I'm Emil Craciun and I am a Romanian software developer (for now, but if you're interested about how might that change follow along these lines). Most of my experience is with Microsoft technologies, so yeah, I could say that .NET is my platform of choice. But that does not mean I haven't played around with other things like Java, iOS and Node.js.
My interests and experience
- .NET & .NET Core
- ASP.NET & ASP.NET Core
- Azure (in bold because this is my main focus)
- DevOps
- Security (this subject is more of a "hobby" included in my career path, I read a lot on the matter, and I also experiment sometimes)
My story so far
What I can definitely say about myself is that I am passionate about computers and technology, I have always been that way. Ever since I saw the first computer back when I was 3 or 4 years old, sitting on a friend's lap because I could not reach the keyboard on my own and playing a car game, I think it was called Lotus, I was awestruck. That was it.
Even though the first part of my life interacting with computers revolved around gaming, a lot of it actually (and let's face it, computer games are really attractive and addictive), I slowly started to discover another aspect of them once I went to high school. And that is making the computers do my bidding! Mwuhahaha, I command, you obey! Unless there is a missing semicolon on line 42 and a runtime error, and... so on and so forth. It wasn't going to be that easy, now was it? Well, that's the situation every developer faces time and time again.
Another key moment in my life was in university, in Timisoara, Romania, when I was accepted as a volunteer in the now deprecated and retired (as far as I know, and this really makes me sad) Microsoft Student Partners program. This is when and where I've started speaking publicly. Presentations, hands-on labs in the weekends, workshops, all of them for the fellow students.
Through this program I met a lot of bright minds, some of which I am happy and honored to call close friends, but also got my first job. I am grateful for this first working experience, where the general manager was a MSP alumni and also a Microsoft MVP, because I managed to learn a lot of cool things, but also was given the opportunity to continue developing my presentation skills through public or private workshops and courses. And also because I was able to work among amazing, passionate, smart people. Well actually, this last part is true (and damn I consider myself lucky) for every job I had so far.
Going forward, I kept on delivering presentations at various public events and meetups, found my second job, this time a multi-national company with thousands of employees (compared to the previous one where we were only a handful, below 20) where I was again really happy to be able to set up from scratch some coding contests for students, and also a training program for them in a separate program.
Moving on to the present times, now I'm at my third job, but this time the change came with a relocation to Cluj-Napoca because I needed a reboot. It's a Romanian company, rapidly growing, with around 700 employed people at the moment. And here, the opportunities to develop myself and to share my ever growing experience and knowledge with fellow colleagues, exploded. I am currently deeply involved in everything learning related in my business unit (sub-division of the company) like short tech-talks, workshops, courses, physical book library and helping out with selecting conferences and people that will attend them.
[May 2019 Update] Well, that is now in the past since unfortunately on an operational level I could not reach a common ground with the business' direction and I had to move on to pursue the things I love doing. Right now I'm in a completely unexpected position as a Software Development Engineer in Test (or SDET) where I plan to focus on ensuring high quality, resilient, scalable, elastic, secure cloud applications.
Looking forward, I can still see myself diving into code, but not as much as before, since I've started slowly transitioning (and preparing my ground) towards a cloud architect and consultant role, things I already started loving.
My continuously learning achievements
One thing I will not stop doing is learning. I like to keep myself as up to date as possible, expand and deepen my knowledge. And just to keep myself on the edge, I certify my experience with exams. I am by no means perfect or flawless, and will never be, but it is an ongoing, never ending process for me. If you want, you can check out:
Oh, and one more thing...
That I want to share: I love playing with fire! Literally! Check out my Instagram profile linked on the upper right side if you want to see me in shows :D
