Imagine that you have packed your bags and were off to an exciting new job at an inspiring location. But suddenly Covid-19 broke out and altered your plans⛔️…
This is exactly what happened with Justin Zehmke. Hehad to go through an extremely stressful journey while relocating from South Africa to Estonia and starting a new job at EstateGuru.
Even on a normal day, moving to a new country is a nerve-racking experience. Luckily there’s companies like EstateGuru that make sure that new hires get the best support during relocation experience.
Not able to meet his family for six months, legal restrictions and not knowing what tomorrow will bring – if Justin had known about the COVID-19 troubles, would he still have applied for the position? Spoiler alert: the answer is YES! ✅
We did some investigation and EstateGuru was not your first connection with Estonia. How did a guy from South Africa find his way to Estonia?
Yes, this is my second stint in Estonia. I first moved here in 2016, when I got a job with Pipedrive as a copywriter. I had been actively trying to leave South Africa for about two years by that point. South Africa is beautiful and interesting, but it is also extremely dangerous and corrupt, while the economy is in a serious downward spiral. I wanted to secure a better future for my daughter, one that is safe and where she has opportunities for success and happiness.
My career there had been spent in digital media, and before I left I was working as the head of publishing at a large media company. After just under two years at Pipedrive, which I really enjoyed, I started freelancing in Estonia for a variety of marketing agencies and tech companies. By late 2018 we took the decision to go back to South Africa for about six months to allow my daughter, who was five at the time, to get to know her grandparents and extended family, who she hadn’t seen in three years and had very little memory of. I was lucky enough to be able to work remotely, but knew that I would have to find a full time job if we wanted to come back again.
Leaving the country for that long meant that our residence permits expired. Six months turned into a year, but by the start of 2020 it was definitely time to head back.
Despite Covid-19 restrictions, Justin and his family relocated from South-Africa to Estonia.
Okay, when we take “find your way to Estonia” literally, then Covid-19 did everything in its power to hinder your from getting here. Describe us the rollercoaster you had to go through while starting a new job at EstateGuru and relocating to Estonia.
When EstateGuru offered me a position, I jumped at the opportunity. I had done some work for the company before and knew the culture relatively well and saw it as a fantastic opportunity to be part of something exciting, new, and with huge growth potential. The offer was also extremely generous, in the sense that they were willing to pay the relocation costs for my whole family as well as hire Jobbatical to assist with the relocation process, particularly things like getting visas, applying for the residence permit etc. Whether it was paperwork, flight tickets, hotel bookings or whatever, everything was done quickly and smoothly. It looked like relocating would be a breeze.
But it was at this point that I took a decision which I was to regret bitterly.
Having done the whole relocation thing before, we decided that it would be easiest if I went ahead and set everything up, like renting an apartment, registering my daughter for school and generally getting settled in. The plan was that my wife and daughter would join me a month later, a seamless relocation without stress or complications. It seemed so logical at the time. As there is no Estonian embassy in South Africa, I had to fly to Dublin first to apply for a visa. I did this in the last week of February, and the signs were already ominous. Covid-19 had just started its push through Europe and some countries were already implementing lockdowns, but no one could predict at this point how bad it would get.
I arrived in Estonia and EstateGuru had rented an apartment for me for two months to give me time to find my own long-term place. At this point I was still marvelling at how much easier it was than the first time I came here. I applied for the residence permit and everything was going great. Then, within a few weeks of arriving in Estonia, the emergency situation was declared and I was working from home, which is a strange way to start a new job.
Estonia subsequently closed its borders, but I hadn’t really started stressing yet. There was still the expectation that this would be a short-term situation and, even during lockdown, family members of residents were allowed into the country. But then, as always, being South African came back to bite me. My home country introduced the strictest lockdown in the world. People were not allowed to leave their homes, even to do exercise. As the government seized the opportunity to conduct a theft of public funds on a truly massive scale, they also enacted some draconian and ridiculously oppressive measures. At one point the police and army were killing more South Africans than the coronavirus was. Worst of all, the borders were closed completely and, according to the government, indefinitely.
