December 15, 2022 • 31 mins
Pol, a senior iOS developer working on the iPlayer app by the BBC. He loves sharing content and writing about all things mobile development and Swift.
He also writes on his blog. https://www.polpiella.dev/
Follow him on Mastodon. Or Twitter.
He did his first conference talk at Do iOS in 2022. I'm sure Pol will share that link once it becomes available. He did an amazing talk titled "Fantastic Swift Tools and where to find them".
Stream makes it easy for you to seamlessly integrate real-time experiences into your application. Check out their Swift tutorial to learn how you can get started adding video or in-app messaging to your apps!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jeroen Leenarts (00:00):
Hi and welcome to another special edition of my
podcast. I'm sitting here withPaul paella I hope I pronounced
that correctly. You live inManchester United Kingdom but
you're originally from Spain andif I say this correctly,
Barcelona so if you're not ifyou're not local there you will
say Barcelona or something andthen make make people from that
(00:23):
area cry because you pronouncedincorrectly. So Paul, Barcelona
Bitsa. UK that's that's quite ajourney already. And you lift at
all three places. So let's startthere.
Pol Piella Abadia (00:38):
Yeah, so um, as you said, I am originally
from from Barcelona. I was bornand raised there. And then when
my niece was born, my brotherwent over move to to Ibiza with
his wife and yeah, they justthey just started the live there
and they decided to move there.
So my parents like started goinga bit more I started to go in a
(00:59):
bit more to see my knees this mybrother. And so that led to me
like starting to, you know, workover summer there. i My dad was
a DJ when he was a uni and hespent like, you know, he found
that his degree through DJing.
So I've always had like a biginterest in music and in DJing
and stuff. So I decided to worksummers and through like, a
(01:21):
connection from my dad, I wasable to like work at amnesia in
Ibiza, the nightclub. So thatlike, led me to have a big
connection with the island andmy brother and stuff. So yeah, I
was over there work in summersfor about three years. And I
kind of wanted to get to work innightlife. My dream was to be a
DJ and stuff. I actually saw atweet from GitHub this week
(01:44):
saying What were you doing 10years ago? And I was like, while
I was finishing, you know, highschool and tried to wanting to
be a DJ and stuff and yeah. Andthen while I was in Ibiza, my
Yeah, I decided that I wanted tokind of like take a leave of
absence from uni and not finishmy, my last year of uni, and
then I met my wife jumped a bitof time there. But yeah,
(02:09):
basically, I decided I wanted toget some like education and go
to do some some engineering. SoI decided to do music tech. So
electronic engineering withmusic technology. Yeah. So the
unit that I found was in the UK.
So I moved over when I was 18.
to New York to your university.
Did my degree there on the everysummer I was coming back and
(02:31):
working at amnesia over summer.
And then on the last year, I waslike, Okay, last summer, I'm
about to go into my last year ofuni, I really want to, you know,
do this for a job. I want to bea DJ, I want to start a career.
But I wasn't too keen on likenightlife. So I was like, Okay,
(02:52):
I'm going to try it out thissummer. And I'm going to see how
it goes. And that summer, I waslike, I'm kind of like really
hating this, I'm, you know, Iwas gonna take a leave of
absence to know go back to uniand pursue my like music career.
But by the end of the summer, Iwas like, you know, I really
want to, you know, go back tothe UK. I also coincidentally,
(03:12):
met my girlfriend that summer,who is Scottish, and she was in
Glasgow, at Glasgow uni at thetime. So I was like, you know,
if I stay in Ibiza, it'sprobably not going to work out
with long distance and stuff. Soit was another factor that made
me go back to the unit to finishmy last year. And I don't regret
it at all, because I did an iOSmodule on my last year of uni,
(03:34):
which introduced me to thewhole, like, programming and app
development and stuff. And itjust went from there. After uni.
I got my first job as an iOSdeveloper, and I moved to
Manchester for it. And I've beenthere since Yeah, and I love it.
Jeroen Leenarts (03:49):
Okay, well, that's it. Let's cut off the
feet and talk to you again nextweek. Just kidding. So, so you,
basically, I wanted to ask thatnext how you got started with
iOS development, you alreadyjumped ahead a little bit there.
And that's that you did a modulein university, but this module
(04:09):
was that like, the first andonly programming experience that
you came across? Or what wasthat about?
Pol Piella Abadia (04:17):
Yeah, so as part of like electronic
engineering. In the university Iwent to you get to choose like
between two paths in like thesecond third year of uni, which
is either you're going tohardware electronic engineering,
or you go into like the digitalelectronics. So I chose the
digital path. So I did a bit oflike Java while I was at uni and
(04:39):
I did a bit of C and C++ which Ireally really didn't enjoy. I
was like I really don't likethis it was it was very hard for
me to grasp a lot of conceptsbecause I hadn't done like, you
know, any app development beforeand I was there to do like music
technology related stuff. So Ididn't you I didn't really have
(05:00):
a big interest on that boundary.
Last year, I had an amazinglecture, amazing professor who
taught us about iOS development,but he did it in a way that we
would use a library called audiokit. And we would make music
apps basically. So we had tomake a synthesizer, we had to
make like a drum machine andstuff, using iOS development,
(05:20):
and yeah, and just audio kit anddo some like audio signal
processing and stuff. It was alot of fun. So I felt like that
was like the amazingintroduction, introduction, I
needed to do app development.
Jeroen Leenarts (05:38):
But the Java and C and C plus work that you
did in your education beforethat was that also related to
signals process.
Pol Piella Abadia (05:47):
So it was in a way, so the Java one was
completely not related. And Ireally didn't enjoy that.
Because it was, I think we hadto make like, an algorithm that
made like, it was like a flockof birds that would follow each
other, I think it's quite commonin like university degrees. And
the other ones, I think, the Cone, it was in my first year,
(06:10):
and we had to make, like, it wasalso audio related. So we had to
make like, the situation was abar needs, like a system that,
you know, they don't want to paya pianist to go and play in
their bar. So you have to make asystem that plays like a
harmonic sequence of notes thatresembles a pianist with that,
(06:30):
with that code, we were gonna,like make BNS poor like, we were
gonna like, you know, we weren'tgonna substitute them or replace
them. It was just terrible. Andwe Yeah, it was it was, it was
alright. But I feel like it wasit was too difficult for me to
grasp a lot of the concepts atthe time. And then the C++ was
(06:52):
like audio processing andalgorithms and like, plugins and
stuff. And we I felt like we gota template. And we didn't know
enough C++ to actually have funwith it and develop anything
good. So it was a lot of likefighting it and just copying
code and stuff. It wasn't, itwasn't too good.
Jeroen Leenarts (07:09):
And the then you had the program that was
like, took you into iOSdevelopment. But were you
already considering yourself aniOS developer, when you finish
that, that lecture? Or was itmore like you needed to gain
some experience after that, aswell?
