August 2022 Employee Spotlight
Lifting, drawing and web development…these are a few of the qualities from our team member spotlight for the month of August! Kolio Kolev has been a web developer at Metova for a little under a year (his 1-year anniversary is next month 👀).
Tell us a little bit about yourself Kolio!
What’s it like working at Metova?
Q: How long have you worked for Metova & what is it that you do?
Kolio: I’ve been with the company for about coming up on one year now. I’m a web developer 😀
Q: What did you do before you joined the team?
Kolio: Before I joined, I was working at a prior development company. We would basically create websites for car dealerships.
Q: What originally drew you to Metova?
Kolio: The Vibe that I originally got was that you get work on quite a diversity of projects. It seems it was the right vibe so that’s good. Just innovative stuff – the environment, the team.
Q: What would you say is the most unique part about working here?
Kolio: The most unique part is probably the diversity of projects that we get to work on – each one which their own unique set of obstacles to overcome and unique quirks that keeps it interesting.
Q: From all the projects that you’ve worked on, what’s been your favorite?
Kolio: They get better and better as we go! I think probably my favorite one is the most recent one, which is Trubuy. I love having the opportunity to work on all of these projects with a very special team of developers and being able to kind of contribute to something that I know is making a difference in the clients that we work with and the products that they’re using that we can provide to them.
Q: How would you describe the team that you work with?
Kolio: The best! I really do think we have something special here. I think it’s full of a lot of unique talent and skillset. I’m really glad that I have the opportunity to just be around that and soak that in as much as possible.
Let’s get personal…
Q: What do most people not know about you?
Kolio: I’m a gym rat :D. I’m in the gym a lot and I’m pretty big into health and wellness in general.
Q: If you could choose anybody in the world to be your mentor, who would it be?
Kolio: There are a lot of answers to this. I don’t know if I’d ever be able to choose just one! Naturally, our minds go to a place where we see people with a lot of success, or deemed success. I’m just going to pick..IDK. Elon Musk – he’s a very influential figure. Or maybe someone at Apple, like Tim Cook. They have a very unique skillset in what they’ve mastered. If I had to choose just one, it would probably be one of those two, just to be able to soak up their experiences.
Q: Do you have any pets?
Kolio: Me and my girl have a bernedoodle. It’s been about 6-8 months since we got it, so…puppy!
Q: What’s a secret talent that no one knows about?
Kolio: I can draw 😀 I’ve been drawing since I was like 5.
Q: You mentioned the gym, do you have any favorite cheat meals?
Kolio: I do, of course! I’ve been working out for a while now. I think in the very beginning there’s a lot of dedication and focus that goes into it that you don’t want to deviate too far from your meal plan. After a while, you start to balance things out more, so I definitely do have cheat meals. The best feeling, I think, is the gratification you get when accomplishing whatever goal you set out to accomplish – whatever that may be, whether it’s working out or developing a really complex web app, I think those are the best moments.
Q: What’s your favorite video or board game?
Kolio: My favorite board game is naturally Monopoly. It’s just a classic. Favorite video game..hmm..I grew up with Pokemon so I’m super nostalgic to it. No matter how simple it is, it just stays there, consistent.
Q: Pineapple on Pizza….yes or no?
Kolio: If it’s made well, yes. If it’s maybe not made as well, then I’ll pass on it.
Q: How would you spend a million dollars in 24 hours?
Kolio: I’d probably use the first 50-60k toward a Tesla just to get into that EV car market. I’d probably just invest the rest into either real estate or dividends or index funds.
Q: What are the toughest challenges you’ve had at work?
Kolio: I think each project that I’ve worked on has had its own unique set of obstacles to overcome. I think a really tricky one, especially in the beginning when I first started, was taking Flutter and gearing that up. It was a mobile development project that I wasn’t familiar with, so smoothly transitioning it into the workflow was tough.
Q: What’s the best advice you can give someone who just started their career in web development?
Kolio: Learn a lot! Learn a lot and be okay with learning a lot and forever. Really figure out if you have that internal desire to do that or not. If you do, I think it’s going to be a great career.