In a panic, I started exploring all possible options to get my family out. The South African government said they would be allowed to leave the country on a repatriation flight if they had residence permits or D-Visas for Estonia. The Estonian government said they would be allowed to enter here if they had residence permits or D-Visas. Seems simple really. But the catch was that the visas could only be issued at an Estonian embassy, and they weren’t allowed to travel to a country with an embassy without the visas they were trying to apply for. We were stuck. I contacted every possible person at the Police and Border guard and always received the same answer: “They should go to an embassy.” One month quickly turned to two, then three and eventually I hadn’t seen my family in six months while the situation in South Africa was deteriorating daily. I feared for their safety, while maintaining two separate households is also not that easy on the wallet.
Throughout this entire ordeal EstateGuru was incredibly supportive, contacting people in government to see if they could help and retaining the services of Jobbatical throughout, but there was simply nothing to be done. Eventually I had no choice but to take a repatriation flight to South Africa in the hope that I could somehow get my family out once I was there. Again, EstateGuru supported this throughout, agreeing that I could work remotely for as long as it took.
So I flew back at the beginning of September. Two months later we had managed to get visas to Turkey for the whole family, and made an appointment at the Estonian embassy in Ankara. We flew to Amsterdam, then Istanbul, then Ankara. The visas were issued without stress and we managed to arrive in Estonia on 2 November.
Congratulations that you are once again united with your family! After months of waiting, do you now feel that you have finally settled in?
Oh yes. Even when I arrived at the end of February, it felt like coming home, and now that we are all here and have completed our quarantine, we can start living normally again. It’s just a pity that we have finally arrived just in time for winter.
The EstateGuru team is expanding rapidly.
If you would have known about the C-19 troubles you have to face, would you have still applied for the EstateGuru position?
Without a doubt, but I would change a few things. I would agree to an earlier start date and bring the whole family as soon as possible. I really enjoy the job and love working for EstateGuru, so no matter how tough it was to get here, it was all worth it.
While there are plenty of valid reasons for relocating, it’s important to remember the weird time right now. What would you say to our readers, who are considering relocation, but feel uncertain about the situation?
Move quickly and decisively. If you have an opportunity to relocate and it is what you really want, take the chance while it is there. The situation changes and shifts constantly so your window to move may be very small. Of course, relocation is always fraught with anxiety and doubt, and these feelings are hugely amplified during a crisis. So the relocation process is probably the most difficult it has ever been.
Also, make sure you have a contingency plan for when things go wrong. During our journey to Estonia we were constantly expecting to be stranded in whatever country we were in due to border closures, and had planned accordingly. We flew via Amsterdam because I have very good friends who live there and would have housed us if the borders closed while we were there. Turkey is relatively cheap so we would have been able to rent a place for a few months if needed, which is why we chose to visit the embassy there rather than the one in Ireland, as being stranded there would bankrupt you even on a very good Estonian salary.
And make sure your employer understands the process and is willing to help. I was able to easily continue my job from wherever I found myself at any given time and the financial and administrative support I received from EstateGuru was invaluable. Being able to go through this whole process without the added stress of worrying about losing my job was a massive help.
Kristjan Toop, Product Marketing Manager at EstateGuru:
As a rapidly growing company, we are doing lots of recruiting at the moment, and with offices in five countries, there is invariably relocation of candidates involved. There is a thorough understanding at a management level of how stressful and difficult this can be, so we provide complete support to staff throughout the process. We spend a lot of time ensuring we get the best candidates, and once the decision is taken, they need to feel that they have our full backing. The idea is that they should enjoy their jobs from day one, without outside stress impacting their experience. Obviously, the Covid situation has made this significantly more challenging, and in Justin’s case especially so, but we’re very happy that everything worked out and that we can use this as a template for future relocations.
Want to be a part of this amazing team? Check out EstateGuru active job openings:
The second wave of the coronavirus pandemic has arrived in Finland as well which resulted in new restrictions and measures starting from November until December 15. 😷
In this report, we will compare market competitiveness, the number of job openings, the offered gross salaries and more between November and May. 👍
Our goal is to see how the Finnish job market has been doing in the first and second waves of the coronavirus pandemic.
👉 Both the number of job openings and applications saw a decline.
👉 Finland saw a slight change in market competitiveness in October. It was somewhere between the “challenging” and “OK” levels.
Now is time to dig into November’s stats and see the most significant changes since May!