Pol Piella Abadia (07:26):
Yeah, so I think this is very common in
like programming. But when I didthe course, by the end of it, I
was like, I did my final yearproject as well in iOS, which
was an app, an augmented realityapp using AR kit, which
basically put like a synthesizeron the real world. And you can
play with it and interact withit. But yeah, I was like, Well,
(07:50):
I'm on top of the world, I'm,I'm the best developer there is,
and I've got experience, I canland a job. And so then I went
over and applied for a job in amusic technology company,
Manchester as an iOS developer.
And when I realized that when Igot there, and I did my
interview, I realized I did nothave the skills to be like a
proficient iOS developer, butthey were kind enough to give me
(08:10):
a sort of like internship forlike six months, and then I
would join as a junior. Yeah.
And that was really my Kickstartto iOS development. That was
where I learned the most, like,that's where I realized, you
know, I don't know enough here,I needed like this work
experience, to you know, get mestarted.
Jeroen Leenarts (08:31):
So you did your internship with a company and to
really learn programming for iOSat that time, and I reckon you
didn't stick around there for acrazy amount of time, but still,
like 18 months or so or so thatyou stuck around? There are
still 18 months or so. Did youstick around her?
Pol Piella Abadia (08:52):
Exactly.
Yeah. So I was there for about ayear and a half. I met some
amazing people still like someof my best friends here in
Manchester from that from thattime, and then I moved over to
another job. So I felt like thefor management reasons, the
company the team wasn't goingvery well everyone was kind of
(09:12):
leaving and he was we didn'thave a clear focus. And we were
in doing that much like iOS, wewere being pulled in like
different directions to do othersort of like things that neither
neither doing. So I just decidedto go you know, go somewhere
else. And I left and I went tostudent discounts company here
in the UK called Student mints.
(09:37):
And yes, Ben, they're about Ithink another year working in
Yeah, completely swift focus,like iOS development for for a
full year which was was verygood.
Jeroen Leenarts (09:48):
And then I reckon that you made a big move.
So you went to another companyeven still?
Pol Piella Abadia (09:56):
Yeah, I went for another company. I felt like
yesterday, the mentor was agreat like, the perks were
absolutely amazing. Like, Ididn't work a single friday
afternoon for a year, it wasfantastic. Like we would get
like early finishes on a Friday.
It was like very, you know, theyhad a lot of focus on your
mental health and like keepingyou happy and stuff, which was
brilliant. But I felt like thework was getting like very
(10:18):
repetitive. So I was like, Ineed to, you know, see how
things are done in like a biggerplace and learn from like, get
more context and learn from frommore people. So I just decided I
applied for a job that was goingon at the time at the BBC. And
yeah, I've been there for abouta year and a bit now, which it's
been, it's been an amazingexperience of her.
Jeroen Leenarts (10:40):
Yeah, because you've worked at three very
different companies, I thinkbecause music tribe, that's the
single product company, right?
Pol Piella Abadia (10:48):
So they've got so it's kind of like a
conglomerate of companies. Soit's one parent company that has
acquired a lot of products. Butwe were really working only on
one product. So yeah, we didn'treally have communication across
a lot of things. Really, it wasjust very, very focused.
Jeroen Leenarts (11:05):
And student beans, that must have been a
solo single product or anagency.
Pol Piella Abadia (11:11):
Now just one product into one product.
Jeroen Leenarts (11:14):
So and then of course, BBC, I think you worked,
or you work on the iPlayer.
Right. Yeah, I play with him.
And but that's also a singleproduct. So could you say that
you've touched three products inyour entire career thus far?
Pol Piella Abadia (11:29):
Yeah, you can you can safely say that. Yeah.
Jeroen Leenarts (11:32):
Cool. So but your day job is not the only
thing that you do. Because nextto that you also have a blog and
a newsletter. What made you getstarted with with your blog,
because your blog is Paul PLF.
Pol Piella Abadia (11:47):
Yeah, that's the one. So yeah, I think I was
looking at this the other day, Ithink it started like, over a
year ago. Now, maybe even longerthan that I can remember when
the first article I published,it's taken a lot of forums since
then, like it's changed, liketechnology stack quite a lot. I
think I'm with something thatI'm happy, happy with now. And
(12:10):
the domain was originally PaulBiya codes instead of Dev. So
it's changed a fair amount, butI'm at a place where I'm happy
with it. I think what made melike started was the I, I felt
like I had, you know, stuff thatI wanted to say I didn't quite
like have a platform that Iliked. I wrote a bit for my for
student beans for their blog, onmedium. So I think I wrote like
(12:34):
one or two articles for them awhile ago. And yeah, kind of
really enjoyed the writing andthe sharing and sharing
knowledge. And I feel like I'm aperson that learns more when
they share. So if I can speakand you know, write or talk
about something, then it kind ofmeans I understand it. And if I
can share like concepts withother people, then it helps me
(12:56):
understand things as well. Soyeah, he was also to build kind
of like a knowledge database formyself. So I could just refer
back and look articles. So evennow, I think the the article
that has performed the best andhas been like featured the most
was one that I did looking atswift packets, plugins before
they got released. And I thinkit got shared that a lot of
(13:19):
times, and it's the mostvisited, like ever in my blog,
and I still refer back to that.
Now when I go like, Oh, I needto do this. And I just go back
and look at how, you know howpeople asked before even though
the, the ABA has changed a bit,it's still the concepts are
pretty much the same. But yeah,it was basically to build a
knowledge database for myself ona fly could help like other
(13:40):
people, and if other people findinteresting along the way, that
was just an added bonus.
Jeroen Leenarts (13:47):
And is it is it hard to keep content coming out
regularly.
Pol Piella Abadia (13:52):
It really is.
I eat a lot of effort. I feellike I didn't like I used to
think that, you know, people didthis for for a living and it was
like their day job and stuff.
But then I see, you know, forexample, Antoine and like, his
blog, and his newsletter, likehe posts a lot and he posts like
(14:12):
weekly as well. And he's got aday job as well. And he's got,
you know, a kid as well. Andit's, it's a lot and it's hard
to like, you know, find findcontent and find things to talk
about. And I kind of in becauseI've got quite a lot of things
going on at the moment with thenewsletter and everything. For
the past, I think two months orso I haven't posted that much.
(14:36):
So I was like, oh, I need to youknow, get back on my blog,
because that's, that's the thingthat I started with. And I
really, really enjoy writing.
And so I've set a challenge formyself until the end of the year
to kind of like post every weekand I'm going to try to keep
that up on the next year aswell. And I've got a lot of
things that I want to talkabout. It's just finding the
time and be more organized tokind of write articles and
(14:57):
Finding some downtime to writearticles. I do have the time to
be honest. It's just sometimesI'd rather you know, what still
a vision or something I need toYeah, I need to use my time.
Jeroen Leenarts (15:10):
You only have so many hours in the day. Right?
Exactly.
