ZigiWave's Emilia Petkova on Learning New Technologies, Work, and Noonies Nomination

Hey Hackers!

I’m Emilia and I’m a Tech Marketing Specialist @ZigiWave. I am glad to announce that we have been nominated for the 2022 Noonies Awards.

A huge thanks to the HackerNoon community and staff for considering us worthy of this opportunity. We’ve been nominated in the following categories and if you like my writing, please do check out these award pages and vote for us:

HackerNoon contributor of the year - Azure: [URL TO AWARD PAGE]
HackerNoon contributor of the year - CI/CD: [URL TO AWARD PAGE]

As a tech writer, I believe that the most exciting technology of the present are integrations. With so many different software tools on the market (companies use more than 150 apps, according to statistics), if you do not make them work in sync, your organization will become a complete chaos. Learn more about my thoughts and opinions on integrations and my journey in the tech industry via the interview below.

1. Tell us about your journey. What do you do and what do you love about it?

I love writing and learning about different technologies. My job involves lots of research on the best technologies today and in the future. In my current role in ZigiWave I fell in love with integrations, as they are quite intriguing. It seems nothing would be working properly without integrations. You don’t get even half of the benefits of the variety of tools you are using, if they do not work well together. The history of integrations is very interesting, because you would think they are something new that has emerged in the recent years, but they have been actually around for the last few decades. Different integration approaches have emerged through the years, like migration, ETL, standard data synchronization, enterprise service bus, and recently serverless event-driven architecture.

In my previous roles, I’ve been doing marketing and PR, sales and customer service for different technology companies.

2. Tell us more about your work. What do you make/write/manage/build?

Our integration platform ZigiOps is really unique, because it is completely no-code. Even a person without a technical background can do integrations. Heck, even I can do them and have them ready in minutes. Well, I have some technical background, but it is mainly from school and then from a marketing perspective. I’ve never worked in a tech or dev role.

ZigiOps provides out-of-the-box templates for all types of integrations. You can have the most complex integration use case and ZigiOps will handle it with ease. And you do not need to write a single line of code. Our team is so passionate and fun to work with that they got me very keen on integrations and here I am – writing every day about them. 😊

3. How did you start writing? What made you choose HackerNoon for publishing your work?

HackerNoon is an awesome place. I like to review the new stories daily and read the ones that seem interesting. I learn new things and get inspired for writing my own articles. It is great that you give the word to people who love writing and love technology, and truly have talent.

I have been attracted to writing since childhood. Of course, as every author, I have first started by reading a lot. I read hundreds of books, I love reading and then I naturally wanted to write myself. This is how I started, and my first attempts were when I was about 9 years old.

4. What excites you in tech? Tell us about your favorite technology and why you are passionate about it.

All things new in tech excite me. I can’t believe how fast technology is developing. I love how easy everything is with technology. One of my first jobs was in a web hosting company. There I learned to build websites and I had my first personal blog. I found out it is much easier than I expected, thanks to technologies like WordPress and different templates that you can use.

Since then, whenever I had challenges, I have always looked for the right technology to solve them – different plugins, templates, automation tools. Automation is very important, and integrations are a major part of it. I love testing different tools.

5. What were some of the challenges you faced being a tech writer and how did you overcome them?

My biggest challenge is that there is so much to learn. There are always new things coming out, and you can never learn them all. And to write well, you need to understand what you are writing about. This is why I spend a lot of time in research and in learning about new emerging technologies. My current role at ZigiWave gives me the opportunity to learn about new technologies every day and I am really happy about that.

6. What are you learning/reading currently? Any recommendations for our readers?

I am quite interested in Microservices, Knowledge Graph, Data Mesh, Serverless, Containers.... the type of technologies that are now becoming more and more popular and reinventing the space of integrations. Of course, HackerNoon is one of the places I visit every day to read about these technologies.

7. What is your biggest achievement so far?

In terms of writing, I consider it a success when my articles become popular and attract more readers to the ZigiWave blog. I don’t like praising myself too much. 😊

8. If we gave you 10 million dollars to invest in something today, what would you invest in and why?

Oh, wow, that’s a tough question. But maybe in purchasing and equipping a place somewhere in the mountains where tech enthusiast can gather, work together, do mastermind meetings, and have fun, of course. I know this is not just my dream, there a lot of people in the ZigiWave team who would love that.

9. What advice would you give to someone just starting in this field?

Never stop learning. Be open to new things and don’t be afraid to explore new unconventional ideas.

10. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Be myself and stand up for my opinion.

I can add that you at HackerNoon are really great, and I love to see so many talented people gathered here. Never stop writing, never stop dreaming and never stop learning.

About HackerNoon’s 2022 Noonie Awards

The annual Noonie Awards celebrate the best and brightest of the tech industry, bringing together all who are making the Internet and the world of tech what it is today. Please be sure to check out our award categories, nominate, and vote for the people and companies who you think are making the biggest impact on the tech industry today.

The 2022 Noonies are sponsored by: BingX, and .tech domains. Thank you so much to these sponsors who are helping us celebrate the accomplishments of all our nominees.