Community Connection - Hussain Abbas

We’re featuring some of the people in the Drupalverse! This Q&A series highlights individuals you could meet at DrupalCon.

Every year, DrupalCon is the largest gathering of people who belong to this community. To celebrate and take note of what DrupalCon means to them, we’re featuring an array of perspectives and fun facts to help you get to know your community.
 

For our next connection in this series, we feature the insight of HUSSAIN ABBAS.

Hussain (@hussainweb) began working with PHP in 2001, and at that time, wouldn't touch any CMS or framework and preferred to write his own. He grew tired of issues with PHP and was about to switch to another language when he came across a volunteer project that needed Drupal's capabilities, so in 2010 he tried Drupal 6.

Hussain now works as an Engineering Manager at Axelerant, and resides in Bangalore.

Why was it you continued down the Drupal path, and how does it shape what you do? With Drupal 6, I was immediately impressed by the code quality and structure. I have been maintaining that website since then and even recently migrated it to Drupal 8.

At the same time, I switched to using Drupal full time in around 2012 and grew with it to where I am today. I don't usually build a lot of Drupal websites today but support lot of people who do. Also, my learnings from the Drupal community help me in working with people at work as well.

What is a piece of advice you received that influenced your career?

It is not so much a single advice but finding different areas of improvement and working on them with support of my peers. In some areas, coaching helped me get through problems for which I couldn't find solutions elsewhere.

What book or piece of writing have you read in the last year that impacted the way you approach your work or colleagues? Why?

The books that most significantly impacted my behavior and helped me work with my team better are “Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High” by Al Switzler, Joseph Grenny, and Ron McMillan; and “Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity” by Kim Scott.
These books, among others, helped me communicate more clearly to people I work with. They helped me get over the struggle of conveying tough feedback in a way that helps the receiver.

 

What are you most looking forward to for DrupalCon Seattle?

As always, I most look forward to meet up with people who work tirelessly to make the Drupal community and the Drupal project as best as possible. I contribute in various capacities to multiple groups and teams, and DrupalCons are a great opportunity to meet these people face to face. I am also enamored by Seattle from a sitcom show, and I am really looking forward to visiting.

Any additional thoughts you’d like to share?

I have helped organize meetups and camps and admire people who work for this. These conferences help connect people from different regions and environments and encourage cross-pollination of ideas and innovation. This is an admirable and difficult endeavor, and I am very gratified to be a small part of it.

Join us April 8 - 12, 2019 for DrupalCon Seattle!