Engineers of Endava | Meet Stanislava

Stanislava Gospodinova is a Software Architect and a stickler for a good puzzle - constantly pushing herself to find the best solutions to the most challenging technical situations. ?

An expert in Microsoft technologies, and with her name among the world’s first 2000 certified .NET 1.0 developers, she joined us as a Senior Development Consultant to help build our first Sitecore teams in Sofia, Bulgaria.?

“During my interviews with Endava, I felt the friendly, open culture that drives us, which convinced me to change my employer after 18 years.” She said.?

“I get this rewarding feeling that comes with solving challenging technical problems, and I wanted to learn new things.??

“I loved the idea of building the foundations of the teams in our Delivery Unit and contributing to the Sitecore development across the region.?

“I believe work should be a joy, not a pain, so you should find the area that excites you and immerse yourself in it.”??

With her new teams assembled, Stanislava poured her 30 years of experience in e-comms and finance into helping an NGO for the first time.?

“It was so satisfying to be working for a good cause, but working with an NGO was very different from my previous experience, so I had to shift my whole mindset.”?

“Most for-profit services make money by selling specific products to a well-defined customer, whereas an NGO’s target audience is practically everyone, and their funding model comes from everywhere - people’s charity and volunteering.?

“The core product we developed for the NGOs was different too - information delivery, which needed to be widely available, accessible, easily understandable, and delivered through multiple channels.”?

Stanislava became a Software Architect in 2020, which presented a fresh set of technical challenges through her first project with a major sports brand.?

“The system had to calculate the prices of the products based on the materials used, which involved complex calculations and rules. The input had millions of records, affecting performance, so calculations were far too slow.” She explained. ?

Undeterred, the team came up with a simple yet elegant solution.?

“We solved the calculation problem with the help of event-driven architecture and an improved database design. We split the hefty calculation process into smaller operations, which each performed partial calculations whenever the materials were updated. As a result, price calculations were completed in minutes.”??

With every project she’s worked on, Stanislava shares what she’s learned with her peers in Pass-it-On sessions, encouraging others to pursue technical excellence.?

“Everyone needs to find their motivation to drive professional development, so embrace all the opportunities your company provides to help build – attend Pass It On! sessions, Discipline Weeks, read materials and attend courses.?

“I find sessions that present real case studies most beneficial as this way I can learn things I can’t find on the internet or documents, and I can compare my experience with my colleagues' then apply it to future projects.”?

“While I get a lot of satisfaction from seeing my projects performing as they should and the positive results for the client, I’m quite proud to share the new solutions and implementation techniques we find with the community.” She explained.?

“Technicians are generally involved in the creative part of the development process, so we need to build our technical expertise just like managers have to develop their organisation and people skills.??

“But as an architect, you form architectural decisions and design principles that the development team then uses to build a technical solution.??

“You then guide the process stages, so in reality, you tend to need a mix of people and technical skills as our combined efforts still need to meet deadlines and requirements; otherwise, technical excellence doesn't matter.?

“The whole team must be persistent and consistent in providing high-quality, efficient, professional solutions. This involves continuous learning, improvement, quality monitoring and keeping on top of trends and business requirements for all of us.”?