Job Market Overview
As we mentioned above, both the number of job openings and applications saw a decline in Finland.
What about this month?
However this month, similar to Estonia and Lithuania, the number of job openings in the Finnish job market has seen an increase. 📈
However, the number of job applications has decreased this month. This is similar to other countries in the region as well. Apparently, the opportunities outnumber demand. 🤔
➡️ From a different angle, the expectations of job seekers may not be matching with the offerings from companies.
What about market competitiveness?
If you are looking for a job in Finland, we have some good news for you. Nowadays, it is at the happy green level – the “OK level” – to find a job in the Finnish job market. 😊
Wondering about the offered and expected gross salaries?
Both salaries saw a small increase as of mid-November. This has been an ongoing trend since October which means the low gap between the salaries persists.
Job openings in Top 6 Specialties: November vs May
Time to talk about every job seeker’s favourite topic: job openings in the top 6 specialties. 🤓
In this section, we will compare November’s number of job openings (as of today) with May’s.
🔊 What was the situation like back in the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic? What about now – how is the Finnish job market doing in the second wave?
When we look at the chart, we can see that:
✅ In November the number of job openings in all industries fell compared to May’s stats.
✅ The Software Engineering industry saw the highest fall – more than 50%. Despite this significant decrease, this specialty still has the highest number of job offerings compared to the others in the list.
✅ Data Analytics already had a low number of job openings in May and now it has decreased by more than approximately 60%.
Let’s see how the data will look in December!
Offered Salaries: November vs May
The offered and expected salaries have been a rollercoaster for most countries and Finland is one of them.
In this section, we will discuss how the offered gross salaries have changed since May.
➡️ The winners of this section are Design and Data Analytics. These 2 industries saw an increase in November compared to May’s numbers.
Good for you designers – Design made a giant leap forward as of mid-November! 💃
➡️ Surprisingly, companies operating in the Sales and Business Development industry are offering exactly the same salaries in November as they were in May.
➡️ Marketing, PR & Design saw the lowest increase when it comes to offered salaries.
Market Competitiveness Per Specialty
In this section, we will talk about market competitiveness and how easy it is to find a job in Finland nowadays.
We will also dive into the top 6 specialties.
Let’s summarise the data above with 4 main takeaways:
💡 Software engineers are always at the top of the list when it comes to the most sought-after employees. But as of mid-November, it seems finding a job will be a bit more challenging for them.
It seems to be at the “OK level” now, whereas it was “easy” in May.
💡 Good news for IT & Sysadmin experts! Now it is very easy for you to find a job in Finland. Our data shows that the market is offering the perfect environment for you!
💡 The market has become more competitive for (Tech) Project Management and Data & Analytics.
💡 The Sales & Business Development and Marketing, PR & Media industries are facing less challenges in November as well. The ease of finding a job in the latter is not perfect though.
Welcome to the MeetFrank family!
🥁 Lately, we welcomed 7 new members to the MeetFrank family: Tovari Oy, Growflow Oy, Combient Foundry, Fondion, Trustmary, Elenia, and AtoZ!
Now that the second wave of the Coronavirus pandemic has started to hit the world, new travel restrictions came into place for Estonia as of last week. 😷
If you are planning to travel to Estonia, we recommend you check the news more often these days. 👀
If you are asking “is COVID-19’s comeback the only news in Estonia?”, the answer is no! The country is celebrating its 5th unicorn: congrats Pipedrive! 👏
In this week’s article, we will discuss the most recent effects of the Coronavirus pandemic on the Estonian job market and how the top 6 specialties are doing. 👀
We will also compare today’s stats with those of May, when the effects of the pandemic began to show up in the market data in most countries after the first wave.
Let’s dive into the overview and see what’s new in Estonia as of mid-November! 👇
Job Market Overview
In our previous report, we shared that by mid-October, the number of job openings finally increased by 12%. What about mid-November?
The number of job openings in the Estonian job market has increased while the job applications saw a small decline.
This means, despite the second wave looming, there are still opportunities for job seekers out there. 🤩
In the next section, we will dive into the number of openings in November versus in April and discuss the stats from different angles.
When we look at the chart, we can see that there was a small increase both in offered and expected salaries by mid-November. 📈
The gap between the salaries persists.
