Humans of justDice – György, Snr. Backend Dev

Our team here at justDice is a blend of fun and professional. And that’s what these posts aim to unlock. We want the Humans of justDice features to focus on getting to know the people and minds behind the scenes. We’ll get to know a different team member every month, giving you an exclusive look into how we work together here at justDice 🙂

Meet György, or George as we call him, a Senior Backend Developer with an incredible knack for experimenting with new tools and finding innovative ways to improve our systems. With a journey that started in PASCAL programming and BMX riding, he brings a unique mix of technical expertise and personality to justDice. Let’s dive into his story and insights!

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1. What got you into software development, and how did you join justDice?

I always liked IT-related things. In middle school, I learned programming in PASCAL, I created webpages in Dreamweaver (yes, this is how old I am). I also played around with 3ds Max. I really loved the fact that I can do what I imagine (on a certain level).

Later I got into sports, so I did a sports University. After graduating I came to Germany and started to learn programming again. I was job searching when I wrote a post to Reddit to rate my portfolio. Florian (our now Tech Lead) wrote me a comment that if I’m interested, I can do an interview at AppLike. So I did.

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2. What is your role as a Senior Backend Developer?

We are providing the core for other teams. We are moving fast and prototyping a lot in a lot of different domains. Like we need completely different features for BI or UA teams than for the App teams. I like it because it never gets boring, and I just learn about a lot of different things.

The typical day is for me to get up, grab a coffee, and write code. 😀

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3. What are some challenges of building backend services for mobile loyalty apps?

As we are paying real money for the users, the most challenging part is the correct user activity tracking and having a working real-time payout system. We have integrated multiple payment providers, who are having different workflows. Also, as we are speaking about money, bookkeeping is crucial. To get this system bulletproof running is hard.

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4. What tool or technology have you recently tried that’s made a big impact?

I have learned Next.js and built a user management dashboard on a hackathon. Now this has become a de facto tool. Before, we had to fire plain HTTP requests to the management API. Working with a UI is just a lot easier, and now also non-techy people can manage their test users. However, I learned HTMX in the summer, and most likely the next tools will be written in that. 😀

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5. How does the backend team collaborate with other departments?

It requires good communication. I really like that at justDice you can just talk to anyone. When I’m designing a feature, I can freely ping leads and other devs to gather information. This boosts the release process a lot. We prioritize monitoring a lot. After release, we always update the stakeholders with the stats about how the feature performs.

My favorite project was to set up our user attribution. It was very challenging. As it is the core of our user management, I sweat a lot during release. But it went smoothly in the end.

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6. If you could compare the justDice team to a celebrity, who would it be?

It’s a very hard question to answer. But I would say it is Fatboy Slim. His music is very diverse, but every song is great. We are coming from different backgrounds and working on completely different topics, but the whole thing is just working.

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7. What do you do to relax outside of work?

I grab two beers and go to the nearest skatepark with friends. I have been riding BMX since I was 14. This is the only place where I can forget everything. However, now I’m only riding in grandpa mode—only battle-tested tricks, no new things on the horizon.

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8. Finally, tell us one thing that you cannot live without.

I could not live without my family!

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