Danijela Vrzan, 1st a civil engineer then a software engineer

Jeroen Leenarts: Hi, and welcome to another special episode of my podcast. I'm sitting here with Daniella fitsum. I hope I pronounced that correctly, then yeah. Because it's the Croatian name, right? Danijela Vrzan: Yes, that's correct. It's because I'm Canada. Now a lot of people pronounce it with a J, but it's silent j. So it's Danielle. Jeroen Leenarts: Okay. So you immediately mentioned something interesting there, because, first of all, you are from Croatia, but you're living in Canada. So we're probably going to dig into that. But first of all, how's your day? Danijela Vrzan: It's great. Actually, it's Friday. I'm not working today. My company actually gave us every second Friday off during summer. So I'll be really enjoying that. Jeroen Leenarts: Okay, and what company is that? Danijela Vrzan: I'm working for Deloitte, Canada at the moment. Jeroen Leenarts: Deloitte, I've heard that name before. But what is what? What is it that they do? Danijela Vrzan: Well, it's a consulting company. And we have a front end engineering team, bunch of web developers and mobile developers, and we have client projects that we work on. Jeroen Leenarts: Okay, and how do you fit into this entire team system? Danijela Vrzan: Well, when there's a project coming for that we have to create a mobile app. I'm right here, especially for iOS separate. Jeroen Leenarts: Okay, so yeah, of course, we're talking about iOS software development. That's also what my podcast is about. So Daniela is a iOS developer. But you haven't always been an iOS developer, I think, because I looked at your resume. And there's some really interesting stuff on there. So can you tell a little bit about that? Danijela Vrzan: Yeah. So before I got into tech, I was a civil engineer. I graduated high school in civil engineering. And, you know, like, 18 years old, not everyone knows where they want to be. I didn't really know at a time, I just thought what I liked was to draw. And I thought, like, drawing buildings. I thought it as a creative, something creative I could do. And so after I graduated in high school, I thought, you know, the right course for me to be to go to university. So I graduated as a civil engineer. And I worked for two years before I decided to switch and that was that was really unexpected. Jeroen Leenarts: So but what made you decide to switch up your career and actually get a second? Education? Danijela Vrzan: Yeah, so I worked for two years in civil engineering. And I didn't quite enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I was living in working Croatia at a time, there weren't much jobs. And I just didn't enjoy going to work every day and doing what I did. So how I got to, what I first did was take a course on ethics at Coursera or Udemy. It was to build a simple web page in HTML and CSS. And before I got into that, that was actually my husband's idea, because he is in it, too. So it was his suggestion. And one thing that I always say and that I wish I had sooner was some intro to programming before that, because I didn't have any programming or it. Neither in high school, neither in my university, so they didn't really get in touch with that. Didn't see that career as an option ever. And so I created a simple website in HTML. It's not really a program. It's just HTML and CSS, but I still loved it. And then I did some JavaScript and Python. Kind of right off the bat. And I liked it. And so I decided to go back to university to quit my job in civil engineering. And, yeah, so that's how I ended up there. Jeroen Leenarts: It's very interesting that you mentioned that because you opted to do civil engineering, you did an education in that you found job in that, and then pretty much seem to have hit a wall in the sense that you weren't really enjoying what you were doing day to day. But you did not have any prior experience or exposure to computers beyond basic word processing and typing your reports for your education. But so there was no computer in your at least no interest for computers when you were a little girl or what not something that was that was presented to you as something that you could pursue as a as a person or what was the idea there? Danijela Vrzan: Yeah, so I mean, apart from like, Word Excel and I did learn to draw in AutoCAD during my civil engineering but like there was never mentioned about programming which you know, it's you asked how this program is come to life but I didn't like today a lot of schools offer some intro to programming in Scratch or something basic, which I wish I had. I might consider that as a career then. But Jeroen Leenarts: they would have saved you some years. I guess Danijela Vrzan: that's that's very true. But yeah, I know. Nothing. Except just gaming. I yeah, I just play video games. Jeroen Leenarts: Yeah. So And what's also interesting is that your husband, I was he back then when you made the switch also already your husband's or you were at least in a relationship with him. Now he was my boyfriend. Yeah, but Well, things over the years, but, but he saw you pretty much struggling with what you were doing day to day. And how