Finally, some good news. Market competitiveness in Estonia – which was at the “difficult level” last month – has almost reached the “OK level”.
This means there are more openings and opportunities for job seekers and more need for talent on the employer side. 😊
Job openings in Top 6 Specialties: November vs May
In this section, we will compare the number of job openings as of today with those in May. 🕵️♀️
When we look at the chart, we can see that the number of job openings are lower in November in all specialties compared to May. 📉
✅ Sales and Business Development saw the largest decline.
✅ Even the number of openings in Software Engineering – the star specialty of the year (and apparently of the future) – decreased significantly.
✅ (Tech) Project Management saw a small decline. But please note that this industry had a relatively low number of openings in May.
Now that there is promising vaccine news and we can be more optimistic about the future, let’s hope better days are ahead in terms of the economy and of course, the number of job openings worldwide and in Estonia. 🙏
Offered Salaries: November vs May
A lot has changed in 2020 and one of them has been the state of the economy worldwide. 🎢
Let’s see how the first and second waves of the Coronavirus pandemic have affected the offered salaries in the Estonian job market.
There are 3 main takeaways from the chart below:
➡️ Software Engineering, Marketing, PR & Design, and Customer Support have seen a decline since May. The last two industries do not come as a surprise to us, as the market competitiveness has been mostly high for both industries for the entire year.
➡️ IT & Sysadmin saw the highest increase. If you are looking for a job opportunity and your expertise is IT & Sysadmin, keep an eye on the openings coming up at the moment. 👀
➡️ Sales & Business Development and Project Management fields also saw a moderate increase in offered salaries.
Market Competitiveness Per Specialty
How has it been to find a job in Estonia lately? Which specialties are offering the most opportunities?
In this section, we will answer these questions – comparing the November data with May’s. 👀
The offered gross salaries and the number of job openings may not present a lovely picture of the Estonian job market. But if we have a deeper look into market competitiveness, we can see that things are slowly getting better.
💡 The “yay, now it’s easier to find a job opportunity” industries are Software Engineering, (Tech) Project Management, and Sales and Business Development.
💡 The “well, I might face some competition” industry – in which it is a bit more challenging to find a job – is IT & Sysadmin. Bearing in mind that it is at the “easy” level to find a job in this industry already, it’s not such bad news at all!
💡 The “it’s at thesame level and nothing has changed that much” industries are Marketing, Design & PR and Customer Support. Job seekers working in these specialties are currently facing high levels of competition which we hope will be replaced by more job opportunities in 2021. 🙏
Welcome to the MeetFrank family!
🥁 This month, we are happy to welcome many new members: ID Lam OÜ, Sild Consulting, Salespeople OÜ, and Visory!
The second wave of the coronavirus pandemic is here – what’s the latest situation in Lithuania? How has the job market been responding to COVID-19 since May? 🤔
In this report, we will compare today’s stats with May’s and see how the first and second waves have been affecting the Lithuanian job market. 🕵️♀️
Let’s evaluate the current situation in terms of market competitiveness, offered salaries and the number of job openings and see how the first and second waves of the pandemic have been shaping the Lithuanian job market.
Ready? We are ready to learn more too! 🚀
Job Market Overview
In our previous report in mid-October, we saw that the number of job openings increased by 19%.
This month, there was also an increase – by 23%- in the number of job openings in Lithuania. It seems more employers have sped up their recruitment processes in mid-November. 📈
On the other hand, the number of job applications in the Lithuanian job market has declined over the past 4 weeks. 📉
This gives a clearer picture of the job market – there are either more opportunities than needed or the expectations of job seekers do not match with those of employers.
🕵️♀️ Next in line are offered and expected gross salaries. Similar to Estonia, both saw a decline this month.
The gap between the salaries persists.
Last month, it was at the “OK level” to find a job in the Lithuanian job market. By mid-November, finding a job is much easier—almost at the “easy level”! 🙏
If your future career plans include Lithuania, your chances of finding your dream job are higher nowadays!
Job openings in Top 6 Specialties: November vs May
In this section, we will compare the number of job openings as of today with May’s.
Let’s go where the stats take us:
✅ All the industries saw a decline in November when compared to May in terms of the number of job openings.
