Team Insights Mario, Full Stack Dev and Scrum Master

Today we’re interviewing Mario , the latest team member to join Witnet! You can also read other Team Insights we’ve published: Adán , Daniele , Johann , María and Anler .

Hi Mario! Welcome to the team, it’s awesome to have you! Could you start by telling us a little bit about you and your background?

Hi! Thanks for the warm welcome to the Witnet team! I consider myself a curious person and I always push myself out of my comfort zone in order to learn new things and face new challenges. Actually, if you take a look into my past years, the search for new challenges is the constant in my life and career path.

After finishing my degree of Telecommunications Engineering in Germany, I moved back to Madrid to work in academia. I worked on several projects in different fields such as communication networks, Internet protocols, and image processing, but always with a big focus on software development . After finishing my Ph.D. in Telematic System Engineering , I moved to Belgium to face new challenges in the aerospace and finance sector . It was a completely different environment. I contributed to the development of projects of the European Space Agency (ESA). I also had the opportunity to design and develop my first Blockchain prototype for a satellite company . Later, in the finance sector, I had slightly different roles. First, I was Scrum Master in a project of a Mobile app, and later, I was Tech Lead of the Innovation Factory within a bank. Despite those roles, I always stayed closed to the technical tasks and I always continued coding and doing DevOps.

How did you end up deciding to work in the crypto space?

Honestly speaking, this is something I had in my mind for quite some time already. In my previous professional experiences, I had worked on some Blockchain projects and I have to say that I fell in love with not only the underlying technologies, but with all the countless potential use cases that will shape the future of our society . Additionally, I consider that working in the crypto space is really appealing and challenging as it requires a deep understanding of different domains such as cryptography, communication networks, distributed computing, software development, etc. It is the perfect space to continue growing and learning!

As an experienced developer, what kind of tools do you use and what makes them appropriate for your work?

I consider that each project or activity may require different set of tools. Having your favorite tools written in stone may become dangerous because you will try to force each project to fit them. I always try to pick the tools that match the solutions and not the other way around! However, that doesn’t stop me from having favorite tools. For example, at work I prefer Linux environments and to code I use tools such as IntelliJ, Vim, Visual Studio Code and WebStorm . For me, the most important factors when choosing a tool to work with are: documentation, easiness of use, productivity and the community around them. Tools are means to an end, so I value that I can work fast and that whenever a problem arises I will have enough resources to understand the issues and find solutions.

Witnet uses Rust as its back end development language. What makes it suitable for the project and what are your favorite parts about it?

Rust is becoming increasingly popular and it is an obvious choice for Witnet due to its features such as memory safety and its performance. My favorite part of Rust is that due to the aforementioned features, it allows developers to spend less effort to avoid common pitfalls, which facilitates the writing of production code and makes it possible to focus on more ambitious goals.

There are some great projects working on inspiring missions. What attracted you to Witnet and what would you say is the potential of the project?

First, I was attracted by the possibility of working in a project with a real use and huge potential impact in the Blockchain community . Witnet aims to solve one of the greatest challenges in the crypto space: connect smart contracts with the external data sources (also known as “the oracle problem”). Second, I was also attracted by the amazing team at Witnet . They are really talented and committed with the project. I valued that we could learn a lot from each other in order to do great things together!

To wrap up, what are some things that you like to do outside of your work life?

Outside my work life, I always find time to continue learning new things. However, I also like to disconnect from work and I love to spend time with my girlfriend, meet my friends and, when possible, travel to some country I haven’t been yet. Regarding my hobbies, I have many but my favorites are: snowboarding, playing board-games, watching TV series and playing video-games.

Thank you so much for your thoughts, Mario!

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