did this idea of him was like presented to you to like, hey, maybe something with computers, maybe programming? Tried? Maybe it's something that that that you might like, so what was the process there? Danijela Vrzan: Yeah, it was. It was interesting. It was just, you know, we were living together at a time. And he just got his first job. And I was coming home after work and telling him a lot of things. And he could just, he would just listen to me and saying, I can see that you're not satisfied with the work you're doing. And she just like suggested to me, like, why don't you try take some courses on Coursera or Udemy, or just find something in programming, whatever, and see how you like it. And that was like thinking, Oh, wow, like I've never done any programming anything like that before. But I can find my way around computers and using most of the software. And so I went there and found that course and created my first website, like, I'm always particular when it comes to UI, so I really liked designing things. I was like, Okay, I like this. I didn't know I wanted to be an iOS developer at the time. Jeroen Leenarts: Now, but that's something that develops the gap through exposure, I guess. But then that was like we're talking about, I think, April 2016. And then in October already, you enrolled in, in a computer science program in Croatia still. What is your people in your surroundings? Say when you said yep, I'm just quitting my job and back to school for me. Danijela Vrzan: Yeah, that was a crazy time, as you said, like, a few months. When I went to second University, I just the applications have already started for the universities. And I was like, just, I had like, two weeks left to apply. And I was like, okay, like this. Am I seriously doing this? Is this like really happening? Am I going to university again, like to get my bachelor's again? And I was like, yeah, why not? Let's do it. And that I got into university. I was like, okay, my, my parents. They they were saying a long time when I during my second university, they were saying you're still engineer like, why are you doing this? They didn't really acknowledge my computer size. They thought like, what are you doing? But yeah, I'm busy. I'm happy now. So Jeroen Leenarts: yeah, so it did it in I think it's three years for two and a half years. So that's quite quickly that you that you went through that? So I reckon Yeah, just bachelor's for three. Yeah, because you already had some formal education as a civil engineer some things would have been easy but then the really the courses that were on some subject matter they were like well knew and heart or was it Okay, so I was the experience for you because you usually hear like for people they from a young age, they mess around with computers, they do all kinds of crazy things with my age from magazines and and peer groups really, and but you really like out of the blue one or two courses on something with computers and then like yes, I'm going to do this education. So what was the what was it like for you? Was it like really? into the deep end, or how did you find the experience of being trained as a software developer, then? Danijela Vrzan: Yeah, so when I started, there was the university offered, like one week before the first year started, they were offering an intro to programming to those who are interested. And so I was like, Okay, I never did it. So I wanted to go and try and see, to get some intro before it start all started. And so we were writing logic in pseudocode. And I came there and I was like, wow, this is this. I have problems with a logic like, you know, and or, because I didn't have that actually, in high school. I didn't do that. And so I did struggle with that quite a lot. But I was good in math, which, as a civil engineer, it's kind of expected. There's more math than in computer science. But I did struggle a lot with like logic and advanced mathematics, because computer science, like we had like five different mathematics courses. I don't know why still to this day, but I'm not using any of that. I Jeroen Leenarts: know that I know what you're talking about. Because in my education, it was also like crazy amounts of marks. And then once you're working, you're like, Oh, why am I not using this? It? They made such a fuss about it so that you needed to have it. And then when you're just working, it's like, maybe if you do something with with 3d or game engines or stuff like that, but I haven't used it for anything else. Really. So yeah, you graduated in? I think it was September 2019. And, and then what happened to you at Find your first job, I guess? Yes. And you were not focused on iOS development yet, then? I think Danijela Vrzan: it was just about that. That so I graduated in September, but actually moved to Canada two months before that. Okay. Yeah, so Well, now we come to that the, how we came to Canada is my husband was working for a company, that headquarters in the state. And so they decided to close the office in Croatia, and he was invited to come. We were supposed to choose between Chicago and Toronto. So we just run. It was like, we were talking and it just came out of nowhere. He