Employee Spotlight: Minyu

Driven, fun, talented, and thoughtful are just a few of the traits of the people who make up our Engineering team. We asked some of our engineering experts to tell us a little more about how they work their magic. Here’s what they had to say about what it’s like to work at LucidLink.

Meet Minyu Minev

Position: Principal Engineer
Joined: Right from the beginning
Location: Bulgaria

Can you share your background experience before joining LucidLink?

I have known George Dochev, the co-founder and Chief Technical Officer, for a very long time. We were high school classmates. We also used to work together at a previous company. When George and Peter founded LucidLink, they asked me to join the company as one of the first engineers. At first, it was just me and George working out of a small office in Sofia, Bulgaria. We built a team of engineers over the years and experienced many milestones, such as our first release, our first customer, and winning Product of the Year at NAB Show 2022. From the start, our company culture has been exciting and fast-paced. I’ll never forget the hard work and dedication that went into creating LucidLink.

What was the initial vision that went into building the engineering team?

In the early days, everyone on the team was just a developer—there were no titles or hierarchies. We were armed with just a vision. Our core focus was the product, and we all worked closely together on various aspects of it. As we’ve grown into a team with many talented individuals wearing various hats and titles, our organizational structure has remained flat—greatly benefiting the business.

Was it difficult to build a product like LucidLink filespaces during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Things were expedited during the pandemic because companies desperately needed a better solution for file storage and management. Everyone had to move to work remotely from home quickly. We had to shift our product development projections up from five years to months. LucidLink always felt like a solution that could make a huge impact, but the pandemic really made that feeling a reality. We were helping to support team workflows. Remote collaboration was everything, and we managed to survive and continue growing a strong product and team.

Describe LucidLink in one word.

A journey—I started at LucidLink in its earliest days, so it feels like a part of me. I’m very connected to my work and all the people I work with.

Describe what a typical day is like for you.

At LucidLink, we encourage employees to take advantage of remote or hybrid work options. However, my typical work day usually takes place in the office. I enjoy going to the office because I can interact and catch up with team members. I’m usually participating in meetings, design discussions, and interviews. I also spend a significant portion of my time doing code reviews and discussing code with my colleagues. While I’m no longer an active developer, I occasionally write code, like during our last hackathon, where we got to execute fun, creative projects, and ideas.

How has your role evolved within the company?

At LucidLink, you get the opportunity to determine your career path. I had the choice of pursuing a management-focused role or a technical track, and I chose the latter. As a result, I am now a Principal Engineer with core responsibilities in design, feature projects, and code quality. This allows me to focus on the technical aspects of the product while continuing to develop my knowledge of code quality.

What type of projects are you working on, and across which teams do you collaborate?

As a Principal Engineer at LucidLink, I support my colleagues as much as possible. This involves staying informed about the various teams and projects within the organization and providing support, feedback, and ideas where needed. I work closely with the design team, sharing my thoughts and feedback on implementation details, and the team provides me with their feedback and ideas. We often share ideas across leadership and teams to drive innovation and collaboration within the organization.

What are some of the technical challenges you’ve worked on?

One of the technical challenges I’ve worked on is rewriting and redesigning the database part of our product. This was a complex project that required a simple design while maintaining functionality. The entire engineering team worked on this project, which involved pausing development on other features for a period of time. Despite the challenges, we successfully completed the project and released a new version of the product with support for metadata streaming. This was a great success for the company, as it allowed us to improve the quality of our product and better support our customers.

What is, in your opinion, the biggest challenge LucidLink solves for customers?

The biggest challenge that LucidLink solves for customers is the ability to access and work with large files remotely easily and quickly. This is a common problem for many organizations, especially in remote work environments. Our solution ensures they can continue to work out of the cloud efficiently and effectively without being constrained by limitations in file size or access times. The product was designed to address this challenge from the beginning, and it has become a competitive advantage for us. It is not an easy problem to solve, and I believe that other companies may have difficulty achieving the same level of success in this area.

What’s your favorite thing about the culture at LucidLink?

One of the things I like most about the culture at LucidLink is that it is people-minded. We are selective in our hiring process, allowing us to build a team of individuals who share a common ambition and vision. This has enabled us to work well together and maintain a strong culture. As we have grown and added more diversity to our team, I believe this has positively impacted our culture and will continue to do so as we expand. We also have a great People and Culture team responsible for maintaining and shaping our culture as we grow. Overall, I believe our culture is strong and will continue to evolve positively as we move forward.

Outside of work, what do you like to do in your free time?

I enjoy playing piano. I played tennis for many, many years, and then I discovered boxing, and it became my favorite. I’ve been boxing for years, and I’m pretty good at it. 

Who’s your favorite boxer?

It is Vasiliy Lomachenko, then and again!

What advice would you give future engineers?

People are not machines; it’s essential to prioritize self-care to maintain passion and focus in your work as a professional. This can include activities such as participating in sports, hobbies, or anything else that brings you peace of mind and helps you take care of your physical and mental health. Taking care of yourself outside work makes it easier to bring your best self to work, regardless of specialization.

One additional piece of advice I would give future engineers is always to strive to understand the foundational principles. This is important in every aspect of engineering, from the design of a solution to the language and platform you use to implement it. Understanding foundational principles will help you create effective and efficient solutions to problems and make your work adaptable and easier to maintain. 

Always take the time to consider the simplest approach to a problem carefully, and you will be well on your way to success as an engineer. Programming is an art, and as a developer, you are the artist.

Want to work together with Minyu? Check out our open positions here.