Ovidiu Iliescu on an Engineer's Challenges and Learning at UiPath

We have some talented colleagues in R&D. They're passionate, they're resourceful, and they're willing to create something that's never been created before. And because they work on such interesting projects, we want to share more of that with you, our readers.

We have three main hubs at UiPath based in Seattle, Bucharest, and Bengaluru, and nine smaller ones across EMEA, India and the U.S. Our teams take care of various parts of our end-to-end automation platform, but they all have the same goal: to deliver the best automation product out there. 

We spent some time with Ovidiu Iliescu, Principal Software Engineer in the UiPath Studio Team, to find out about his work. Outside work, Ovidiu enjoys running, having an average of 140 kilometers (~87 miles) run monthly, and he authored a book about Java ME applications.

Tell us a few words about yourself.

I'm one of the Principal Software Engineers at UiPath. I initially worked on StudioX, the UiPath product developed for users without technical knowledge, which we call Citizen Developers. I am now working in the Studio Team, my team in particular works on automating interactions with Office Suites from Google, Microsoft, and others. If you are using UiPath to send emails or fill in Excels workbooks, you're likely using the code my team works on.

What is the most challenging technical part about your work?

Building code that can run, with minor changes, on multiple technologies—on older technologies such as .NET 4.6 or on newer ones like .NET 5/6, as well as on Linux, Windows, and cloud. We need to ensure our codebase is compatible with all the existing limitations. Therefore, I'd say that having to keep our code running in a variety of environments is the most challenging and thought-provoking aspect of my role.

What do you personally enjoy about your work?

The fact that my team's work lies at the intersection of so many pieces of the UiPath ecosystem. From the UiPath Studio IDE where workflows are developed, to the Orchestrator that coordinates tens, hundreds or even thousands of robots, we interact with a lot of the UiPath codebase and engineering teams. It's both a blessing and a curse, sometimes frustrating, but never boring.

How would you describe your team's way of working?

Communication is at the core of everything—this is a focus for the entire organization. But for me specifically, it's essential, as each perspective and insight brings value, especially when you are working with valuable individuals. We also like debating and challenging each other's ideas. We don't believe in excessive bureaucracy and management overhead; we strive to adapt established processes to make them work for us, rather than the other way around.

Why should an engineer join your team?

Simple, because of what we do. Merging cloud offerings from Google, and Microsoft, as well as various desktop applications under the same umbrella of services, building code that runs in a variety of environments—these are learning opportunities few developers have. Our context provides you with lots of learning opportunities about architecture, building robust code and how to structure code to be easily portable.

If you're interested in joining our Engineering team, check out the available jobs on our career page.