said, What when I came home, like my company's closing the office, do we want to go to Canada? Like, at a time, I still had a full year at my university. I was like, Wow, are we really doing this? It was exciting, scary. Just like out of nowhere. So we moved to Canada. He came about half a year before me because I was still in university. Yeah. And then when I finished I came, I came to Toronto. And so I moved here two months earlier. So I just went back to Croatia to graduate with my bachelor's thesis. And actually my bachelor's thesis, I created my first iOS app. So I did know that I liked iOS development when I graduated. Jeroen Leenarts: So but you mentioned that you graduated on the topic of developing something for the iOS platform. But what made you decide that that was the topic that you wanted to graduate on? Because, yeah, it's of course, important that what you choose is very, yeah, you're working on it very intently for like, six months, I guess. I don't know how it's in Croatia, but at least in the Netherlands, that's what you usually do with if you want to graduate. But why iOS? Because you must have had some reason or some prior exposure already, then to be able to decide that that might be a good idea for you. Danijela Vrzan: Yeah, I actually didn't it's it's an interesting, I was thinking between web development and mobile development. Yeah, like, what should I do like, because I had exposure to web development. During my university, we were doing some some basic, I did some PHP, CSS, HTML. And so we were building web websites, but I didn't had any exposure to mobile development. That was actually in the master's degree, which I didn't go but I got my first MacBook for my second year and my first iPhone. And once I moved to iPhone from Android, I was like, wow, this is really much nicer. Sorry, and Try the users. And then and then like, and something I think I was talking with my husband one day, it was like, What do you know? You can like build mobile apps for iOS, you have Mac, you have an iPhone. You can try it as like, oh, wow, I can Yeah. And I built my first iPhone ever. It was just it was like a quote that you brought up a button and display read, unquote. And so I side load that it's on my iPhone. I was like, wow, this is cool. Like seeing it come to life on my own iPhone was, yeah, I want to do this. Jeroen Leenarts: You were educated as a software developer through your computer science, education. What resources did you use to get started with iOS development? Because you were into web development, PHP, as you mentioned, some JavaScript CSS. So a little bit of front end, a little bit of back end. But then different language, different platform, different IDE, different everything, really, except that it's also still programming. So what did you use to actually get your feet wet with iOS development? Danijela Vrzan: The first course that I did was it was an introduction to iOS development on Udemy. From Angela, you had a lot of people start with that course. And you just build a lot of apps there. And, you know, first you get introduced to Xcode, and then you build some basic apps get introduced to switch language. And that's, that's how I, that's what got me started. Jeroen Leenarts: And, but you also did some small scale game development, is that correct? With unity? Danijela Vrzan: Oh, that's that was during university. Yeah. Yeah, I had some. We build a small game in unity, a colleague and I, but I never consider game development that I didn't like C sharp, which is actually the first study I had. I wanted to learn C sharp, and I got the head for C sharp book just was going through it. I was like, Okay, I wanted to be a C sharp developer, but it didn't really stick with me at the time. So I just decided to look elsewhere. Jeroen Leenarts: Okay, so that was that was something that was through your education, and it was like, a project during your education. But then you, you got started with iOS development. And but I also read somewhere that you do some work on the site as well, on teaching iOS developers, is that correct? Danijela Vrzan: Yes. So I'm writing tutorial for the Raven boys team. Jeroen Leenarts: Okay, and is that for your first tutorial? Or did you do that before already? So you have a couple already have a what is your first one that you're working on right now? Danijela Vrzan: Yeah, actually, I have two of them published. Okay, ready? And there'll be third one very soon. Jeroen Leenarts: What are the what are the titles of the three tutorials? Or at least the first two? Yeah. Third one is still under NDA. Danijela Vrzan: It's a surprise. The first two were Firebase Analytics and Firebase Dynamic Links. Jeroen Leenarts: Okay. So yes, very specifically on the topic of this Google Firebase platform. Danijela Vrzan: Yeah. So how did that get? That's because the rentals team before you start writing for them has something called tryout. And then you would start writing a small article, if you pass a small article, you will write a real article, that article is good, it will get published. So that was my first Firebase Analytics article. And the thing is, when I started working, the