Yavor Atanasov (’08), who is currently a Principal Software Engineer at BBC, took the opportunity of participating in the Lideri.BG podcast to share his career story with the host Andrey Anastassov (’10).
Andrey Anastassov is an AUBG and Radio AURA alumnus, who graduated with a double major in European Studies and Journalism and Mass Communication. He started a podcast in Bulgarian that is focused on entrepreneurship, mentorship and business development, handing the mic to Bulgarian leaders in such fields to share their knowledge and experience. Andrey’s podcast aims to connect their stories with the Bulgarian audience around the world and highlight their impact globally.
You can read the English version of the blog post about Yavor here and listen to the full episode below:
“The Guardian of the Newspaper”: Yavor Atanasov, Principal Software Engineer in BBC
“I’m a software engineer in BBC,” Yavor stated in front a group of first-graders at a Bulgarian school some years back, as a participant in the program by the “Teach for Bulgaria” organisation. “It meant absolutely nothing to nobody,” he noticed, as he was reading the room. He decided to tell his story from the beginning. As he’s jumping from one sentence to the next, pointing out that he is not some hacker, but is rather battling them, to his surprise, one of the kids in the classroom comes to the realisation that Yavor is in fact “the guardian of the newspaper”.
That’s how the beginning of our conversation with BBC’s principal software engineer Yavor Atanasov began in the Lideri.BG studio. He entered a video call with me from BBC’s office in Edinburgh, Scotland where he is currently located, after spending years in their headquarters in London. Even though he is in the other end of Europe, he hasn’t merely met Bulgarian students with the aim to inspire them, but he’d also helped “Teach for Bulgaria” through a fundraising campaign. That was seven years ago, when he decided to embark on a cycling trip from London to Barcelona, where his brother lives.
So, why is Yavor so committed to education? Perhaps, because he keeps his doors back to Bulgaria open. For now, he is engaged with crucial activities – the ones concerning Great Britain’s entire population, more or less. Literally. Whenever there is an important event, something like a royal ceremony or a huge football game, Yavor and his team are the ones who gather all the data required for the quality of its broadcasting. Keep in mind that this is only one of the projects he is working on as a principal software engineer.
“You feel that you’re in a place where important things are happening,” but you have to be careful with that, he concludes, because it “strokes your ego”. His humility is first nature to him, just like his self-irony and that makes him cautious when he talks about his big achievements in BBC’s digital strategy development.
Instead, most of the time Yavor speaks with great astonishment about the people he works with, which he deems the best in his field and the ones he can learn from constantly. That’s the main reason why he’s part of the company, ever since he finished his Master’s in Digital Media at Portsmouth 14 years ago.
Apart from the colleagues, he is impressed by the company as a whole. “I’ve always felt proud to be part of a place like this,” he said. It boosted his motivation, so he took every opportunity to learn on the go and find the best possible solutions for each problem. One advice he would give is to be open about what you don’t understand whenever you’re in a new workplace.
I met Yavor at AUBG’s Radio AURA and our experience there is what kindled our growing interest in media and desire to work in the field, one way or another.
