Mateusz Ostafil is the leader of Spartacus Extended Training held by Divante. The idea for the training sessions took its roots from the contributions of Divante developers in SAP’s headless frontend, but Mateusz’s passion for sharing his knowledge started long ago.
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Teaching is the best way to learn
Mateusz always liked to learn and pass on his passion to others. During his studies, he volunteered at the “Academy for the Future” and had the opportunity to tutor an underprivileged young man who was struggling with schoolwork.
“I met with him once a week, not only to help him with his homework but also to show him how to learn for himself. I wanted to help him to become self-reliant in future, not only able to deal with his current problems.”
Mateusz Ostafil.
The boy started to progress quickly and improved at school; but the learning was a two-way process. Mateusz also came to understand that he wanted to help people and develop their abilities as he built his own career.
Mateusz Ostafil has been working at Divante since November 2019, but he has extended experience in teaching and programming. He worked as a Business Intelligence Developer for a few years. He opened the first branch of the Codecool programming school in Poland, building it nearly from scratch. This gave Mateusz the chance to experiment with new methods of educating people.
For the last 3 years, as a software mentor, he has helped transform more than 150 people from total beginners into working programmers. He’s created a lot of educational materials but also learned a lot about working with people.
“In my previous job, I was preparing people for recruitment in IT. I was browsing through many offers on the job market for them. I wasn’t looking for a new position for myself, but I came across an offer from Divante looking for a “Technology Evangelist”. The very name of this position made me curious. And so, after applying and having an inspiring conversation with Piotr Karwatka, I decided to take an important step in my career. Working at Divante allows me to combine my soft and technological skills with the teaching I love”.
Mateusz Ostafil
In Divante, Mateusz Ostafil works as a “Technology Evangelist”, a Spartacus coach. He handles Spartakus Training and promotes the technology in various ways.
“I like to learn. That’s why I have so much fun teaching others.”
You may have great knowledge, but without the ability to transfer it to others, you cannot teach.
“I like to learn new things. I enjoy it. That’s why I have so much fun teaching others. I have experience with business applications, front end, databases, and programming. Now I focus on the front end and Angular because I take the most joy of it. I’m a technological agnostic. It’s not a specific technology that matters to me, but how to solve a given problem.”
Mateusz Ostafil
Many training courses consist of preparing long presentations and discussing them step by step. The problem is that this does not work in the modern world—especially in the world of technology, where everything changes quickly.
“That is the reason why my workshops and training look different. I try to teach people how to learn for themselves. I explain how what I teach can be used in real-life, in practice. I often move away from a rigid training program to analyze everyday work and give practical tips on how to improve the work. When we see the practical value of the material taught, we start to take a keener interest in it.”
Mateusz Ostafil
Spartacus Extended Training for developers: on-site and online
Divante, as a core contributor to Spartacus, organizes training for developers working with PWA and SAP Commerce Cloud. Spartacus Training enables participants to get started with Spartacus storefront development and learn the best practices for extending it without breaking the upgradability.
Participants get to know Spartacus libraries, become proficient in creating storefronts for SAP Cloud Commerce, and get insights into architectural details. The training covers everything from the basic setup, configuration, styling, and simple enhancements to custom CMS Components, connecting different data sources, and using advanced features.
“I use some presentations during my Spartacus Training but they are small additions. I’m going more into live coding. I program something live on screen and try to involve the participants. They then suggest what can be done in a given situation. I ask them questions and together we create code during the session. The ideas for what we would like to implement come from the participants. After the live coding session, I give them a task for about half an hour. During the implementation of the task, I watch how they are doing, check if they have problems and need support. Then we summarize everything.”
Mateusz Ostafil
As a standard, Divante offers on-site training at Partners for a selected group of developers. However, the current situation has sped up the construction of the online workshop.
“In February 2020, I was asked to provide Spartacus Extended Training online. I was a little bit concerned about it but, as it was an internal training, I decided to give it a go. It went well and the attendees were communicative. In the end, I received very good feedback.”
Mateusz Ostafil
Regardless of whether the training takes place online or on-site, Mateusz would like the participants to be ready to work with Spartacus after the workshop. He aims to give the trainees full support, both during and after the workshop, so that they can address him with questions during their work.
Why should you be interested in SAP Spartacus?
What is Spartacus PWA in a nutshell? Spartacus is a lean, Angular-based JavaScript storefront for SAP Commerce Cloud. It communicates exclusively through the Commerce REST API and is the ultimate gateway to ultra-fast Progressive Web Apps. Mateusz recently wrote an article “What is Spartacus? An intro to a PWA solution for SAP Commerce Cloud, where you can learn more about it.
“Spartacus technology is very fresh and interesting. SAP previously utilized the technology of the 2000s, but now they are making a big technological leap. It’s nice to be part of that. Besides, it’s a product that potentially will be used around the world.”
Mateusz Ostafil
SAP has a team of experienced developers who have extensive experience in eCommerce. They know the subject, what needs to be changed, and how to do it. Divante, on the other hand, offers help with frameworks for building storefronts. A professional team has been formed by combining these forces, which creates high-quality software.
Are you ready for Spartacus Training?
The current situation caused by coronavirus has encouraged Divante to reinvent Spartacus Extended Training. Spartacus Online Training will soon be available. Follow this blog or contact us and we’ll put you on a waiting list.
Published April 9, 2020