working title was Firebase Analytics and dynamic links, but it ended up having a lot of words like, so we had to split it into articles. And that's why I just picked up the second one. That's why it's all about Firebase, because I already had some knowledge on it. Jeroen Leenarts: Okay, so and what was it like to actually write something and having it published? Was it hard? Was it something that from the Raven lick team that really helped you or because I heard good stories about how they actually help new authors try and get started, but what was it like feel? Danijela Vrzan: Yeah, so I, I never knew I will be writing articles for them. So it was completely by accident. Because I graduated their boot camp. I was boot camp that I had last year, in May. And then after graduation, Ray approached me and told me like, heard the great things about you. How would you like to be on our team? And I was like, Like, you're serious. He's like, Yeah, just tries, you know, I was like, okay, sure, well, let's try it. And then I went for the article author, and the iOS team. And the I wrote the first small article. And then they loved it. And the recruiter told me that like, it's actually not that easy as it seems that I passed it. And I should be really proud. And then that came the next one, which was the real article. And finally, thing is, I couldn't choose what I'm going to write about. And I was like, super scared. Like, what if they gave me something hard, something I've never worked with. That's actually the beauty of writing tutorials. You get something you've never worked with. And then you have to learn it. And then you have to write about it. And you just learned something you never thought maybe you learn. I never worked to Firebase Analytics. I was like, Okay, well, how would this look like and then I passed and article got published. So super excited. Jeroen Leenarts: I've heard that before that, that the best way to learn something new is to teaching it, which is hard, but seems to work out for you very well. So we've talked a lot about technical things and and pretty much your career path up till now. So you're in Toronto, and you're now a full time employee of Deloitte. What are your plans right now, Danijela Vrzan: I don't know. Like, this is my first job. When I came to Toronto, it took me about one year to since I started learning or looking for a job. So get it. So I'm really happy that I'm here. And I absolutely love it. Because I it's a consulting company, it's not really, you don't really do coding every day you talk with clients, you do some other things. But you get to see projects from start to end, how they come to be how deployment works, and everything, which I like. And I have a real amazing manager that I like to work with learning a lot from him. He has 12 years of experience as an iOS developer. So I'm taking full advantage advantage of that. So yeah, just continue to learn. Write articles. It's a bit. It's a lot of time consuming to do both. But I find some time and then some time to learn. And yeah, Jeroen Leenarts: moving from Croatia to to Canada. Is that difficult? Or do you need like a sponsorship from a company all you need? Or is it something that's, that's quite easy if you're a citizen of the European Union union? Danijela Vrzan: Well, now that I came, went through all of this process, I actually got my permanent residency in Canada a few months ago, which is quite quite an extensive process. COVID didn't help. Government Offices get close. So it took us all about a year to receive it. But now that we have it, it's like we're citizens of Canada. We are not tied to work permits for companies, which if you're coming to Canada, you need a work permit in order to work. Some companies will provide it for you, some companies won't. So you have to get it yourself. It's not really easy. We were lucky that my husband's company did everything for him. And I got an open work permit from them. So I could find a job. And then yeah, we were lucky on that front. Jeroen Leenarts: Yeah. And it's a different living in Canada. Yeah, of course. But in what way is it different than living in Croatia? Danijela Vrzan: is a lot different. I love it. Just Well, yeah. When we came a few months after that COVID game, so we were under lockdown in Canada for about a year, which wasn't really easy. But it's it's a lot different because I come from Croatia from a very small town, like European towns are all small, the buildings are older, historical, when I came to Toronto and looking at all these huge buildings, I felt like in a movie, you know, you'd see these scenes in movies with all this huge skyscrapers. And then there's Starbucks, like, we don't have Starbucks in Croatia. And it's it's really different. I don't live in downtown, but I live just on the subway line so I could take a subway line straight to downtown. I have a really amazing view to downtown downtown. But yeah, I can just take a subway line. I can't walk. It actually takes me about an hour to come to work. But I'm working remotely at the moment and the company, I think is planning to stay remotely maybe some some times go to the office. But yeah, Jeroen