✅ Sales and Business Development and Software Engineering saw a much sharper fall than the other industries.
✅ Customer Support and Data & Analytics already had a low number of openings in May. As of mid-November, these numbers are even lower.
📉 When it comes to the number of job openings, Lithuania is facing a similar situation to Estonia – all industries have seena harsh decline. Let’s see what December will bring and how the Lithuanian job market will end the year.
Offered Salaries: November vs May
We all know how 2020 changed everything from how we live and work to the state of the global economy. In this section, we will compare the gross offered salaries in November and May to underline the results of the first and second waves of the coronavirus pandemic. 😷
Let’s discuss the 3 main takeaways from the chart below:
➡️ There is some good news from the Lithuanian job market. All the industries saw an increase in gross offered salaries except for Customer Support.
It is at the “OK level” to find a job in this industry. It is possible that the salaries have been lower due to high demand as well as a high number of job opportunities.
➡️ Data & Analytics saw the highest increase in offered salaries.
➡️ Marketing & PR & Design saw the lowest increase.
Market Competitiveness Per Specialty
Next in line is market competitiveness per specialty. In this section, we will compare the situation in Lithuania in mid-November vs May and see how the country is doing as 2020 is almost (finally!) over.
The chart above is telling us that:
💡 The industries where it is easier to find a job are Marketing, PR & Design, IT & Sysadmin and Customer Support.
We are happy for these industries, particularly for Customer Support, as professionals working in this industry have not been receiving much positive news lately. 😊
💡 Although it is still easy for software engineers to find a job in Lithuania, our data shows that the market was more in their favour 6 months ago.
💡 The industry that saw the most dramatic fall is Sales and Business Development. In May it was easier to find a job in this specialty, while nowadays job seekers may find it much more challenging.
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🤩 We are happy that the MeetFrank family is growing every day! Say hi to our new members: PrestaPro, Aeroclass.org, AB „Kauno energija“ and DeepFin.
The main characteristic is its small-scale. The brand might be known only at limited geographic locations or it might be selling niche products that a limited number of consumers are using.
Imagine selling delicacy cheese 🧀 from a small Swiss canton or producing custom rows of keys 🎹 for 19th century pianos…
Whatever your product or service is, you will find your consumers with the help of internet and hyper targeted marketing 📈. This gives the microbrands a bigger impact than one might think.
This is the place where companies like Smart Brands Laboratoryjump in. With their know-how in the field, they have created a micro niche brand development model that scales them through a series of growth methodologies in branding, multichannel sales, sourcing, and digital marketing efforts.
In the light of ‘attack of the micro brands’ we talked with Tomas Unikauskis, the CEO at Smart Brands Laboratory.
The Interview with Tomas
Alien just landed on the Earth and your task is to explain to this totally clueless creature “What Smart Brands Laboratory does?” Go!
Smart Brands Laboratory is in the business of understanding people’s behavior. We’ve developed a proprietary niche brand scoring algorithm that identifies products that people around the world need, how they get what they need, and what the most efficient ways are to meet that need. We now own and manage 5 niche brands in the home & kitchen, vegan, pet, and sports product categories.
The source of your company’s success is the micro niche brand development model that you have created. What source of scaling magic is this? How does it differ from anything else on the market?
The primary objective of niche branding is to deliver a highly relevant message along with a value proposition that resonate closely with a narrowly defined audience. Our goal isn’t to build large brands that speak to masses and deliver products that are great for everyone. We’re driven by an eagerness to identify a subset of people that have a few specific things in common and speak about what matters to them. That’s the main competitive advantage of our business model.
Smart Brands Laboratory works with niche brands that have huge undiscovered potential. How do you find these unique labels? Do you agree that if a brand is too niche, it may die from lack of audience?
Even if you have the best brand of trombone oil in the world, every month there are only 300 people around the world looking online for trombone oil. Our niche scoring model determines when a product developed for a certain audience is not a viable standalone business.
Looking at Smart Brands Laboratory’s DNA and that you help brands scale across multiple sales channels and geographies. What are the main markets you focus on?
Smart Brands Laboratory’s primary sales markets are the USA, Canada, Mexico, the EU, and we’re about to launch in Australia. We’re also laser-focused on choosing the right marketing mix in each market. For example, the demand for certain vegan products has been growing steadily in the US for the past few years, whereas it has only recently picked up in Germany.