Pol Piella Abadia (15:13):
Yeah, absolutely. And relaxing and you
know, taking time to spend withYeah, with family and with, with
my girlfriend, my friends, it's,it's very important as well. So
yeah,
Jeroen Leenarts (15:24):
and what's your process for for writing for your
blog 10. Because not only do youwrite for your blog, but also
for your newsletter, and yournewsletter is sort of more like
aggregating other people'scontent. But for your blog, you
must have a process, right,because you have some ideas. And
at the end of the day, you havelike a finished piece.
Pol Piella Abadia (15:43):
So I tend to so I use, like a task kind of
manager, project manager, whereI've got back a backlog of
ideas, basically. So if I'm atwork, and I've looked into
because a lot of the of myprocess is, you know, I'm
working, and I've have an idea,or I've worked on something
interesting, and I go, Oh, thatwould be a nice topic to talk
(16:03):
about. So I write it down in mylike, inbox kind of thing where
I go, Okay, this would besomething I would begin to talk
about. And then I kind oforganize it by when I want to
post it that I've started doingthis now, by the way, so there's
a little bit of refinement thatcould go into this. And by
organized by when I want to postit. And then that week that I
(16:24):
want to post it on, I kind oflike start working on the
article, I piece together a fewideas planet, look into some,
like do some research and see ifother people have talked about
it and and get some like, youknow, learning information as
well to look into documentationand stuff to make sure that I'm
saying the right things and I'mnot lying to anyone. And then I
(16:46):
just sit down and start writingand and then I review it, I
usually get a friend or two toreview them as well. And then I
just publish it.
Jeroen Leenarts (16:55):
And we spend a lot of time checking the article
content, cuz she just mentionedthat her? Yeah,
Pol Piella Abadia (17:01):
a lot of time, a lot of time checking. I
think I tend to Yeah, we usuallyquite like scared of publishing
things. I'm always like, Oh,it's not good enough for you
know, I've beaten that fear abit now. Because I've seen like
people who have admired a lotsharing my content, like you
know, your stuff weekly, or evenAntoine, or even even yourself
(17:21):
as well like sharing contentthat I've written. And it's,
it's great to see any kind ofbootstrap fear keeps that fear
at bay a bit when you see like,you know, you're getting
rewarded, and you're seeinglike, other people are enjoying
your content. But even still,it's a bit of a nerve racking
experience for me when I golike, Oh, I'm going to publish
this. And then I go, Oh, it'snot good enough. Or, you know,
(17:42):
let's review it again.
Jeroen Leenarts (17:44):
Now, the best remedy is to just keep going. If
you're if you're starting todoubt yourself. Yeah, cuz after
we have a podcast as well, everynow and then. But But for people
who want to do something similarto you, do you have any tips or
ideas based on your ownexperience?
Pol Piella Abadia (18:01):
I think the the thing that kept me going at
the beginning, when I wasgetting like, you know, when no
one was reading my articles, andI didn't know. Yeah, or anyone,
like I don't think anyone wasactually reading what I did. And
I felt a bit demotivated, Ithink just do it for yourself. I
think that's the, that's themost important thing, like do
(18:22):
it. Because because you enjoythe process, don't do it.
Because you you know, you wantpeople to read it. I know, it's
a very good like part of it. Andit's a very good thing that, you
know, people read your content,and they like what you write,
but just do it, because in thefuture is going to be very
useful to refer back tosomething you wrote a year ago.
And you found something tricky.
And instead of having to lookthrough a lot of documentation
(18:45):
and trying to find articlesonline, you can just refer to
your to your blog and have alook at what you wrote about the
topic. So yeah, I would say ifyou really want to do it,
there's no real barriers, youcan just create a medium account
or write your do your own, likeWordPress, or whatever like site
do you want to do, you don'thave to be like me, because I
(19:05):
really like a challenge and callit all from scratch. You don't
have to do that. There's a lotof off solutions, ready to you
know, to start blogging rightaway and get other main like
right away without having to doto do anything. So yeah, if you
really want to do it, just I'dsay just do it. Because there's
even if two people read it, thenthere's two people you have
(19:29):
helped and I have enjoyed yourcontent. And you're going to
have that thing there forever.
And you're going to be able to,you know, to refer back to it
and read it and yeah, it's it'sit's a great feeling when you're
referring to your own articlesto do to do certain things. It's
quite Yeah, it's quite good.
Jeroen Leenarts (19:47):
And what are some of the biggest benefits
that you have reaped fromwriting your blog article, Stan?
Pol Piella Abadia (19:56):
I think like there's two like very, very big
benefits. stuff that I thinkI've, like I'm getting like now,
like, at the moment, one of themis like my improving my writing.
And my technical writing. Iknow, like, for any, any, like
native English speaker and stuffthat might be, you know, you
might get that kind of for freeor in a way like you might be
(20:19):
more more confident writing inEnglish, but for me, like
technical writing is still likesomething I need to work on. And
I still work on and I've beendoing like a Google like, I
would definitely recommend thisGoogle, like technical writing
course, which I think it's been,it's been amazing, I've not
quite yet tried, or you suggestthat I think it's like some
configuration, but I was very,very confused when I saw it. But
(20:44):
yeah, I think the biggest rewardfor me is how much I've learned.
Because now when I have to writelike issues for work, or I have
to write like, some piece ofdocumentation at work like it, I
feel a lot more confident doingit than I know what I'm doing.
And when I have to even do demosat work as well, um, you know, I
treat it like writing a post ina way and I treat it like, you
(21:04):
know, I'm gonna as if I waswriting for my blog, I'm going
to, you know, learn about this,and I'm going to write it and
I'm going to do a little demo,and then I'm going to share it
with my team. So it's helped melike develop that kind of skill
set. And then the other mainbenefit, I would say, is the
people I have met throughwriting articles as well,
because I think another bigfocus that I've been, yeah,
(21:27):
something I've been reallyfocused on was is to be like,
more active like, on Twitter, orMastodon, I know, it's not maybe
not the right time to be reallyactive on Twitter, but I'm just
trying to, like, engage morewith the community. And it's,
yeah, and through my articlesand stuff. I've gotten, like a
lot of feedback and a lot ofpeople saying, oh, have you
looked at this? Or have you seenthis article, and it's the
(21:48):
learning process of like,sharing, like, I'm not scared of
feedback. And I really likewelcoming. And it's the learning
process of putting your, youknow, your code out there, and
your, you know, your little demoprojects out there and someone
going like, oh, you should dothis this way. And alcohol,
like, Whoa, that's a great ideahadn't occurred to me. So having
that kind of, like, network andnot having like having that
(22:11):
constant like feedback loop.
It's, it's amazing. Like, Ithink it's, it's so great, and
it's helps you like grow andlike learn a lot faster. I think
it's yeah, it's just fantastic.
Jeroen Leenarts (22:23):
Right? And but you also recently got started
with doing some presentations onmore public channels, right? So
I remember you being inAmsterdam, like a month ago,
when we record this, so how didthat happen?