Leenarts: yeah. So yeah, when you got started with Deloitte, you were working in their office, then COVID Hit remote working full time. Actually started remotely. Oh, seriously? Okay. Danijela Vrzan: Yeah. Because it's Sunday, November last year, they were working remotely, it was just during COVID. Jeroen Leenarts: So you got started with this company, while things were already sort of like happening with with Korea. Oh, that's, that's heavy. Yeah. So I immediately tie into that you're starting a new job. The only way that you can interact with your peers and colleagues is through video conferencing. What was it like? And what were things that they did feel that you think that they did very well, to get you on board in a team? Danijela Vrzan: It was, it was hard, it wasn't easy. Because uh, you can't meet people work or chats, just meeting people in the hallway. You, you come you're at home, you sit at a desk, and like you don't know anyone, you don't know what to do. Like, there's no one. You can ask. I mean, you can type but it's not the same if when you're in the office. So I had, I had an onboarding for two weeks, it was quite extensive. And I get put on a project with some really cool people that I get to know, interact with them. We're a lot. We're doing some, like weekly stand ups, my front engineering team, so I get to know them quite a bit. Talking, just talking, not work related things. And then I'd scheduled so because I couldn't meet a lot of them. I decided to schedule coffee chats with them to get to know them better. And that's really, Jeroen Leenarts: so like coffee chats. Where does online events? Or was it in person one on one? So I don't know. Let's allow that. Yeah. Because I've heard that before that some people if to remote situation that they take a date, just like shop around and and talk with different people and not in a big team setting in all outside because of Yeah, because it's safer that way. Yeah, actually, Danijela Vrzan: Canada, we were actually in a full lockdown for a very long time. Nothing was open. So no bars, no restaurants, you can really go anywhere. So it had to be like, fully remotely. Jeroen Leenarts: Yeah, right. That's in the Netherlands as well. That was like one last month. So not too bad. But it was like you couldn't do anything. And then there was a curfew. So you had to be inside after a certain hour? And that was crazy. No, not at all. So but then the onboarding? How do you get to know a code base, then? Because I can imagine that you would do some pair programming with some team members or that you would have discussions or, well, online versions of whiteboarding sessions. But now you're just not having the prior relationships with your peers and your colleagues. That's it seems to me that that's some something that's the hardest part of really getting started as a remote worker in a new environment. So yeah, when you got on board on the team, you already mentioned that you had like two week long introduction, periods. Were there any specific or special things that they did for you there besides the introductions to different people? And things like that? Or what did they do to actually get you familiar with the codebase? Danijela Vrzan: Yeah, so the is the iOS team on my is actually small, there aren't a lot of us. So the onboarding for two weeks was mostly for some company, internal software, how to schedule your time. And that not being projected, related. But I was put on a project right after that. And so I got a really cool project manager. That and she helped me a lot navigate because I, I didn't know why things were I didn't know. I mean, even after onboarding, I wasn't sure how to enter my time correctly. It was kind of just being someone was like, nobody knows why. Jeroen Leenarts: Yeah, it's people. One of the first things that they try and teach you if you're a big company is to how to book your hours. Yeah. I think it's something that is universal. So yeah, you got started. So currently you you work at Deloitte you are working on on an article for When like, which is the third article that you're trying to get published with them, but you also did some other volunteering work over the years, you did something with a conference and also some community development. So can you tell a little bit about that? Why you are volunteering and what, what's the reason that you're doing it? And how do you go? How did you get into that? Danijela Vrzan: Yeah, I was volunteer for like, 10 years, I think it was all in Croatia. So this small town that I come from, we had, like, the volunteering community there was really big, because we could the association that I volunteer with did a lot of European projects. And you know, we, we will, they will write a project. And it was, for example, for us to go to Spain, like for a feasibility visit. So I went to Barcelona, I went to German to all the work where we would spend 10 days with different people from all over the world, doing some projects, getting to know each other doing something for the community. And then we I went to Basia, where we spent two weeks with children who lost their parents. And that was so heartfelt. Children