The market is more and more tired of big corporations and instead turning their face towards microbrands. How do you see this microbrand explosion evolving?
The rise of direct-to-consumer brands started almost a decade ago. They utilized undervalued traffic strategies such as social media ads and influencer marketing. They spoke about a single problem and presented a clear-cut solution to that problem. DTC brands spoke in a way which resonated with their audiences and social media advertising algorithms facilitated delivering that message to these audiences efficiently.
Also, customer behavior appears to have shifted towards experimenting with new unheard brands more frequently. A nationally known brand used to be the main driver for customer confidence. Now DTC brands that utilize user generated content, influencer marketing, and online product reviews can deliver the same feeling of confidence and convince new customers to purchase their products.
In the light of these niche branding and newly found customer confidence factors, more brands will continue to enter the e-commerce space. However, one of the main challenges for these brands will be determining the right product-market fit and balancing customer acquisition costs with their lifetime value. I think microbrands have a better chance at striking the right balance due to substantially lower competition in these niches. This is what we’re after at Smart Brands Laboratory.
Even during these unprecedented times, Smart Brands Laboratory is actively hiring and looking for new members – currently to the Sales, Marketing and Product development teams. Who are you looking for? What is the mindset that unites your current employees?
Since inception we’ve been inviting people to join the team in hiring sprees whenever we hit a significant milestone. We’ve doubled our team a few times already and we’re currently preparing for our 3rd round of hires. We’re looking to grow our product development and sourcing team to launch even more brands next year. We also want to expand multiple traffic strategies such as SEO, SEM, paid media, affiliate, and influencer partnerships.
Regarding mindset – I’d say that it’s very important to be open and sincere with your peers when you’re working in a startup environment. The ride is bumpy, everyone has their ups and downs. It’s never easy. All these things are way more comfortable when people approach challenges with an open mind.
Here are some examples of out job openings that are active at the moment:
How do you find the talents to hire? Do you publish a job offer or what % of hired candidates has been sourced and headhunted?
I would say that a lot of people have come to us organically through word of mouth and conversations at local meetups. In addition, we post all open positions on MeetFrank and reshare them on LinkedIn. So far, we’ve hired over 50% of our staff through MeetFrank’s platform without using other headhunting services.
What are Smart Brands Laboratory plans one month from now? What does 2021 look like?
Analysts predict that 1 out of 3 gifts in the United States will be purchased online. We expect a wild fourth quarter this year! I’m sure 2021 will be another year of growth for the company. We’re looking to grow our niche brand portfolio and open new sales channels.
If you’re choosing your career path in software development, the main question is what programming language to specialise in? 💻 Usually Javascript takes the spotlight, but despite the trends, there isn’t a right or wrong programming language choice.
When setting up your profile at MeetFrank you will encounter a wide variety of programming languages. Just select your expertise and MeetFrank will connect you directly to companies that are looking for a talent like you! One click, no hassle needed.
Did you know that Scala is used by well-known companies such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Netflix and Airbnb? Read further to find out more!
What does the company Evolution do?
Evolution is a world-leading B2B provider of video-streamed Live Dealer gaming with over 400+ engineers located in Riga, Minsk, Tallinn and Amsterdam Engineering Hubs. The company is successfully using Scala as the main programming language for their back-end services.
They are actively recruiting Scala Engineers in Minsk, Riga and Tallinn – offering interesting projects and a modern technology stack, not only on the back-end but also on the front-end (using TypeScript, React, Redux, MobX, Babylon.js and WebGL). Check out their current vacancies:
Evolution has offices in 15 countries and Engineering Hubs in Latvia, the Netherlands, Estonia and Belarus.
How does Evolution implement Scala programming language in their daily work?
Juris, you went all out there and called Scala an elegant and powerful programming language. What made you fall in love and how did you implement Scala into your everyday work?
We have been successfully using Scala at Evolution since 2013. Initially we started using Scala in unit tests, but over time, we realised that the code we write in Scala has higher quality than our Java code.
It was also easier to maintain due to a more advanced type system. Besides, we added Akka to our technology stack and Akka can be used more naturally from Scala.
