Abhi - the man behind our front-end development.

In this team member spotlight, I wanted to highlight Abhi, our lead Frontend Engineer.

Abhi joined us in April 2022 and quickly became a key player at Parspec. Abhi's resilient mindset, attention to detail, and leadership skills has been indispensable. Besides leading the entire frontend org, coordinating with product and the backend team, Abhi led our migration from Angular to React, simplifying our frontend architecture while providing much-needed enhancements to our application. I know our customers (and Jolan) appreciate it!

Abhi consistently looks to improve upon the processes and systems he helps develop. He has an ownership mentality and it is infectious. Looking forward to all the good times ahead, Abhi!

What is your role at Parspec?

Front-end development is becoming more challenging every day. New tools, new frameworks, and new paradigms are emerging so fast. Understanding why and when to apply a certain tool or approach, and determining the best choice for Parspec, are essential responsibilities. My role involves making the right decisions to keep our frontend architecture scalable and ensuring zero downtime for frontend production. I handle frontend infrastructure, CI/CD, and conduct reviews to ensure that the structure and design of our applications adhere to the standards and guidelines. I also define practices to ensure the security and vulnerability-free nature of the applications we build. Additionally, I optimize JavaScript implementations and implement front-end development workflows, including building systems, dependency management, and quality checkers (linting), among other tasks.

Why did you join Parspec?

Digital transformation is essential in the construction industry. The construction industry is still among the least digitalized sectors and the widespread adoption of digital technologies is yet to occur. I can see we have great potential to capture that empty space.

How do you see Parspec impacting the AEC industry? Society in general?

Although new technology is being adopted across the construction industry, it is not yet at the scale of other markets. I hope that we can be a major player in helping the construction industry adopt automation technology that makes the industry more efficient.

What sparked your interest in the technology industry?

Love for coding and passion for learning new things.

Are there any recent projects or initiatives at Parspec that you’re particularly excited about, and why?

I'm considering building a zero-API system in Parspec so that we won't need to create any APIs going forward. I aspire to create a system similar to Netflix or Facebook, where they utilize GraphQL federation across all microservices. While I don't have a concrete plan in place yet, I believe it will be an exciting and impactful project. This system will significantly boost our productivity since we currently face delays waiting for API contracts and APIs, which can sometimes hinder our development progress. With this system in place, we'll be able to handle all application logic without relying on external APIs.

What are your career goals? Where do you think Parspec can take you?

• Be a good leader.
• Take Parspec to great heights.
• Make the best tech team, share as much knowledge as possible, and help the entire team to grow.
• Lead end-to-end development of a product.

If you were not working at Parspec, where would you be?

I would either be working for another organization in a simlar capacity or working on my own ideas.

What do you think is the most important skill that a successful professional in your domain needs to have?

Passion, problem-solving ability, curiosity, confidence and hard work.

What is the biggest challenge that you’ve faced since joining the team?

Changing our existing frontend architecture, moving from Angular to React. Building a micro-frontend architecture so that we can build a system that can run Angular and React apps together. Building our own custom router so that different frameworks can talk to each other. Teaching the existing team React while they earlier worked on Angular and making sure we don't exceed our release timeline.

What do you see as the most exciting trends or developments in your domain right now? 

In engineering, Hasura and the Graph Query Language are quite exciting. I wanted to share this with the entire engineering team so that we can soon adopt this powerful query language and eliminate the need for APIs in the future.

What have been some of the most important lessons you’ve learned throughout your career?

1. The best software engineers think like designers.
2. The best code is no code, or code you don’t have to maintain.
3. There are a lot of software engineers out there who won’t express opinions unless asked. Never assume that just because someone isn’t throwing their opinions in your face that they don’t have anything to add. We should talk to the people around us, seek their feedback and advice.
4. Trust the team and they will deliver.
5. Keep processes as lean as possible.
6. Everyone in team, need to feel ownership.
7. Have less conditions in your code, only have it if you can't avoid it.

What techniques help you stay organized and productive?

I always keep clear goal for a day, which helps keep me focus on those items which are important for the day and getting those done. I think clear goal is very important for anyone to be productive.

What gets you out of bed in the morning?

Interacting with the team, having a passion for continuous improvement, and sharing knowledge to help everyone on the team get better every day.

What is your favorite food?

Chole Kulcha

What do you like to do outside of work?

I enjoy playing cricket and badminton, as well as listening to Bengali and Hindi music.

Describe your perfect weekend.

Going to Polo Orchid Resort, Cherrapunji and enjoy the valley views with my family and friends.

Where are you located? How did you end up there?

I am currently in Guwahati, India, and I was born and brought up here.