The new year is in full swing, the holiday cookies are (mostly) gone, and we're all slowly remembering how to type without accidentally writing 2024 instead of 2025. But one thing hasn't changed: the Java team is still bringing the heat! 🔥

This newsletter is here to keep you in the loop with everything happening in our corner of the tech world, from team updates and kudos to upcoming events and the occasional inside joke.

So grab a coffee, get comfy, and let's kick off 2025 the right way, with some fresh updates!

P.S. Want to become the ultimate Java fan? We've hidden a secret emoticon somewhere in this email, click it to complete a survey and enter the drawing for the title of Java Newsletter Fanatic of the Year!

And remember every time, not only will the emoticon be in a different spot, but it'll also be completely different so stay sharp! 👀 The hunt is on! 🎯

Our January utilization numbers are in, and things are looking up! 🚀

• Adjusted: 84.76% ▲6,41%
• Non-adjusted: 84.76% ▲6,71%

That's a solid jump to kick off the year! 🎉 Looks like everyone came back from the holidays recharged, refueled (probably with a lot of coffee ☕), and ready to roll. Whether it's tackling projects, jumping into new challenges, or just making sure our keyboards didn't gather too much dust in December, the numbers speak for themselves.

Big news from the Velogica project! 🎉 Thanks to the top-notch quality of our delivery, the client has decided to deepen the collaboration and bring even more work our way. This is a huge testament to the dedication and skill of the team well done, everyone! 👏

To make sure we continue delivering at the same high level, we’re bringing in some extra reinforcements:

• Dominik is back in action after a well-deserved break and is already making an impact.
• Kosta is joining the team to provide additional dev power and help push things forward.
• A shoutout to Uladzislau, who nailed his onboarding and is already pushing new boundaries with his tasks. Amazing work, welcome officially to the Velogica crew! 💪

On Alps Alpine, things are moving towards wrap-up for production, with Kosta leading the charge on final touches.

The onboarding process for the project's maintenance phase is planned. Huge thanks to Dominik, Kosta, and Luka for ensuring a smooth transition!

The PDC projects are running at full speed, and while things are mostly continuing at a steady pace, one big highlight is that Matej and Ivan M., alongside PO Ivna, have officially kicked off a new project! 🎉

They're ramping up, getting everything in place, and will soon be in full operational mode. Big kudos to the whole team, looking forward to seeing how this project unfolds! 🔥

With all the changes happening on Versuni, the BE teams got a fresh rebrand:

• Detectives are now called Extend (👥 Luka J. & Aleksandar K.)
• Platformers are now called Core (👥 Mario S., Durim K., Ivan S., Boris M., Marijan L., Ivona R., Vasili Y.)
  📌 New PO: Dubravko B.

With all these transitions, we're seeing onboardings and project ownership shifts happening at full speed. One key move is that the JDE project is shifting from Aco to Ivona, big kudos to both of them for handling the transition like pros! 🚀

At the same time, a huge shoutout to Durim for stepping up and taking over a significant part of Miklec's work on Alexa. His dedication and effort are truly appreciated! 🙌

Big kudos to the whole team, keep up the fantastic work! 🚀

Welcome to the kickoff of our Java Education Olympic Games! For the next six months, every hour of learning will count as we race to crown the ultimate learning champion. 

Here's how our top three champs set the pace in January:

🥇 Durim Kryeziu - started the year strong by completing the highly insightful Understanding Distributed Systems. Distributed systems can be tricky, but he made it look effortless! 🚀

🥈 Ivan Miklec - is diving deep into Designing Data Intensive Applications while also strategizing his next AWS certification move. A perfect blend of smart learning and future-proof thinking! 🔥

🥉 Boris Marković - is leveling up his Java expertise with Effective Java, a must-read for any serious Java dev. A solid choice that clearly paid off! 📚

🌟 Big shoutout to all three of you for leading the way! 🌟

Check out 👾 the standings for the full leaderboard.

This is just the beginning! As we continue collecting medals over the coming months, every bit of learning brings us closer to the grand finale, where the top performer will unlock an exciting surprise reward. 🏅🎁

Who's aiming for the podium next month?

This month, we raised our coffee mugs for Dominik Hodja and Kostadin Pop-Kochev, who both added another candle to their birthday cakes. Hope you both had an amazing day, may your code always compile on the first try! 🎂🎈

Not only did Kosta celebrate his birthday, but he also hit a major milestone: 5 years at Infinum! 🏅 That's half a decade of coding, debugging, and keeping the Java magic alive. Huge kudos, Kosta here's to many more years of greatness! 🚀

Big things are happening in the Java team! 🚀 We're officially stepping up our game when it comes to team-wide knowledge sharing, and we're excited to introduce some fresh initiatives.

Java team is no longer just Versuni-related, and we need to keep everyone in the loop! That's why we're proud to announce that Spring Breakpoint is now officially a thing. 🎉 This is our weekly team meeting, where we:

• Go over interesting implementations and updates across different projects
• Check in on strategic initiatives
• Wrap it up with an education session, whether it's a Workshop, Springfield session, or a Lightning Talk

January also marked the launch of Java Team Workshops, led by our very own Lead Engineer Matej Nedić. This is just the beginning, and over time, more team members will jump in to organize exciting sessions on various topics.

We kicked things off with a live interactive whiteboard stream using an iPad, innovative, right? 😎 Okay, we're still fine-tuning the setup (so let's keep the judgment to a minimum 😅), but we're confident we'll level it up soon! For those who missed it, you can check out the recording here:

Workshop Recording

Stay tuned – this is just the start of what's shaping up to be an exciting year of learning and sharing! 📚🔥

This month was a bit different, we skipped the full Java team get-together as we were still recovering from those epic holiday feasts (yum, right? 😋). Instead, our Versuni project crew got together for their own cozy meetup. With recent changes in the team - new faces, reshuffled groups, and Ivna handing over the PO duties to Dubravko - it was the perfect chance to catch up, say a warm hello (and a bittersweet goodbye), and share some laughs.

The real highlight? A fun escape room challenge at ClueGo! 🕵️ The Versuni BE team split into smaller groups and jumped straight into the challenge to see how well they could collaborate as a newly formed team. Judging by the photos and those huge grins, both teams totally owned the escape room challenge and dashed out like champs - talk about teamwork at its best! 😄👏

Bravo to the Versuni BE crew, you absolutely rocked it! And get ready for February, because a big team activity is coming up for the entire Java gang. Stay tuned for more fun and surprises! 🎉

Testcontainers for sure! I didn't write a unit test in a year or two now because them. It is super easy to use and they work every time.

I was against this but @notGonnaNameHim made me implement it. Please reach out to him to express your graditude.

Sherlock Holmes only to see Victorian era England and troll people around London 😅

"Code is like humor. When you have to explain it, it's bad."

There’s no @Unsubscribe annotation for this one. See you next month! 😏