Pol Piella Abadia (22:39):
And so yeah, I, I was trying to get a bit
more into Yeah, in the publicspeaking, I had done a bit at,
at my job, like internally,doing like, a bit of like dogs
and we have like a meeting everykind of every week where we
sometimes demo things and Iquite enjoyed that bit of, of my
(23:00):
of my job, and I enjoy like, youknow, sharing things. And I as I
said before, like I learn bysharing as well. Like, if I can
explain something to someone orif I can talk about a topic,
then it probably means Iunderstand it. So yeah, I
decided to maybe go ahead andtry do it in a conference as
well, which was at the beginningnerve wracking, but very
(23:23):
exciting when you do like thecall for papers that you know,
submitted to a lot of places Igot a lot of rejection and a lot
of like places you know, thathad failed like all the spaces
and I couldn't I couldn't makeit or maybe my talk wasn't, you
know, my topic was interestingenough for the conference. And
then I got the opportunity inAmsterdam, at the Deutsches
(23:46):
conference, which was wasamazing and it was my first like
in person conferences as aspeaker. And then I got a couple
more which were remote. So I didI did speak at a job fair for a
remote job fair for LatinAmerica, the people are
(24:07):
organized and I spoke at themobile DevOps summit bid rice
organized as well. Talking aboutCI and I've really really
enjoyed it it gave me like themotivation of you know, applying
for more and I've got that kindof like speaking buzz at the
moment where I'm just applyingto a lot of places and see
(24:27):
seeing what I get for next year.
Jeroen Leenarts (24:30):
All right, and either on already any videos of
you presenting a fail because Ithink the online thing there
were some videos availableright? I think there
Pol Piella Abadia (24:39):
is there is one from bid raise. I believe
that one is online and thenthere's the one from that from
that remote. The know why I'vegot so much trouble saying
remote job fair. Doesn't itdoesn't come out. And for that
remote job fair. I've got arecording of level as well, I
(25:00):
created the YouTube channel forit. Don't expect any good
content from it that's justgoing to be to upload my dogs
and stuff I'm not planning onmaking videos or anything is
just to add, yeah, add thosestock videos that I get get sent
and stuff.
Jeroen Leenarts (25:15):
Yeah, we do iOS. Because, yeah, there's a
reason you're in my podcastright now, because I invited you
to do iOS, we're still workingon processing the videos, and we
want to publish all 14 of thetalks simultaneously. So Marco,
our video guy is working reallyhard on editing those. But one
(25:36):
thing I can share is that yourtalk was actually one of the
most appreciated talks duringthe conference, actually, Oh,
nice. So it was well, very, verywell presented. And also the
content was spot on in the sensethat like, it had like a nice
entry level to get peoplestarted. But there was so much
(25:56):
interesting information that Isaw people walking away from
the, from the bench, just oneafter the talk with like, heaps
of notes on websites they wantedto visit. So and you had some
good things in your in in the inthe final slides as well. So I
will make sure to link to thatstuff. When it is available, it
is interesting to see that youbasically took the journey, like
(26:16):
you just ran into iOSdevelopment, just basically a
little bit of chance, then yougot started and you discover
that that's something that youreally liked doing. And then
after your education, you madeyour career out of it thus far,
because you never know whatyou're going to do in 10 years
from now, the first few yearswere filled with iOS
development, and now you'reworking in a big company. What
(26:38):
is the BBC actually company? Oris it is the public goods?
Organization?
Pol Piella Abadia (26:44):
That's a very good question. I think it is
publicly funded. It's funded byyeah, by the public on a license
fee on a tax kind of thing.
Jeroen Leenarts (26:52):
And so So you've seen some interesting
code bases already, I think, andI think, especially at the BBC,
there were are there are a lotof colleagues around that. Well,
you can learn a lot from thesepeople, I think. And by that, by
this point in time, you're alsoteaching a lot to other people.
Maybe even, that there must be asynergy going on there. You're
(27:14):
teaching through your blog,through your presentations,
through your role, because Ialso saw on your LinkedIn, that
you quite recently switched froma iOS developer role to a senior
iOS developer role. So congratson that, because then also
implies that you have some sayin what, what a new person on
team gets told and gets taughtto get up to speed with things.
(27:39):
So that's a good progression,you're so you're showing there,
and especially on on the waythat you communicate Concepts of
Programming, it's reallyenjoyable. And that's also one
of the reasons why I quite oftenmentioned your links in my in my
podcast, because it's, yeah, ofcourse, you write about
(28:00):
something that other people havewritten about as well. But you
you have a different angle, adifferent explanation that just
add something to theunderstanding of the whole
concept of the topic of yourarticle. So thanks for that.
Pol Piella Abadia (28:15):
Thank you, thank you for the kind words, I
really, really appreciate it.
Jeroen Leenarts (28:18):
And anything else we need to talk about? So
you, you live in Manchester, yougot through, well, bit of
education, and then you had tostick around there for obvious
other reasons as well. Any anyplans in that area into your
future? Or is it still justdiscovering a bit what both of
(28:41):
you want to do with your livesand then move on from there?
Pol Piella Abadia (28:45):
I think so.
Yeah. I think I think at themoment, so my, my girlfriend
works in the, in the office,like five days a week. And she
Yeah, she's Yeah, she's kind ofshe needs to be based in
Manchester at the moment. And Ido need to be based in
Manchester as well, because I'vegot like a hybrid, working
contract kind of thing. So Iwork I work one day from the
(29:06):
office and four days from home.
But and I really, really enjoythe work I'm doing at the moment
and I wouldn't want to moveanywhere else at the moment.
Like I'm very happy with Yeah,with where I am. We're at work
and stuff. But I thinkeventually I would I think we
both me and my girlfriend wouldlike to move back to Spain and
(29:27):
just live in Spain probably getlike a an EU remote contract or
something and move back to Spainby then. I don't foresee that.
Like I don't see that anytimesoon. Really.
Jeroen Leenarts (29:38):
It's good to learn still at the BBC, right?
Yeah, definitely. Definitely.
Well, with that poll, I thinkwe've covered most of the
important bits. Where can peoplefind you online?
Pol Piella Abadia (29:51):
So they can find me? Yeah, popiah deaf, so
at my blog, they can find me onTwitter as well, which Yeah,
it's at Pau Paul period FOB leafand then on LinkedIn as like
follow up as well I think thoseare the main ones that I'm that
(30:14):
I'm focused on at the moment andthat I'm active on Mastodon as
well. I do cross posts fromTwitter the Master then and I
check it like quite regularly aswell. Just I'm not planning on
leaving Twitter but just in caseyou know, the whole world burns
or the whole Twitter burns and IYeah, and I'm left with no one's
lying
Jeroen Leenarts (30:32):
down as like salty chickens or something.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Pol Piella Abadia (30:38):
So yeah, can find me on a master and I think
it's shared on my website aswell. All my links are shared on
my website. So if you go to PaulPiazza def, you can find
everywhere you can find meonline.
