Meet Viktor Meglenovski, one of the top engineering talents in the country, who has recently been awarded the prestigious Engineering Ring for his outstanding achievements. From excelling academically with the highest GPA to shifting his career focus from backend development to data science, Viktor’s journey is a testament to passion, dedication, and the pursuit of knowledge.
In this interview, Viktor shares insights into his academic success, his evolving career at IT Labs, and the key strategies that have shaped his path. Whether you’re an aspiring engineer or a seasoned professional, Viktor’s story will inspire you and provide valuable lessons.
1. How does it feel to be recognized as one of the country’s top engineering students and be awarded a prestigious engineering ring for your achievements?
I am truly honored to have been chosen as one of the 15 young engineers who received the Engineering Ring award this year. I am happy that the hard work I have put in during my studies at the Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering in Skopje has been recognized by the country, the Engineering Institute of Macedonia, and the Chamber of Certified Architects and Certified Engineers.
2. What inspired you to pursue a career in data science, and how did your academic journey shape that path?
During my studies, I was more interested in backend development, and I was almost certain that I would start my career as a full-stack developer. However, I have always been a math geek, and a part of me wanted to use my mathematical and analytical skills in my career. Data science and machine learning are branches built on top of mathematics, so even though I didn’t have as much experience in data science as I did with web development, I decided to apply for the Data Science internship here in IT Labs.
3. What essential habits or strategies helped you achieve the highest GPA in your computer science and engineering studies?
I think the most important thing was that I always studied for knowledge, not grades. Having a mindset like “I want to learn how this works” instead of “I need to study this to get a good grade” has made my studies enjoyable and fulfilling. Regarding habits, I can say that having a good work-life balance is important. In my case, I always enjoyed my personal life and relaxed as much as possible to avoid burning out.
4. How did your internship at IT Labs influence your career direction and professional goals in data science? Both from technical and soft skills perspectives?
The internship here at IT Labs was a wonderful experience for me. I feel like it helped me connect all those different topics, technologies and software engineering principles. During the internship, we had amazing mentors who put equal emphasis on both technical and soft skills, which allowed me and the other interns to practice both. Now, one year later, I can confidently say that I have progressed a lot thanks to the support that I have from my mentors and teammates, as well as my eagerness to learn new things and improve.
5. Could you share a project you've worked on as a Data Science Engineer that greatly impacted IT Labs?
I believe the IT Labs Chatbot that I have been working on with the other data scientists and machine learning engineers is a project that will provide great value for the company. The idea behind our intelligent chatbot is to answer user questions regarding internal company resources and our knowledge base. This means that employees will be able to easily and effectively find answers to various questions ranging from procedures and policies to quickly fetching documents and templates.
6. What other interests or passions do you have besides data science?
As I have switched my main interests from web development to data science, I can say that even though data science, AI and machine learning are my passions, I am also really interested in cloud computing and cloud services, data engineering, data analysis and DevOps. I have had the opportunity to work on various things so far in IT Labs, and anything related to data interests me.
7. What advice would you give to students and young professionals who want to excel in data science?
The most important thing I can say is that data scientists should not ignore the fundamental computer science and programming principles when performing their data science magic. While they must have a specific skill set that differs from other software engineering professions, they must also have a great understanding of software engineering. Another crucial thing is to research and learn new things constantly. Data science and machine learning are topics that develop rapidly nowadays, so it is important to know what the latest trends are.
