Sanket Parmar, A web engineer, WordCamp contributor, and organizer is with us today for an exclusive interview so without further ado, let’s hear it from the man himself.
WPJuicer: Hello Sanket, we are very excited to have you with us. Let’s start with a traditional question: please tell us about yourself?
Sanket: Namaste! Thank you for having me here.
I’m a Web Engineer at 10up, currently residing in Pune, India. My journey with ‘coding’ began back in college days though that time I was not too familiar with PHP. Due to a lack of good-paying job opportunities in the ASP.NET field, I took a break post-graduation and self-taught myself PHP by referring to books and any online material I could find then.
In the course of my first job as a PHP Developer, I was handed over a project which introduced me to WordPress and since then there’s been no looking back.
WPJuicer: I hope you could tell us a little bit about your experience with WordPress and how WordPress helped your career, especially reaching to the current position?
Sanket: After having worked on my first WordPress project, I found myself exploring the community around it and started looking at the various job opportunities available. That’s when I came across rtCamp and joined them after a few months. I got a chance to learn and work on plugin/theme development and migration. Spent a lot of my free time implementing my personal ideas which in turn helped me increase my understanding of how things work.
Working with a community spread across the globe and having visibility to so many cool projects other people were working on (Kudos Open Source!) helped me feed off on all the good things like standards, shortcuts, workarounds, etc. All these experiences put together have helped me reach where I am today and hope to continue for many more miles.
WPJuicer: You currently work at 10UP as a Web Engineer. What are your responsibilities there? Could you share any interesting stories?
Sanket: Few of my responsibilities here are to be able to develop WordPress theme/plugin, lookout for unique and optimized solutions in a fast-paced environment, communicate with clients, leverage WordPress APIs and extend the WordPress admin experience. It’s all about delivering the goodness of WordPress and empowering the end-user!
I’ve recently completed a year at 10up and I’m so thankful to the entire team for making it such a memorable year. The distance does not stop us from forming great bonds, an important aspect for healthy remote work culture. Teammates are always available to help out with a brainstorming session and thanks to the well-documented processes a newbie will never feel lost. Had we not been gripped with COVID-19 this year, I would have caught up with my colleagues in person during our annual retreat! ????
WPJuicer: WordPress has the best community that expands with each passing day. Where do you see this huge community in the next five years?
Sanket: The community and their passion ensures that WordPress only keeps on improving and will be here to stay for many years to come. There will always be scope for improvements and new suggestions to work on, it’s our responsibility as community members to work on these so that we are delivering the best capabilities of WordPress and empowering the end-user.
I may not be able to say where exactly we will be but I know for sure that over the next few years the community will be rolling out some really innovative ideas, wowing us and making our sites better and better. The community has been built due to everyone’s hard work, common belief in sharing of knowledge, helping out individuals, and many other similar pillars. So certainly this community is here to stay for a long time, growing bit by bit!
WPJuicer: Have you attended a WordCamp? How do these meetups benefit the WordPress community?
Sanket: Yes, I’ve attended many WordCamps and also helped organise a few of them.
WordCamps and Local Meetups play a crucial role in keeping all the community members together and help enhance WordPress with every iteration.
I have such fond memories and a wide range of experiences for all the meetups I’ve been to. These community gatherings have something new to learn from for people of all backgrounds, be it technical, non-technical, or newbies. In a world full of chaos, we have a place to go to, call it our own, be a host to tens, hundreds, thousands of humans, and talk about all things WordPress!
These meetups are a great chance to jump into a project somebody is working on or walk away with a great idea and have an army who is ready to get it to the finish line. They also give you a wonderful reason to take a break and travel to new places every few months!
WPJuicer: What do you look for in a managed WordPress host?
Sanket: I think I would mostly look for the uptime, great support, reliability, a good backup/restore management service, strong security checkpoints included in their workflows, justifiable price range, etc.
WPJuicer: Who should we interview next, and why?
Sanket: Here are a few of them you could interview next, the list may seem a bit lengthy.
Dhaval Parekh, Divyaraj Masani, Dipesh Kakadiya, Faishal Sayyed, Jignesh Nakrani, Maitreyie Chavan, Mehul Kaklotar, Pranali Patel, Rahul Prajapati, Ritesh Patel, Shailee Sheth, Utkarsh Patel – These are some of my closest friends, colleagues who turned into friends. It was WordPress that got us together and was also the starting point for most of our careers.
WPJuicer: We have talked too much about your professional life. Let’s tell our readers about your hobbies and interests. What does Sanket do other than work?
Sanket: During non-work-related hours you will find me reading books, catching up on movies and TV series, progressing on pet projects undertaken. Prior to the COVID days, I would catch up with friends weekly to play Cricket/Badminton and also find a way to include a few rounds of jogging.
I moved into my new apartment a couple of months back, so a lot of time these days is also spent on planning the furniture layout and surfing online stores for any artefacts to add.
My friends and I are often found planning out our next bike ride journey, be it inter or intrastate. We also have the same bike and had purchased it around the same time. ???? Oh man do I miss those rides right now! We have had such good weather since the past few weeks.
WPJuicer: Any other thoughts or things you wish to mention?
Sanket: Thank you WPJuicer team for this interview series, it’s a great way to know more about the folks in the WordPress community and to read their stories. Also, I’m humbled that you choose me to be a part of it, thank you so much for this opportunity.
Although the days may seem difficult due to various COVID-19 precautionary restrictions, I hope we all find a way to connect with ourselves. Let’s try to work on that project we kept pushing back, that book we never got the time to read, the recipe experiment that you thought would be a good combo – surely they’ll make some amazing stories to share. Here’s hoping for a better year ahead..stay safe and happy!
