Team Insights: Tomás, Full Stack Developer

Tomás is working on the development of Sheikah, Witnet’s desktop client

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

Hi Tomás! Welcome to the team, it’s awesome to have you! Could you tell us a bit about you and your background?

Hello and thank you! Well, I consider myself a curious person who enjoys learning and who is passionate about programming.

I discovered this fondness for coding when I joined a software engineering degree. I began studying web technologies all by myself back then. Soon after that, I made the decision to give up University — with the aim of finishing the degree in the future — in order to keep learning on a more practical note by working on real projects. With that in mind, I joined a web development bootcamp and right afterwards I was hired at El Corte Inglés’ UX department, where I developed the “Mi Cuenta” project over the last year.

Opportunities are abundant for full stack developers in many industries. What attracted you to work in the crypto space?

I have been curious for a while about the world of crypto. I find it very encouraging to join the development of a newborn technology which has many problems that need to be solved. Moreover, working on a project with so much potential that will allow many people to benefit from its underlying technology excites me a lot.

You are passionate about the possibilities of this technology. What are your thoughts on smart contracts and their current and future usecases?

I believe that the possibilities of this technology are tremendous, but we should not give in to use it as a universal tool in order to confront every problem. Having said this, we are about to live a revolution that goes beyond strictly affecting the financial system, as many other sectors will benefit from the features of decentralized networks.

I believe we are also about to observe the creation of companies based on new business models sustained by this technology, most of which has yet to be fully explored.

In crypto, 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?

Among the reasons as to why I feel attracted to Witnet are working with a top level technical team from which I can learn as well as the possibility of working on a challenging project that offers a solution to ‘the oracle problem’. Providing a trustless way to feed information into a smart contract that runs trustlessly we will be able to support and boost further adoption of blockchain technology.

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

Basically I use the UNIX environment, visual studio code as my code editor and Firefox as my default browser. In addition, I like using Hyper with ZSH as my terminal and I have a particular weakness for fonts with ligatures like Fira code.

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

Outside of the office, I also spend my time coding because I enjoy it very much. I have fun on web pages with code challenges like Codewars and discovering new languages — which also involves discovering new software paradigms.

However, as not everything in life is about programming, I’m studying Arabic and I like spending my time reading or playing video games. On the other hand, I’m into playing chess and cooking when I have any time left. I especially like baking my own bread!

Thank you so much for your thoughts, Tomás!

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