Senior Developer

Job role

I was hired as a senior developer at Biddl, a startup building a mobile gamified realtime auction. The company was based in Finland, but I worked remotely from around the world — an early test of distributed collaboration in a small, fast-moving team of five developers. The project was ambitious: a Cordova/PhoneGap-based mobile shopping game for Android and iOS. My role spanned implementing new features, QA across backend and mobile clients, and building a management tool on AngularJS. I also implemented a REST API for an image processing service. Most backend work was done in Python. The team used a kanban pull vs. push approach instead of Scrum — a pragmatic methodology choice that suited the startup context. I built real-time backend systems handling thousands of concurrent users with millisecond response times, gaining deep experience in high-throughput, low-latency systems. Working in a startup of five taught me to wear multiple hats and communicate across disciplines — dynamics that mirror early-stage ecosystem building.

Personal development

This was a truly unique experience for me, as it was my first experience working in a startup environment, and it provided me with valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities of building a new product from scratch. I had the opportunity to work with a talented team of developers and entrepreneurs, and I learned a lot about the process of building a successful startup. This experience also helped me to develop a strong understanding of the mobile game development industry. While working for Biddl, i had to work on myself and improving the time management and improving the work-life balance while traveling the world.