Silvio Paganini is one of 10 nominees for Developer of the Year in the 2014 net Awards. He was born in São Paulo, Brazil and has worked in Brazil, Norway and is now head of front-end development at UNIT9 in London. We quizzed him to find out more.
What are your main areas of expertise?
Front-end development (HTML5, JavaScript, CSS, Flash), task automation (Grunt, GulpJS, Cake) and a bit of server-side development (Node.js, Python, PHP).
Give us a summary of your career so far.
In the last 12 years of my career I have had the pleasure to be part of renowned teams like: JWT (Brazil), Bleed (Norway), R/GA, Sapient Nitro, and Hi-ReS among others. After spending half of my career in Flash development, I'm now exploring new technologies, from Arduino to WebGL and everything inbetween. Currently, as head of front-end development at UNIT9, I have the opportunity to do research and development, concept work, and craft bleeding-edge experiences inside and outside the browser.
What have you been working on over the last year?
A big secret HTML5 responsive website that will be live soon with loads of data visualisation charts analysing people's activity on social networks. It's a particularly interesting project if you're into people's behaviour and how to visualise it.
What have been the particular high points of your career?
The very first one was being part of an award-winning team in JWT Brazil - I'd probably worked with the best people in the industry by that time. Moving to London was the second high point and a great step in my career. From the very beginning I had to quickly react and adapt to this completely new and challenging experience, having to prove myself on a daily basis. Lastly, and probably the highest point in my career, was the moment I joined UNIT9. It has really pushed me to the edge, as I've had the opportunity to get involved in high-end projects such as Sony Shiphunt, Assassin's Creed Painting and Find Your Way to Oz, which I'm very proud of.
What are you excited about at the moment?
Chromecast (and probably the next generation of Apple TV). The Internet is moving away from the desktop and going mobile. I personally think TV has huge potential as a proper and useful second screen while you browse the internet on your tablet. I would bet this is the next big thing we'll be seeing it more and more.
Tell us about an important lesson you've learned in your career.
Always hire people who have the potential to be better than you.
Name an 'unsung hero', someone you admire who deserves more recognition for their work.
I have a lot of heroes and I could list at least 10 of those. To name one, Keita Kuroki, now Founder of Slikland in Brazil. He was one of the guys that I most learned from when we worked together at UNIT9.
The public voting phase of is the net Awards is now closed. Judges voting will begin on 31 March 2014.