Jeroen Leenarts (30:49):
Okay, now we'll make sure to put those links in
the show notes so that peoplejust that are one tap or one
click away from your content,and highly recommended to check
out his articles. The styling ofHis blog is very bare bones very
simple, but the content on thereis like really, really
interesting and really good. Andas if you're an iOS developer,
(31:10):
you will definitely learnsomething new if you just have a
stroll through the articles byPaul, and thanks for that.
Pol Piella Abadia (31:17):
Awesome, thank you so much.
Hi and welcome to another special edition of my
podcast. I'm sitting here withPaul paella I hope I pronounced
that correctly. You live inManchester United Kingdom but
you're originally from Spain andif I say this correctly,
Barcelona so if you're not ifyou're not local there you will
say Barcelona or something andthen make make people from that
(00:23):
area cry because you pronouncedincorrectly. So Paul, Barcelona
Bitsa. UK that's that's quite ajourney already. And you lift at
all three places. So let's startthere.
Pol Piella Abadia (00:38):
Yeah, so um, as you said, I am originally
from from Barcelona. I was bornand raised there. And then when
my niece was born, my brotherwent over move to to Ibiza with
his wife and yeah, they justthey just started the live there
and they decided to move there.
So my parents like started goinga bit more I started to go in a
(00:59):
bit more to see my knees this mybrother. And so that led to me
like starting to, you know, workover summer there. i My dad was
a DJ when he was a uni and hespent like, you know, he found
that his degree through DJing.
So I've always had like a biginterest in music and in DJing
and stuff. So I decided to worksummers and through like, a
(01:21):
connection from my dad, I wasable to like work at amnesia in
Ibiza, the nightclub. So thatlike, led me to have a big
connection with the island andmy brother and stuff. So yeah, I
was over there work in summersfor about three years. And I
kind of wanted to get to work innightlife. My dream was to be a
DJ and stuff. I actually saw atweet from GitHub this week
(01:44):
saying What were you doing 10years ago? And I was like, while
I was finishing, you know, highschool and tried to wanting to
be a DJ and stuff and yeah. Andthen while I was in Ibiza, my
Yeah, I decided that I wanted tokind of like take a leave of
absence from uni and not finishmy, my last year of uni, and
then I met my wife jumped a bitof time there. But yeah,
(02:09):
basically, I decided I wanted toget some like education and go
to do some some engineering. SoI decided to do music tech. So
electronic engineering withmusic technology. Yeah. So the
unit that I found was in the UK.
So I moved over when I was 18.
to New York to your university.
Did my degree there on the everysummer I was coming back and
(02:31):
working at amnesia over summer.
And then on the last year, I waslike, Okay, last summer, I'm
about to go into my last year ofuni, I really want to, you know,
do this for a job. I want to bea DJ, I want to start a career.
But I wasn't too keen on likenightlife. So I was like, Okay,
(02:52):
I'm going to try it out thissummer. And I'm going to see how
it goes. And that summer, I waslike, I'm kind of like really
hating this, I'm, you know, Iwas gonna take a leave of
absence to know go back to uniand pursue my like music career.
But by the end of the summer, Iwas like, you know, I really
want to, you know, go back tothe UK. I also coincidentally,
(03:12):
met my girlfriend that summer,who is Scottish, and she was in
Glasgow, at Glasgow uni at thetime. So I was like, you know,
if I stay in Ibiza, it'sprobably not going to work out
with long distance and stuff. Soit was another factor that made
me go back to the unit to finishmy last year. And I don't regret
it at all, because I did an iOSmodule on my last year of uni,
(03:34):
which introduced me to thewhole, like, programming and app
development and stuff. And itjust went from there. After uni.
I got my first job as an iOSdeveloper, and I moved to
Manchester for it. And I've beenthere since Yeah, and I love it.
Jeroen Leenarts (03:49):
Okay, well, that's it. Let's cut off the
feet and talk to you again nextweek. Just kidding. So, so you,
basically, I wanted to ask thatnext how you got started with
iOS development, you alreadyjumped ahead a little bit there.
And that's that you did a modulein university, but this module
(04:09):
was that like, the first andonly programming experience that
you came across? Or what wasthat about?
Pol Piella Abadia (04:17):
Yeah, so as part of like electronic
engineering. In the university Iwent to you get to choose like
between two paths in like thesecond third year of uni, which
is either you're going tohardware electronic engineering,
or you go into like the digitalelectronics. So I chose the
digital path. So I did a bit oflike Java while I was at uni and
(04:39):
I did a bit of C and C++ which Ireally really didn't enjoy. I
was like I really don't likethis it was it was very hard for
me to grasp a lot of conceptsbecause I hadn't done like, you
know, any app development beforeand I was there to do like music
technology related stuff. So Ididn't you I didn't really have
(05:00):
a big interest on that boundary.
Last year, I had an amazinglecture, amazing professor who
taught us about iOS development,but he did it in a way that we
would use a library called audiokit. And we would make music
apps basically. So we had tomake a synthesizer, we had to
make like a drum machine andstuff, using iOS development,
(05:20):
and yeah, and just audio kit anddo some like audio signal
processing and stuff. It was alot of fun. So I felt like that
was like the amazingintroduction, introduction, I
needed to do app development.
Jeroen Leenarts (05:38):
But the Java and C and C plus work that you
did in your education beforethat was that also related to
signals process.
Pol Piella Abadia (05:47):
So it was in a way, so the Java one was
completely not related. And Ireally didn't enjoy that.
Because it was, I think we hadto make like, an algorithm that
made like, it was like a flockof birds that would follow each
other, I think it's quite commonin like university degrees. And
the other ones, I think, the Cone, it was in my first year,
(06:10):
and we had to make, like, it wasalso audio related. So we had to
make like, the situation was abar needs, like a system that,
you know, they don't want to paya pianist to go and play in
their bar. So you have to make asystem that plays like a
harmonic sequence of notes thatresembles a pianist with that,
(06:30):
with that code, we were gonna,like make BNS poor like, we were
gonna like, you know, we weren'tgonna substitute them or replace
them. It was just terrible. Andwe Yeah, it was it was, it was
alright. But I feel like it wasit was too difficult for me to
grasp a lot of the concepts atthe time. And then the C++ was
(06:52):
like audio processing andalgorithms and like, plugins and
stuff. And we I felt like we gota template. And we didn't know
enough C++ to actually have funwith it and develop anything
good. So it was a lot of likefighting it and just copying
code and stuff. It wasn't, itwasn't too good.
Jeroen Leenarts (07:09):
And the then you had the program that was
like, took you into iOSdevelopment. But were you
already considering yourself aniOS developer, when you finish
that, that lecture? Or was itmore like you needed to gain
some experience after that, aswell?
Pol Piella Abadia (07:26):
Yeah, so I think this is very common in
like programming. But when I didthe course, by the end of it, I
was like, I did my final yearproject as well in iOS, which
was an app, an augmented realityapp using AR kit, which
basically put like a synthesizeron the real world. And you can
play with it and interact withit. But yeah, I was like, Well,
(07:50):
I'm on top of the world, I'm,I'm the best developer there is,
and I've got experience, I canland a job. And so then I went
over and applied for a job in amusic technology company,
Manchester as an iOS developer.
