Meet the Writer: Hacker Noon's Contributor Radu Constantin, Software developer

Welcome to HackerNoon’s Meet the Writer Interview series, where we learn a bit more about the contributors that have written some of our favorite stories. So let’s start! Tell us a bit about yourself. For example, name, profession, and personal interests. I'm Radu Constantin. By day, I'm a full-stack software developer, a husband, and a father, but by night I'm crafting Levely, an iOS app that turns the hours you spend practicing real-life skills into experience points and levels. I know. It's possibly one of the most useful apps in the history of iOS development. I'm not accepting investors right now.As far as personal interests go, I'm really into reading history, motorcycles, and dreaming about having the time to play RPGs.I know it's a cliché, but I do think about the Roman Empire every day. Interesting! What was your latest Hackernoon Top story about? It was a story called "Designing an XP system for real-life skills".As someone who, during his life, has gone from learning guitar, music production, riding motorcycles, learning programming, becoming a lifeguard, learning scuba diving, and many other more or less dubious activities, I have a deep interest in the subject of acquiring and mastering new skills.You'd think that mapping the skill progression system from RPGs (such asThe Elder Scrollsseries) would be easy. It is not!I'm venturing out into spoiler territory for the article, but here's my thesis in short. The inner systems applied in Western RPGs regarding skill progression can't be fully applied to real-life skill acquisition. The system can only work if we change how we perceive it. We need to stop thinking about XP points and levels as measures of competence and instead regard them as measures of commitment.Check out the article if you're interested in the topic. I go into greater detail about types of progression and some of the math involved. It's the foundation I'm buildingLevely on. Do you usually write on similar topics? If not, what do you usually write about? Whoa there, I've barely started writing my first articles. I'm just attempting to document for posterity the inner workings of developing the most successful app of all time.I will have to flip your question into "What do you intend to write about next?"Loads of things, actually. I want to present what goes on behind the scenes, from making design decisions, marketing, time management, and even some more personal topics, like striking a balance between a full-time job, being a father, a husband, and building a billion-dollar app business on the side (how hard can it be?).I want this to be an honest (and entertaining) log of what it takes to build and ship an app. Great! What is your usual writing routine like (if you have one?) Hmm, since writing is so tightly coupled with working on my app right now, the process follows this pattern more or less: Work on some interesting aspect of the app. Get an idea for an article related to what I'm working on. Start a very rough draft and just sketch out what I've been doing (bullet point style). Expand on the bullet points and attempt to make the dry parts more entertaining. Re-read and refine the article over and over.That's basically it!Writing an article is a multiday/week affair for me. I keep re-reading and deleting and adding sections and moving them around until I get a cohesive piece that is (I hope) entertaining as well.In the initial drafts, I catch myself adding quite a lot of unnecessary information so I cut down mercilessly. The bad jokes stay, however. Being a writer in tech can be a challenge. It’s not often our main role, but an addition to another one. What is the biggest challenge you have when it comes to writing? Oh, it's quite easy, actually. You just have to fit in some time to lay down your thoughts after you've finished working at your day job, spent time with your family, and worked on your app.Jokes aside, finding the time to do it really is the greatest challenge. As I mentioned previously, I don't write in one sitting. I need multiple sessions of revisions in order to publish something that I'm only partially ashamed of.Another challenge for me is that my writing lacks focus, and I tackle too many things at once in one article. It's hard for me to accept that I cannot grace my readers with the full extent of my thoughts. What is the next thing you hope to achieve in your career? This is a difficult question for me. I never had the traditional sense of a career where I start in a well-defined field and pursue its advancement. As I've mentioned previously, I come from a non-tech background, and I've experienced quite a few changes throughout my life.I know that I want to become a better software developer. It is what I'm passionate about. But where I differ from others in my field is that I love my profession not just for the craft of building software, but also for the power it gives me to bring my ideas to reality in a way that cannot be matched in other fields. I just need my laptop, and I can paint my vision into reality.So, what do I hope to achieve in my career?I will skip the clichés. I want to build the best damn apps I possibly can. I want to prove that I can build a successful product, not just a piece of software. Wow, that’s admirable. Now, something more casual: What is your guilty pleasure of choice? Do I have to pick just one, haha?I love playing RPGs. Morrowind is my favorite game of all time, and there's something about it that prevents me from ever deleting it from my hard drive. I haven't played a game since then that matches that satisfying sense of progression where you go from a weak nobody to a highly competent [insert RPG class of choice]. Oh boy... where do I start?Motorcycles. Nothing quite matches the feeling of going on an open road and hearing that deep growl of these lovely machines.Reading. I know... I went from top-score levels of cool down into the negatives. I just love reading. I don't go anywhere without at least one book. I read fiction, history, biographies, philosophy and other genres that I don't know how to spell. My favorite book series is "Masters of Rome" by Colleen McCullough.Playing guitar. It's something that has stuck with me since I was a teenager. I'm probably a little worse than Jimmy Page, but you can't be great at everything. I'm currently working on an article about what every app developer dreads: marketing!I will explain what my overall strategy is and the steps I'm taking to actually get users to try out the app.My plan is to write two articles on this topic: the first will present the strategy, and the second the results and how I've adapted to them. I have no practical experience in promoting or marketing an app, which will probably make the second article much more entertaining to read.Basically, you will read a first-hand account of my complete success or shameful failure to create a working strategy to promote Levely! What’s your opinion on HackerNoon as a platform for writers? I've been a lurker for a long, long time on HackerNoon. I've spent most of my lunch breaks reading articles in my attempt to become a better software developer or just to satisfy my curiosity.I love the fact that there is an actual human being who curates what is published. I can read with the confidence that I'm not wasting my time trying to make sense of the results of someone's prompt.For me, as a new writer, HackerNoon has given me access to an audience that I never would have thought possible. I think this is the strongest aspect of this platform. If you've got something interesting to say you can reach thousands of readers without having an already established following on social media. Thanks for taking time to join our “Meet the writer” series. It was a pleasure. Do you have any closing words? I'm genuinely stumped by the fact that you guys have considered me for this interview. I hope you don't fire the intern who made the call.It's been a real pleasure to go through this interrogation. If you're still curious about what I'm building, check outLevely at https://levely.quest Check out Radu’s HackerNoon profile here, and read more of his amazing stories! https://hackernoon.com/u/radu14