Voltas IT, partnered with Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), invited first through second-year students of the Software Systems program to participate in the Voltas IT €1000 Software Development Challenge, providing the student winner with a €1000 grant for his next semester. 

The students showcased their software development and analytical thinking skills by completing the challenge. The tasks were prepared by two experienced developers, namely Gytis Kvedaravičius, the Software Engineering Lead at Voltas IT, and Martynas Šileika, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and one of the co-founders of Voltas IT. 

Participants were able to compete in the challenge even from the comfort of their own homes with the help of the HackerRank platform. Justas Pranauskis was able to receive the highest score and won the challenge, as his motivation as well as his interest in the latest technologies in the automotive industry was also rated by the commission. KTU will transfer over the grant to the student for the upcoming Fall semester. 

In addition, five contestants also received the OBDeleven device and accessories for their efforts in the competition. 

“By working together with KTU, we wanted to not only bring together and attract the most talented students but also to share our knowledge and experience, while also gathering valuable insight from them. After all, continuous learning is one of our core values, and in order to uphold it, we allow our experienced specialists to continue mastering software development likewise motivating those who are still studying to continue pursuing their goals,” commented Martynas Šileika, the CTO at Voltas IT. 

Voltas IT has been creating innovative solutions for the modern drivers, as the company looks to become the leader in the intelligent automotive diagnostic device market. By welcoming a team of software developers and engineers, data analysts, and professionals from other fields, the company has been developing and perfecting the OBDeleven device for more than seven years. 

On May 26, 2022 Voltas IT Scrum master Viktoras Valiokas together with the Agile Lietuva community invited everyone to the hybrid event (held in Voltas IT office at Magnum Bussiness center and online). Here Viktoras shares his insights about the event:

“The event itself, while focusing on the Agile way of software development, was about exploring the philosophical questions related to it, including the uncertainty that surrounds us in our daily working and regular lives.
As we attempted to link the old as time question of why did the chicken cross the road to the principles of Agile, Kęstutis Mikelėnas (Agile Coach, CID Lietuva) looked at the fundamentals of the methodology, and how to make sure your colleagues still have a smile on their faces as they work in sprints.

Exploring the Agile Manifesto

I took it upon myself to go on an endeavor of answering one of the hottest questions in the software development world, namely what it takes to truly be Agile. While, spoiler alert, there is no right or wrong answer to the question. But you can definitely find your answer by following fundamental Agile principles. Especially as you are dealing with uncertainty.

Uncertainty is one of the most common factors that can weigh us down during various situations and can stop us from being flexible while working or looking for a solution related to our daily routine. After all, the second principle of the Agile Manifesto encourages to welcome changing requirements, even those that come late in the development process, especially if they can improve the end user’s experience.

De Facto for uncertainty is that it is always present, no matter whether you are dealing with the most complex question of how to make a certain feature work or whether the salad that you bought for lunch will have a piece of bread included. Thus, you should not be afraid of uncertainty and when the time comes, you have to react.
Another crucial part of the Manifesto is that teamwork makes the dream work, in other words, I like to quote from Alexander Dumas’s book, The Three Musketeers “All for one and one for all, united we stand divided we fall.” In practical terms, this means that if one of your teammates is having a bad time, the whole team does so as well. This goes the other direction also, if one team member is having a great time, all of you are going to have a great time. Teamwork, especially if a business continues to grow, is always a key factor for progress.

Another question that we explored throughout the event – what is our goal? Speaking strictly of the software development side of things, the goal is to create value and to ensure customer satisfaction when they are using our product.

Every team within a business has to create value and be mindful of the customer experience whenever they make decisions. Yet in software development, the balance between technical excellence, which is also known as ensuring quality, and business requirements, a.k.a. time, is delicate and has been challenged constantly, by either side of the equation. Managers need faster delivery times, but developers want to focus on delivering quality and not quantity. Still, finding the right balance is crucial, as a house (a company) is not habitable without electricity (revenue).
And that is achievable within the Agile methodology. Agile Manifesto was written over 20 years ago, but there is a lot of detail written in it which you can narrow down to four values, excluding the principles:
Individuals and interactions over Processes and Tools
Working Software over Comprehensive Documentation
Customer Collaboration over Contract Negotiation
Responding to Change over Following a Plan

While there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more. “