And when I realized that when Igot there, and I did my
interview, I realized I did nothave the skills to be like a
proficient iOS developer, butthey were kind enough to give me
(08:10):
a sort of like internship forlike six months, and then I
would join as a junior. Yeah.
And that was really my Kickstartto iOS development. That was
where I learned the most, like,that's where I realized, you
know, I don't know enough here,I needed like this work
experience, to you know, get mestarted.
Jeroen Leenarts (08:31):
So you did your internship with a company and to
really learn programming for iOSat that time, and I reckon you
didn't stick around there for acrazy amount of time, but still,
like 18 months or so or so thatyou stuck around? There are
still 18 months or so. Did youstick around her?
Pol Piella Abadia (08:52):
Exactly.
Yeah. So I was there for about ayear and a half. I met some
amazing people still like someof my best friends here in
Manchester from that from thattime, and then I moved over to
another job. So I felt like thefor management reasons, the
company the team wasn't goingvery well everyone was kind of
(09:12):
leaving and he was we didn'thave a clear focus. And we were
in doing that much like iOS, wewere being pulled in like
different directions to do othersort of like things that neither
neither doing. So I just decidedto go you know, go somewhere
else. And I left and I went tostudent discounts company here
in the UK called Student mints.
(09:37):
And yes, Ben, they're about Ithink another year working in
Yeah, completely swift focus,like iOS development for for a
full year which was was verygood.
Jeroen Leenarts (09:48):
And then I reckon that you made a big move.
So you went to another companyeven still?
Pol Piella Abadia (09:56):
Yeah, I went for another company. I felt like
yesterday, the mentor was agreat like, the perks were
absolutely amazing. Like, Ididn't work a single friday
afternoon for a year, it wasfantastic. Like we would get
like early finishes on a Friday.
It was like very, you know, theyhad a lot of focus on your
mental health and like keepingyou happy and stuff, which was
brilliant. But I felt like thework was getting like very
(10:18):
repetitive. So I was like, Ineed to, you know, see how
things are done in like a biggerplace and learn from like, get
more context and learn from frommore people. So I just decided I
applied for a job that was goingon at the time at the BBC. And
yeah, I've been there for abouta year and a bit now, which it's
been, it's been an amazingexperience of her.
Jeroen Leenarts (10:40):
Yeah, because you've worked at three very
different companies, I thinkbecause music tribe, that's the
single product company, right?
Pol Piella Abadia (10:48):
So they've got so it's kind of like a
conglomerate of companies. Soit's one parent company that has
acquired a lot of products. Butwe were really working only on
one product. So yeah, we didn'treally have communication across
a lot of things. Really, it wasjust very, very focused.
Jeroen Leenarts (11:05):
And student beans, that must have been a
solo single product or anagency.
Pol Piella Abadia (11:11):
Now just one product into one product.
Jeroen Leenarts (11:14):
So and then of course, BBC, I think you worked,
or you work on the iPlayer.
Right. Yeah, I play with him.
And but that's also a singleproduct. So could you say that
you've touched three products inyour entire career thus far?
Pol Piella Abadia (11:29):
Yeah, you can you can safely say that. Yeah.
Jeroen Leenarts (11:32):
Cool. So but your day job is not the only
thing that you do. Because nextto that you also have a blog and
a newsletter. What made you getstarted with with your blog,
because your blog is Paul PLF.
Pol Piella Abadia (11:47):
Yeah, that's the one. So yeah, I think I was
looking at this the other day, Ithink it started like, over a
year ago. Now, maybe even longerthan that I can remember when
the first article I published,it's taken a lot of forums since
then, like it's changed, liketechnology stack quite a lot. I
think I'm with something thatI'm happy, happy with now. And
(12:10):
the domain was originally PaulBiya codes instead of Dev. So
it's changed a fair amount, butI'm at a place where I'm happy
with it. I think what made melike started was the I, I felt
like I had, you know, stuff thatI wanted to say I didn't quite
like have a platform that Iliked. I wrote a bit for my for
student beans for their blog, onmedium. So I think I wrote like
(12:34):
one or two articles for them awhile ago. And yeah, kind of
really enjoyed the writing andthe sharing and sharing
knowledge. And I feel like I'm aperson that learns more when
they share. So if I can speakand you know, write or talk
about something, then it kind ofmeans I understand it. And if I
can share like concepts withother people, then it helps me
(12:56):
understand things as well. Soyeah, he was also to build kind
of like a knowledge database formyself. So I could just refer
back and look articles. So evennow, I think the the article
that has performed the best andhas been like featured the most
was one that I did looking atswift packets, plugins before
they got released. And I thinkit got shared that a lot of
(13:19):
times, and it's the mostvisited, like ever in my blog,
and I still refer back to that.
Now when I go like, Oh, I needto do this. And I just go back
and look at how, you know howpeople asked before even though
the, the ABA has changed a bit,it's still the concepts are
pretty much the same. But yeah,it was basically to build a
knowledge database for myself ona fly could help like other
(13:40):
people, and if other people findinteresting along the way, that
was just an added bonus.
Jeroen Leenarts (13:47):
And is it is it hard to keep content coming out
regularly.
Pol Piella Abadia (13:52):
It really is.
I eat a lot of effort. I feellike I didn't like I used to
think that, you know, people didthis for for a living and it was
like their day job and stuff.
But then I see, you know, forexample, Antoine and like, his
blog, and his newsletter, likehe posts a lot and he posts like
(14:12):
weekly as well. And he's got aday job as well. And he's got,
you know, a kid as well. Andit's, it's a lot and it's hard
to like, you know, find findcontent and find things to talk
about. And I kind of in becauseI've got quite a lot of things
going on at the moment with thenewsletter and everything. For
the past, I think two months orso I haven't posted that much.
(14:36):
So I was like, oh, I need to youknow, get back on my blog,
because that's, that's the thingthat I started with. And I
really, really enjoy writing.
And so I've set a challenge formyself until the end of the year
to kind of like post every weekand I'm going to try to keep
that up on the next year aswell. And I've got a lot of
things that I want to talkabout. It's just finding the
time and be more organized tokind of write articles and
(14:57):
Finding some downtime to writearticles. I do have the time to
be honest. It's just sometimesI'd rather you know, what still
a vision or something I need toYeah, I need to use my time.
Jeroen Leenarts (15:10):
You only have so many hours in the day. Right?
Exactly.
Pol Piella Abadia (15:13):
Yeah, absolutely. And relaxing and you
know, taking time to spend withYeah, with family and with, with
my girlfriend, my friends, it's,it's very important as well. So
yeah,
Jeroen Leenarts (15:24):
and what's your process for for writing for your
blog 10. Because not only do youwrite for your blog, but also
for your newsletter, and yournewsletter is sort of more like
aggregating other people'scontent. But for your blog, you
must have a process, right,because you have some ideas. And
at the end of the day, you havelike a finished piece.
