In this week’s Meet the Developer we are meeting with Alvaro Fernando Garcia, a functional-oriented software architect from Argentina.

How long have you been working at Flexiana?

Now that you asked, it makes me realize that I have been part of the Flexiana family for more than a year, really wow.

What do you like the most about your job?

There are many things I like about working at Flexiana. It lets me learn new things every day. While I investigate with my team we acquire and share bleeding-edge knowledge.

People in Flexiana are welcoming to each other, we make friends here all the time. It is a familiar and kind environment.

Another good part is the time flexibility, we can organize our time as we need and even compensate for it if we have some personal appointment, which is human and gratifying.

What does your day normally look like?

Usually, I get up in the morning and share a cup of coffee with my girlfriend while we plan our day.

Then I have meetings with my team. During these calls, we discuss stuff we have been working on since last time, and occasionally my cat Inami comes to greet everyone.

After the video call is finished I continue working on my tickets. Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of investigation, reading papers, and creating diagrams to explain complex concepts.

When lunchtime arrives I have a meal with my girlfriend while we watch an anime chapter of our favourite series together. We enjoy anime and Asian dramas a lot.

After lunch finishes, I continue working on my tasks during the afternoon. Frequently some coworker sends me a chat to discuss some topic.

When work time is over, I take some minutes to relax and then I start my personal activities. Recently I have been taking Japanese classes, writing on my blog, and building objects with a 3d printer.

Finally, at night my girlfriend and I relax together having dinner and watching a movie until it is time to sleep.

What was your thought the first time you heard about Flexiana?

When I was contacted it was the first time I heard about Flexiana. It surprised me that a foreign company was interested in working with people from Argentina as we are very far away.

I think this was really great because there are many brilliant and creative people in Argentina and the rest of Latin America who can contribute to the company’s goals.

I really like that Flexiana is a multicultural working environment.

What have you learned from life that you apply to your job? 

I have learned that time and constancy are critical factors that influence your work and your life in general.

To achieve goals it is better to do one step every day instead of doing many steps only once. You will accomplish more if you are consistent and accumulate experience gradually.

Keeping an equilibrium between enjoyment and responsibilities will help you to find a balance in your life.

What current project are you involved in?

I’m working on a project about cryptocurrencies, so we have been investigating a lot about Bitcoin and Monero blockchain networks.

My job these days is to write documentation as clearly as possible for my team and also to create diagrams to explain very complex concepts in an easy manner.

Every week we have a demo where we show our achievements to other Flexiana teams and we also learn from their work.

What are your learnings from the project?

I see this project as an opportunity to learn about cryptocurrencies and obtain experience developing with the Rust language, which we will use to implement the software.

I had only used the Rust language to program microcontrollers, now I’m seeing it from a different perspective and using another specific set of libraries.

I’m also involved in project management, thinking of better ways to organise our backlog, meeting notes, and all our research documentation.

What are your goals for the upcoming three months in the project?

I would like our project to become one of the best examples in our company. I’ve been making proposals that are now being used by our team and on the other projects’ processes.

We also have been writing many research documents which are shared company-wide and can be reused in the future by other projects.

In the following months, we will start to see all of these specs translated into services implemented with Rust code.

What have you learned in Flexiana that you did not know before?

The most important thing I learned in Flexiana is that work can be fun because people here are friendly and enthusiastic.

Now I have more places to share about my favourite topics, like Functional Programming with Clojure and Haskell languages.

What excites you the most about working at Flexiana?

I already spoke about acquiring knowledge, but there is another aspect that I enjoy here, which is seeing all the life experiences that everyone has.

Most of us work remotely, but we use Zulip chat to communicate with each other, so we have channels to reveal everyday life events.

I appreciate the moments we get to know about cultures around the world. Coworkers show their food, their traditions, and their music.

I hope to visit their countries in the future.

What are your favorite memories from Flexiana?

I remember some funny stories shared on our chat, for example when a coworker left the tracker running many weeks and it appeared like he was working 24/7 or the greetings during the end-of-year festivities.

I also like the 1-to-1 calls we have with people from my previous team, like Fabricio and Leandro. There are pair-programming sessions in my current team as well, with Luis and Ramiro.

How would you describe working at Flexiana in a word?

I think I would use the word Ikigai, which is written 生き甲斐 in Japanese because my work is related to my purpose in life.

I’m in the process of obtaining more deep knowledge about the things I love to do, while I contribute value to the community.

Would you recommend people working at Flexiana?

Working in Flexiana would be an opportunity for them to grow in many aspects, so I recommend people join our teams.

They will be more than welcomed to work with us.

Any last words?

Greetings to my mum and my girlfriend, both of them will be reading this publication soon 🙂