I’m Luca Dasic, 21 years old, and I applied to Toptal in an unprecedented time for the global economy. Nonetheless, I’m confident this could turn out to be one of the best decisions of my life.
Since the age of 12, I aspired to be a Software Engineer and work on important projects.
My first exposure to programming was with C and JavaScript. Simple for loops. I later started learning how to develop games with Unity and I committed to learning a new topic every day to finally create my first casual mobile game in 2015, “Stroop”.
After that, I focused on idle games and came up with RPG Market Idle, which turned out to get more than 3,000 organic downloads and more than 100 DAU in 2016.
The first thing I’d do every morning back then was checking how many new downloads the game had and any revenue from ads or in-app purchases. The thrill of analyzing the results of my game and developing on users’ feedback was something truly unique that I’ve kept with me to this day whenever I complete a project and publish it.
After working as a remote independent contractor for Legends Of Learning, an e-learning company based in Washington DC, I embarked on the greatest challenge of my life: I moved to Germany to work in a startup. That would be my first job as a Full Stack JavaScript Developer. I was 19 at the time.
Most people asked me how I could move countries so quickly and how I was eventually able to succeed in creating a new life for myself. It was truly hard, not gonna lie. The startup work environment was incredibly fast-paced and I had to learn as fast as possible to catch up with more experienced developers. To acquire more in-depth knowledge of Javascript I read “Javascript: The Good Parts”, a book that dramatically stepped up my skills. I was then involved in building features for the company's product by using EmberJS and React, as well as responsible of taking care of the company's website SEO.
In January 2019 I moved to Canada and challenged myself once again. I was hired as Web Developer in Toronto and have been working there since. The role entails integration and configuration discussions with international partners on top of the regular Javascript development.
Fast forward to March 2020. We were all hit hard by the global pandemic, an unexpected and massive event that changed our lives and will leave a permanent mark on our futures. As I found myself working from home full time, I began thinking of what will come next and what could be the best way to emerge from this crisis stronger than before. That's where Toptal comes into play.
With Toptal, I can achieve goals that will substantially strengthen my career, including:
- • greater work responsibility
- • greater autonomy
- • location-independent work
I've always pushed forward to make my dreams come true regardless of the obstacles.
I see the pandemic not as a downtime, but rather as an opportunity to advance my career. This is the reason why I applied to Toptal.