Pol Piella Abadia (15:43):
So I tend to so I use, like a task kind of
manager, project manager, whereI've got back a backlog of
ideas, basically. So if I'm atwork, and I've looked into
because a lot of the of myprocess is, you know, I'm
working, and I've have an idea,or I've worked on something
interesting, and I go, Oh, thatwould be a nice topic to talk
(16:03):
about. So I write it down in mylike, inbox kind of thing where
I go, Okay, this would besomething I would begin to talk
about. And then I kind oforganize it by when I want to
post it that I've started doingthis now, by the way, so there's
a little bit of refinement thatcould go into this. And by
organized by when I want to postit. And then that week that I
(16:24):
want to post it on, I kind oflike start working on the
article, I piece together a fewideas planet, look into some,
like do some research and see ifother people have talked about
it and and get some like, youknow, learning information as
well to look into documentationand stuff to make sure that I'm
saying the right things and I'mnot lying to anyone. And then I
(16:46):
just sit down and start writingand and then I review it, I
usually get a friend or two toreview them as well. And then I
just publish it.
Jeroen Leenarts (16:55):
And we spend a lot of time checking the article
content, cuz she just mentionedthat her? Yeah,
Pol Piella Abadia (17:01):
a lot of time, a lot of time checking. I
think I tend to Yeah, we usuallyquite like scared of publishing
things. I'm always like, Oh,it's not good enough for you
know, I've beaten that fear abit now. Because I've seen like
people who have admired a lotsharing my content, like you
know, your stuff weekly, or evenAntoine, or even even yourself
(17:21):
as well like sharing contentthat I've written. And it's,
it's great to see any kind ofbootstrap fear keeps that fear
at bay a bit when you see like,you know, you're getting
rewarded, and you're seeinglike, other people are enjoying
your content. But even still,it's a bit of a nerve racking
experience for me when I golike, Oh, I'm going to publish
this. And then I go, Oh, it'snot good enough. Or, you know,
(17:42):
let's review it again.
Jeroen Leenarts (17:44):
Now, the best remedy is to just keep going. If
you're if you're starting todoubt yourself. Yeah, cuz after
we have a podcast as well, everynow and then. But But for people
who want to do something similarto you, do you have any tips or
ideas based on your ownexperience?
Pol Piella Abadia (18:01):
I think the the thing that kept me going at
the beginning, when I wasgetting like, you know, when no
one was reading my articles, andI didn't know. Yeah, or anyone,
like I don't think anyone wasactually reading what I did. And
I felt a bit demotivated, Ithink just do it for yourself. I
think that's the, that's themost important thing, like do
(18:22):
it. Because because you enjoythe process, don't do it.
Because you you know, you wantpeople to read it. I know, it's
a very good like part of it. Andit's a very good thing that, you
know, people read your content,and they like what you write,
but just do it, because in thefuture is going to be very
useful to refer back tosomething you wrote a year ago.
And you found something tricky.
And instead of having to lookthrough a lot of documentation
(18:45):
and trying to find articlesonline, you can just refer to
your to your blog and have alook at what you wrote about the
topic. So yeah, I would say ifyou really want to do it,
there's no real barriers, youcan just create a medium account
or write your do your own, likeWordPress, or whatever like site
do you want to do, you don'thave to be like me, because I
(19:05):
really like a challenge and callit all from scratch. You don't
have to do that. There's a lotof off solutions, ready to you
know, to start blogging rightaway and get other main like
right away without having to doto do anything. So yeah, if you
really want to do it, just I'dsay just do it. Because there's
even if two people read it, thenthere's two people you have
(19:29):
helped and I have enjoyed yourcontent. And you're going to
have that thing there forever.
And you're going to be able to,you know, to refer back to it
and read it and yeah, it's it'sit's a great feeling when you're
referring to your own articlesto do to do certain things. It's
quite Yeah, it's quite good.
Jeroen Leenarts (19:47):
And what are some of the biggest benefits
that you have reaped fromwriting your blog article, Stan?
Pol Piella Abadia (19:56):
I think like there's two like very, very big
benefits. stuff that I thinkI've, like I'm getting like now,
like, at the moment, one of themis like my improving my writing.
And my technical writing. Iknow, like, for any, any, like
native English speaker and stuffthat might be, you know, you
might get that kind of for freeor in a way like you might be
(20:19):
more more confident writing inEnglish, but for me, like
technical writing is still likesomething I need to work on. And
I still work on and I've beendoing like a Google like, I
would definitely recommend thisGoogle, like technical writing
course, which I think it's been,it's been amazing, I've not
quite yet tried, or you suggestthat I think it's like some
configuration, but I was very,very confused when I saw it. But
(20:44):
yeah, I think the biggest rewardfor me is how much I've learned.
Because now when I have to writelike issues for work, or I have
to write like, some piece ofdocumentation at work like it, I
feel a lot more confident doingit than I know what I'm doing.
And when I have to even do demosat work as well, um, you know, I
treat it like writing a post ina way and I treat it like, you
(21:04):
know, I'm gonna as if I waswriting for my blog, I'm going
to, you know, learn about this,and I'm going to write it and
I'm going to do a little demo,and then I'm going to share it
with my team. So it's helped melike develop that kind of skill
set. And then the other mainbenefit, I would say, is the
people I have met throughwriting articles as well,
because I think another bigfocus that I've been, yeah,
(21:27):
something I've been reallyfocused on was is to be like,
more active like, on Twitter, orMastodon, I know, it's not maybe
not the right time to be reallyactive on Twitter, but I'm just
trying to, like, engage morewith the community. And it's,
yeah, and through my articlesand stuff. I've gotten, like a
lot of feedback and a lot ofpeople saying, oh, have you
looked at this? Or have you seenthis article, and it's the
(21:48):
learning process of like,sharing, like, I'm not scared of
feedback. And I really likewelcoming. And it's the learning
process of putting your, youknow, your code out there, and
your, you know, your little demoprojects out there and someone
going like, oh, you should dothis this way. And alcohol,
like, Whoa, that's a great ideahadn't occurred to me. So having
that kind of, like, network andnot having like having that
(22:11):
constant like feedback loop.
It's, it's amazing. Like, Ithink it's, it's so great, and
it's helps you like grow andlike learn a lot faster. I think
it's yeah, it's just fantastic.
Jeroen Leenarts (22:23):
Right? And but you also recently got started
with doing some presentations onmore public channels, right? So
I remember you being inAmsterdam, like a month ago,
when we record this, so how didthat happen?
