💬 Developer Spotlight - Tuna Akyürek

Question: Can you briefly introduce yourself?

I'm Tuna. I graduated from TOBB ETU with a degree in Computer Engineering and have been working as a software development engineer at Clay Token for two years.

Question: What music genres and bands do you listen to while developing?

I can listen to anything; I'm not picky. I'm currently working through Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Question: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received about software development?

Instead of "if it works, don't touch it," I follow "if it works, touch it anyway."

Question: What was the most challenging bug you encountered in this project, and how did you solve it? Also, what was your last ‘developer panic moment,’ and how did you handle it?

There was a bug where Swarm behaved strangely when selecting its attack target. The challenge was tracking data across numerous entities, making it difficult to pinpoint where the issue lay. I don’t exactly remember how I solved it, but I fixed potential causes one by one until it worked.

As for my developer panic moment, it happened when we were uploading our first build for playtesting on Steam. Our office internet suddenly went down, forcing us to move a monitor and a PC to a place with internet access. While uploading the build, the monitor started failing slowly, which added to the stress. Struggling to meet the deadline due to circumstances beyond our control was a real panic-inducing moment for me.

Question: What’s something you did in this project that pushed you out of your comfort zone, and you're glad you did?

Working on backend tasks was completely outside my comfort zone.

Question: What are you currently learning? How do you prioritize your "next things to learn" list?

In my free time, I’m learning DirectX 12, but since it’s a hobby, I don’t follow a strict schedule. Through a close friend, I discovered Adrian Courrèges' blog, which contains a collection of articles analyzing graphics in games. I read about games that interest me and add techniques I find fascinating to my "things to learn next" list. Right now, I’m trying to recreate the footprints characters leave in snow and mud in Diablo IV.

Question: How many cups of coffee do you drink per day?

I prefer not to answer this question. :)

Question: What advice would you give to a newly graduated developer?

Never stop improving yourself. We are in a constantly evolving and changing industry, so we must adapt to continuous learning.

Question: Among the features you developed in this project, which one makes you the proudest and why?

I’d say the Mod system. It’s one of the steps in our XBT addition pipeline and includes a tool that everyone involved in adding XBTs uses. The less code my colleagues need to write when adding an XBT, the happier I am.