Hey Nikola, please introduce yourself.
My name is Nikola and I was born in Varna, Bulgaria but currently live in the small city of Gabrovo.
What’s your specialty?
Goofing. 🙂 On the professional side of things though, I focus on building out custom WordPress solutions and mentoring people to help them get to the next level in their journey.
How many languages do you speak?
Bulgarian and English are the languages that I use most often. However I have a very, very rusty Russian, and know just enough Turkish words to be able to order at a restaurant.
What was your first encounter with WordPress?
I think it was in 2010, when I was helping out a friend with his website (at that point I had no idea what I was doing).
What is the best WordPress advice you have ever received?
If you’re not sure how something works, look at the source code. Being able to quickly trace and read through a piece of code (whether it’s WordPress, a plugin or a theme) in order to understand how it functions has been an invaluable tool under my belt. Sometimes going that route is faster than looking up a solution online (and you get to learn some code internals)!
What is your motivation to speak at WordCamp Sofia 2017?
I would like to introduce more people to mentoring, what it is, how it can benefit them and how it can benefit the community. I hope to inspire people to give mentoring a try.
How did you you choose the topic of your talk?
Mentoring is something that I’ve enjoyed doing for a very long time and, so it seemed like a natural choice for my first ever public talk.
When was the last time you pulled an all-nighter?
Ha-ha-ha… Well as of the time of writing this, it was 2 or 3 days ago. If I were to look into the future, at the time of WordCamp Sofia, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be during one of the days leading up to the WordCamp 🙂
Informal education such as mentoring is an important aspect of web development culture — for both the mentor and mentee. Unfortunately, in Bulgaria, the topic of mentoring is not often explored. In his talk How Being a Mentor Turns You Into a Better Developer Nikola will address the ways mentoring benefits the mentor and common pitfalls they may encounter. Want to make sure you don’t miss all these insights? Get your ticket for WordCamp Sofia 2017 today!