Pol Piella Abadia (22:39):
And so yeah, I, I was trying to get a bit
more into Yeah, in the publicspeaking, I had done a bit at,
at my job, like internally,doing like, a bit of like dogs
and we have like a meeting everykind of every week where we
sometimes demo things and Iquite enjoyed that bit of, of my
(23:00):
of my job, and I enjoy like, youknow, sharing things. And I as I
said before, like I learn bysharing as well. Like, if I can
explain something to someone orif I can talk about a topic,
then it probably means Iunderstand it. So yeah, I
decided to maybe go ahead andtry do it in a conference as
well, which was at the beginningnerve wracking, but very
(23:23):
exciting when you do like thecall for papers that you know,
submitted to a lot of places Igot a lot of rejection and a lot
of like places you know, thathad failed like all the spaces
and I couldn't I couldn't makeit or maybe my talk wasn't, you
know, my topic was interestingenough for the conference. And
then I got the opportunity inAmsterdam, at the Deutsches
(23:46):
conference, which was wasamazing and it was my first like
in person conferences as aspeaker. And then I got a couple
more which were remote. So I didI did speak at a job fair for a
remote job fair for LatinAmerica, the people are
(24:07):
organized and I spoke at themobile DevOps summit bid rice
organized as well. Talking aboutCI and I've really really
enjoyed it it gave me like themotivation of you know, applying
for more and I've got that kindof like speaking buzz at the
moment where I'm just applyingto a lot of places and see
(24:27):
seeing what I get for next year.
Jeroen Leenarts (24:30):
All right, and either on already any videos of
you presenting a fail because Ithink the online thing there
were some videos availableright? I think there
Pol Piella Abadia (24:39):
is there is one from bid raise. I believe
that one is online and thenthere's the one from that from
that remote. The know why I'vegot so much trouble saying
remote job fair. Doesn't itdoesn't come out. And for that
remote job fair. I've got arecording of level as well, I
(25:00):
created the YouTube channel forit. Don't expect any good
content from it that's justgoing to be to upload my dogs
and stuff I'm not planning onmaking videos or anything is
just to add, yeah, add thosestock videos that I get get sent
and stuff.
Jeroen Leenarts (25:15):
Yeah, we do iOS. Because, yeah, there's a
reason you're in my podcastright now, because I invited you
to do iOS, we're still workingon processing the videos, and we
want to publish all 14 of thetalks simultaneously. So Marco,
our video guy is working reallyhard on editing those. But one
(25:36):
thing I can share is that yourtalk was actually one of the
most appreciated talks duringthe conference, actually, Oh,
nice. So it was well, very, verywell presented. And also the
content was spot on in the sensethat like, it had like a nice
entry level to get peoplestarted. But there was so much
(25:56):
interesting information that Isaw people walking away from
the, from the bench, just oneafter the talk with like, heaps
of notes on websites they wantedto visit. So and you had some
good things in your in in the inthe final slides as well. So I
will make sure to link to thatstuff. When it is available, it
is interesting to see that youbasically took the journey, like
(26:16):
you just ran into iOSdevelopment, just basically a
little bit of chance, then yougot started and you discover
that that's something that youreally liked doing. And then
after your education, you madeyour career out of it thus far,
because you never know whatyou're going to do in 10 years
from now, the first few yearswere filled with iOS
development, and now you'reworking in a big company. What
(26:38):
is the BBC actually company? Oris it is the public goods?
Organization?
Pol Piella Abadia (26:44):
That's a very good question. I think it is
publicly funded. It's funded byyeah, by the public on a license
fee on a tax kind of thing.
Jeroen Leenarts (26:52):
And so So you've seen some interesting
code bases already, I think, andI think, especially at the BBC,
there were are there are a lotof colleagues around that. Well,
you can learn a lot from thesepeople, I think. And by that, by
this point in time, you're alsoteaching a lot to other people.
Maybe even, that there must be asynergy going on there. You're
(27:14):
teaching through your blog,through your presentations,
through your role, because Ialso saw on your LinkedIn, that
you quite recently switched froma iOS developer role to a senior
iOS developer role. So congratson that, because then also
implies that you have some sayin what, what a new person on
team gets told and gets taughtto get up to speed with things.
(27:39):
So that's a good progression,you're so you're showing there,
and especially on on the waythat you communicate Concepts of
Programming, it's reallyenjoyable. And that's also one
of the reasons why I quite oftenmentioned your links in my in my
podcast, because it's, yeah, ofcourse, you write about
(28:00):
something that other people havewritten about as well. But you
you have a different angle, adifferent explanation that just
add something to theunderstanding of the whole
concept of the topic of yourarticle. So thanks for that.
Pol Piella Abadia (28:15):
Thank you, thank you for the kind words, I
really, really appreciate it.
Jeroen Leenarts (28:18):
And anything else we need to talk about? So
you, you live in Manchester, yougot through, well, bit of
education, and then you had tostick around there for obvious
other reasons as well. Any anyplans in that area into your
future? Or is it still justdiscovering a bit what both of
(28:41):
you want to do with your livesand then move on from there?
Pol Piella Abadia (28:45):
I think so.
Yeah. I think I think at themoment, so my, my girlfriend
works in the, in the office,like five days a week. And she
Yeah, she's Yeah, she's kind ofshe needs to be based in
Manchester at the moment. And Ido need to be based in
Manchester as well, because I'vegot like a hybrid, working
contract kind of thing. So Iwork I work one day from the
(29:06):
office and four days from home.
But and I really, really enjoythe work I'm doing at the moment
and I wouldn't want to moveanywhere else at the moment.
Like I'm very happy with Yeah,with where I am. We're at work
and stuff. But I thinkeventually I would I think we
both me and my girlfriend wouldlike to move back to Spain and
(29:27):
just live in Spain probably getlike a an EU remote contract or
something and move back to Spainby then. I don't foresee that.
Like I don't see that anytimesoon. Really.
Jeroen Leenarts (29:38):
It's good to learn still at the BBC, right?
Yeah, definitely. Definitely.
Well, with that poll, I thinkwe've covered most of the
important bits. Where can peoplefind you online?
Pol Piella Abadia (29:51):
So they can find me? Yeah, popiah deaf, so
at my blog, they can find me onTwitter as well, which Yeah,
it's at Pau Paul period FOB leafand then on LinkedIn as like
follow up as well I think thoseare the main ones that I'm that
(30:14):
I'm focused on at the moment andthat I'm active on Mastodon as
well. I do cross posts fromTwitter the Master then and I
check it like quite regularly aswell. Just I'm not planning on
leaving Twitter but just in caseyou know, the whole world burns
or the whole Twitter burns and IYeah, and I'm left with no one's
lying
Jeroen Leenarts (30:32):
down as like salty chickens or something.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Pol Piella Abadia (30:38):
So yeah, can find me on a master and I think
it's shared on my website aswell. All my links are shared on
my website. So if you go to PaulPiazza def, you can find
everywhere you can find meonline.
Jeroen Leenarts (30:49):
Okay, now we'll make sure to put those links in
the show notes so that peoplejust that are one tap or one
click away from your content,and highly recommended to check
out his articles. The styling ofHis blog is very bare bones very
simple, but the content on thereis like really, really
interesting and really good. Andas if you're an iOS developer,
(31:10):
you will definitely learnsomething new if you just have a
stroll through the articles byPaul, and thanks for that.
Pol Piella Abadia (31:17):
Awesome, thank you so much.
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