I learned to quickly patch deep cuts in my fingers and how to treat burnt skin to be able to continue crafting. Pro tip - don't inhale the glue fumes.