Overall, the developers liked Scala, and we have successfully transitioned our codebase into modern and functional Scala code, which also involved the migration of other technology stack components: from Java and Hazelcast, Hibernate, Spring and JSP frameworks to Scala and Akka, including Akka Persistence. We split the monolithic application into microservices that communicate with each other using Kafka. The integration had to be carried out gradually while the system remained production.
How did you stumble upon Scala? What exactly charmed you?
I started learning Scala in late 2012. At the time, I was looking for a “better Java”, and while I was programming in Groovy, it seemed both a step forward and back compared to Java.
At first, the learning curve for Scala seemed steep. I was reading some complicated library code, understanding very little, and thinking that “this really uses operator overloading too much”. But then I finished the Coursera course “Functional Programming in Scala” by “the father of Scala” Martin Odersky and fell in love with the language.
I like the compile-time type checking features that well written Scala code has. The compiler helps you do various refactoring very efficiently, guiding the developer from working code to working code, without breaking anything. The probability that “if your code compiles, it works” is really high in Scala.
What are the main benefits of using Scala?
Scala leads to better code and happier developers. The absolute majority of our developers who have become proficient in Scala are no longer interested in moving back to their previous languages.
Scala is a general-purpose back-end (server-side) language, and you can do everything in it that you could do in Java. It has good interoperability with existing Java code, as well as excellent frameworks for developing distributed, low-latency systems.
Scala supports the functional programming (FP) paradigm, which leads to more maintainable code.
The average proficiency of Scala developers is very high – if a developer decides to move out of the “comfort zone” and migrate to Scala, he or she is probably interested in developing skills and writing good code.
Using Scala.js you can develop for the front-end – thus Scala can also do most things that Javascript or Typescript can. Scala.js is a Scala transpiler to JavaScript, allowing development in Scala for the browser. This allows the applications to be isomorphic – both the back-end and front-end written in Scala, with code that can be reused between them.
We at Evolution have one of the most advanced Scala.js projects in production, which manages the work schedules of our 8000 game presenters world-wide.
But surely, there must be some drawbacks?
True, the main drawbacks of Scala are slow compilation times and a rather steep learning curve.
Is the language still evolving? What are the future prospects for Scala?
Scala is an evolving language with a vibrant ecosystem, including many open source contributors. The new version of Scala language, “Scala 3” adds many desired features and improves existing ones.
However, not only the language is evolving but also new libraries are being introduced, such as ZIO and Cats Effect 3. Besides that, the community is finding new, useful ways to write Scala code, such as with the Tagless Final approach. The prospects are very good indeed.
If a software engineering enthusiast is reading this, then why should they learn Scala?
Learning Scala is certainly the right choice! It will make you into a better developer even if you do not stick with it. I wish more universities taught Scala to students. The closest language commonly taught is Haskell.
Haskell is an important functional programming language and functional Scala borrows a lot from it. But there are fewer Haskell vacancies, and it is used less often in production. The language itself is beautiful, but the ecosystem is lagging.
You say that Scala is pretty rarely taught in universities. Where should one start then?
I believe that the Kernighan & Ritchie quote “The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it” is very true.
So you must write code. Every day. Start with simple tasks from HackerRank or similar sites. Continue with more and more complicated tasks and systems, especially ones that help you solve problems you yourself care about. Contribute to open source.
I think Scala is quite easy to pick up if used as a “better Java with some syntactic sugar”. If used in an idiomatic Functional Programming-style, it also becomes a matter of learning Functional Programming and how to apply it using Scala.
As Evolution is such a powerful hub for Scala, is there any opportunity to come and learn the language from your team?
Participating in Scala bootcamps can help you learn faster from experienced mentors. All you need for participating is fundamental programming knowledge and a desire to learn – previous Scala or Functional programming experience is not required. Our bootcamp showed that people want to learn Scala. We received almost 500 applications this summer for the Scala Bootcamp in Riga!
Previously there were fewer learning materials and it was easier to just say “start with the ‘red book’ by Chiusano and Bjarnason” but many excellent authors have now published books and tutorials.
Thus we have collected, in our opinion, links to the best Scala learning resources. Find them in the “Learning resources” section. We constantly keep them up to date.
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