really loved spending time with us, we had so much fun that they were they were crying we were about to leave it was it was just I love that. And then I don't know, just helping the community. I guess I also held some guitar lessons. Just just having something to give to the people to attend. Or I think at one time I also held poem nights, singing nights or things like that. Jeroen Leenarts: So it sounds like you're not only doing like, the foreign exchange, things history in those 10 years, but also a lot of creative things. So you mentioned guitar and poems and those kind of singing. Is that something that you still do? Now you're living in Canada? Or is it something that like, is a bit of on the backburner? Because you don't have the time to do those things? Danijela Vrzan: Yeah, I wish I had, but I don't I? Well, I have one more time before before I was working. But yeah, I actually had a band we played for 10 years you Croatia. weddings, birthdays. That's something that was some really good memories. I used to sing. I used to write poems, slug poems. I wrote a few. I get few words from my own words for my poems. But I stopped doing that. And when I started going to university, just didn't have much time. Jeroen Leenarts: Okay. And what do you do nowadays to like, get away from the computer and unwind and relax? Danijela Vrzan: Well, it's funny, I stay at a computer play video games. Jeroen Leenarts: So what's your favorite game at the moment? Danijela Vrzan: Right now my husband, I and his brother are playing Apex legends universe, which we absolutely enjoy every minute of it. But apart from playing video games, I really like to explore Toronto. The thing I love about Corona is it has a lot of parks, forests and nature and a lot of trails that you can walk down all day. So usually on Saturdays with Jeroen Leenarts: that. But are you like, an outdoor person for the day? Or are you really like getting into camping and stuff like that? So is it like, small time going into the nature or really like disappearing for a few days? Danijela Vrzan: Small time? A few hours? And that's a Jeroen Leenarts: new job, new country, new city? That's a lot of new things in in just like two years time. So are you planning to like slow down a little bit? Or are you like, keep on going at this pace? Or what kind of person are you in that regards? Danijela Vrzan: Well, I don't plan on moving anywhere yet. To stay here for the time being. But yeah, it seems like you know, even during COVID A lot has happened. I found my job during COVID I graduated boot camp, started writing articles like people who say Jaco is better like because like, a lot of hip a lot has happened for me. And I'm really happy how things have are going right now. But, you know, I just keep on learning. I have a lot of things that I like to do, but it's not much time. So it's just going slowly and like, right now I'm rebuilding my website using publishers swift and And after that, I want to build the app and put it on the app store because I don't have an app on the App Store. And they really like to have one. And yeah, well, I don't plan on slowing anytime soon. Jeroen Leenarts: So yeah, just to close things off a bit. What was the hardest thing of moving from Croatia to Canada, and I'm not talking about saying goodbye to people. But really the physical aspect of it, you know, you have a house, there's stuff in there. You can't take everything with you. What was the hardest thing to do then? Danijela Vrzan: Like you mentioned, because I went to see my family. But apart from that, physically, I wish I brought my, my musical instruments with me. It's called tambura is a creation. It's similar to guitar, it's not really a guitar, it's, but I wish I brought that they couldn't bring that. Like, I mean, clothes, you can buy clothes, that's nothing but like, looking at I had to leave a lot of stuff home is like, just a few of the things bring with me. And that's it. Jeroen Leenarts: And this musical instrument that you sell it or is it at somebody you know, or Danijela Vrzan: my parents have a Yeah, it's home. So when it comes to creation, two weeks I plan on playing something. Jeroen Leenarts: And is it really big or small? It's something that you can ship to Canada or Danijela Vrzan: it's like, it's similar to guitar. Okay, so I guess they're probably the was the same way as you would bring a guitar with yourself? I guess you could, you could bring it that way. Jeroen Leenarts: Okay. Is there anything that we've forgot? Danijela Vrzan: No, I think I think we're good. Okay, have any questions? Jeroen Leenarts: Not right now. But I know where I can reach you on Twitter. So and I will make sure to link in my show notes so that people listening to this can also have a look at your LinkedIn and on especially your Twitter and other stuff that you do online. So yeah, but that's Daniella. Thank you for your time. And yeah, let's see if in some fashion, we can have an interaction again. Sometime in the future. I'd have no clue because Canada is like, almost halfway across the world. Danijela Vrzan: Well, if you ever come to Serrana contact me on Twitter and I'll show you around