Cloudways: Qaisar, thank you for joining me here today. Let’s start with a very traditional question: Please share with us some highlights of your 8+ years of web development. What kind of challenges did you face in your initial days?
Qaisar: Thanks for the opportunity. I am grateful that you chose me for this interview. My initial days of development were very hard. I was a slow learner, and it made my boss angry. There were lots of ups and downs in my career, and I mostly worked with custom PHP projects. But since the last four years, I’ve been working only with Magento extension development and Magento projects, and I feel great working on the platform.
Cloudways: How would you describe your experience(s) with Magento? If Magento wasn’t an option, which platform would you recommend for ecommerce solutions?
Qaisar: It’s a great experience working with Magento. I am not going to lie! At the start, it was tough for me to work with Magento, but every day I put more efforts on learning. Now it feels special when you know and understands the workflow of such a robust platform. If Magento weren’t there, my second choice would be PRESTASHOP.
Cloudways: What are your thoughts about Magento 2? Do you think that it will be able to dominate the ecommerce industry? Will it be easy for Magento 2 to compete in the growing industry as compared to Magento 1?
Qaisar: I don’t think it will dominate like Magento 1, but it is my opinion, I may be wrong. The simple reason is that Magento 2 is the transformed version, it is expensive in terms of development and timeframe because many new and latest technologies have been introduced to it and masses can’t afford to have an expensive ecommerce platform right now.
Cloudways: What is your opinion about the rapid releases of Magento 2 updates? Do you think this affects the adoption rate or its position in the market?
Qaisar: It is a good that they do fixes and add new updates and releases quickly. It will make Magento 2 a more stable platform. Yes, it will affect the adoption rate because most of the customers think that Magento 2 is not stable yet.
Cloudways: Qaisar, throughout your career you have worked with several organizations. What are some of the most critical challenges that Development Agencies face regularly?
Qaisar: The most significant issue in development agencies here in Pakistan is that they heavily rely on freelance platforms to get new projects and these platforms have very low per hour rate. Companies with project base that depend heavily on such networks last for a year or two. I would suggest that Development Agencies should work on product base.
Cloudways: Let’s talk about Magento events such as MeetMagento, MagentoLive, Magento Imagine, etc. How important are these events for the Magento community?
Qaisar: These Magento events are the backbone of the Magento community. Everyone can learn a lot from these events. They also motivate us to meet our heroes of the Magento community.
Cloudways: What are your suggestions for newbies and students who intend to be Magento developers?
Qaisar: I will always recommend Magento to newbies. But let me tell you guys, in the start, it will be hard to understand but later it will become fun, and you will enjoy tweaking it.
Cloudways: As a Magento developer at UnitedSol (Pvt) Ltd, what does your daily routine look like? What tools and tricks do you regularly use for development?
Qaisar: In my current organization, I mostly work on extension development and spend some time on dedicated Magento projects too. It depends on the priority of the situation. I primarily use the Sublime Text and PhpStrom as an editor. I also use CodeSniffer tool to check Magento coding standard.
Cloudways: Here comes my favorite question! How do you spend your free time? Do you like sports, entertainment, traveling and hanging out with friends and family?
Qaisar: I love to play cricket, but unfortunately there is not much time for it. But whenever I do get the free time, I play like a pro. I am a food lover, so in my free time, I often tag along with my friends to try out new restaurants. Also, I love writing about Magento tips and tricks on my personal blog.
Cloudways: Influencers play a vital role in career development. Who are your heroes that inspired you and kept you motivated in your personal and professional life? Also, who would you recommend for my next interview?
Qaisar: In my personal life my father is my hero. As for the professional experience, many people had inspired me. But if we talk about Magento, Alan Storm and Marius Strajeru are my heroes. My recommendation for next interview is Raphaël Petrini.
Cloudways: Cloudways provides 1-Click Magento installation with impressive speed & great cloud infrastructures embedded within the platform. Would you prefer shared hosting for Magento stores or a cloud hosting environment like Cloudways offers?
Qaisar: I prefer cloud hosting environment just like Cloudways offers.
Fayyaz Khattak
Fayyaz, a passionate Motorbike tourist, works as a Team Lead — Magento Community at Cloudways - A Managed Magento Hosting Platform. His objective is to learn & share about PHP & Magento Development in Community. You can contact him at [email protected]
