Easy Explainability: 5-Minute Interview with Calin Constantinov


“When you have the power of graphs, it’s very easy for everybody to understand what you’re actually doing and what you’re trying to achieve,” said Calin Constantinov, technical lead at Endava.

Endava is a technology company that helps some of the world’s leading finance, insurance, telecommunications, media, technology and retail companies accelerate their ability to take advantage of new business models and market opportunities.

In this week’s five-minute interview (conducted at GraphTour 2020), we speak with Calin Constantinov, technical lead at Endava, about his experience with graph technology and his aha moment with Neo4j.



What is your experience with graphs?


I started working with graphs as a hobby first, back in 2013. I really started to enjoy it. Then I turned that into a PhD project. I worked with Neo4j academically for some time. And now for a few years, I’ve started to work with Neo4j for various clients.

What is the most powerful part of working with graphs?


What I really do love about graphs is the fact that I can easily explain what I’m doing to anybody. When you hear about a PhD project, it’s usually something very hard to grasp. When you have the power of graphs, it’s very easy for everybody to understand what you’re actually doing and what you’re trying to achieve.

What have been some of the most surprising results you’ve experienced working with graphs?


The first thing that surprised me was how fast I was able to do real-time recommendations. Back in 2014, I used a SQL database for doing complex recommendations, and I ended up waiting for tens of minutes for a result. I switched to Neo4j, and I got the results in three seconds. That was really mind-blowing.

Feature Image Scalability


What are you most excited for with the future of graphs?


Judging by what I’ve heard so far at the conference, I think using graphs for machine learning is going to be the next big thing.

What advice do you have for people who are getting started with graphs?


I think everybody should look at the sandboxes that are available on the Neo4j website. You can get started with them very easily and quickly get to that aha moment.

Want to share about your Neo4j project in a future 5-Minute Interview? Drop us a line at content@neo4j.com


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