Q: What's your name?
A: I’m Rokas Muningis. While my first name is quite common in Lithuania, my surname is quite rare - just like how I prefer my steaks!
Q: Where are you from and where do you live now?
A: I’m originally from Telšiai, capital of the Samogitia region in the northwest of Lithuania with its own accent, but I’ve lived in Vilnius now for almost 7 years.
Q: What's your role at Zedge? What do you do most days at work?
A: I’m a Senior Software Engineer for the Web Team dealing with the user-facing part of our products. So if anything looks weird or off, there’s a possibility that I’m responsible for that :D
Q: What were you up to before joining Zedge?
A: Prior to Zedge, I worked at an Insurtech company as a Technical lead of a frontend team of 8 people. Half of my time was spent in meetings with other teams, helping my own team and making decisions about how we should approach things. I would have days where I didn’t get a chance to write code and I did not like that at all. It came too soon, but luckily that’s not the case anymore! But don’t get me wrong, I cannot complain, as that was fun too!
Q: What do you do when you're not working?
A: It depends on the day. It can range from spending up to 4 hours preparing dinner (e.g., tagliatelle bolognese) for my lovely girlfriend to activities which maybe aren't best use of free time - watching TV shows with cheesy, cheap and cringe humor or playing mobile games. Basically anything that lets me completely “shut down” brain and let it relax. Last but not least, like any other “programming junkie” - going on long coding sessions programming something for my own pleasure, which sometimes ends up in the work codebase whenever I notice an opportunity to make life easier for my fellow colleagues.
Q: What's your favorite thing about Zedge?
A: Far fewer people than what I’m used to. Quite similar to what I had back when I started my software engineering journey though. There’s something beautiful about small offices.
Q: What drives you crazy about your job?
A: This is probably an unusual answer for a frontend engineer, but for me it’s those things where nothing is visual or interactive. For me it’s purely complicated technical tasks which either involve a truckload of business logic or helps us with day-to-day work like development tooling. A few weeks ago during code review I received a comment, “We have unwritten rule,” but I only saw it in the evening after a quick nap. Next thing you know, I was writing a custom rule for our code style checker, to make sure that’s a written rule instead of an unwritten one. It was the most enjoyable programming I've had in months!
Q: What advice do you have for Zedge Premium artists?
A: The same thing I’m telling myself about LinkedIn (yet I do not do it) – understand your style, what you do best and make it a habit to do it all the time. With time it will only get better, and it won’t be long before you see yourself creating better art!