Meet the Team: David Cruz

Let us introduce David Cruz. Although he just joined the team in august of 2022 he has already proven his worth tenfold! He’s quickly earned a reputation of the problem solver. A reputation well deserverd as you're about to read. 

He has a brilliant tactic of disguising occasional errors with jokes. His sense of humor is not just present when he's working remotely but also very noticeable on Womibos or lunch breaks when he's visiting the Rotterdam Office. With his preference for cold weather he fits right in with the Dutch. But David will always be a proud Spaniard. 

We’ve asked problem solver David a bunch of questions as always so keep reading to find out what he’s all about!

What is it exactly you do at Rinkel?
I’m a systems administrator. Which means managing all the technical infrastructure of the company and help developers with the deployments of features and updates. 

I recently visited the Netherlands office in Rotterdam. Together they installed the new servers and databases. Getting those working means wo can scale to many more customers and help out much faster!

I also take care of security. Making sure our network is always safe and sounds. Speaking of which: You should probably change your password this because it probably hasn’t been updated in the last year. 

What is the first thing people think when they hear your name?

Being the office troubleshooter, the first thing people think when my name is mentioned is probably something like: "Oh no, what's wrong?
When something doesn't work on the website or other technical problems arise, I usually hear "David will fix it". 

So my name is often associated with problem solving. But also with a general sense of fear. When I'm named, the situation is probably quite complicated...

Do you have a nickname in the office?
“Deadlock” David. 
 
Deadlock is a developer saying and it means that everyone in the system gets locked out and basically makes them unable to fix it. We experienced a deadlock caused by some problems with the databases. 
The problem is now solved and of course being the problem solver, I had a major role in that and now I’m Deadlock David.

What do you like most about working at Rinkel?
Being the only one working remotely from Madrid, I feared that the integration with the team was not going to be easy. Turns out it wasn’t difficult at all! It’s been so easy and we’re doing so many things together that projects just keep pouring out. 

Furthermore I love the overall acceptance of humor and jokes. When I visited Rotterdam over the holidays in 2022 we got on together great! 

What do you like most about Team Development?
I try to be funny to alleviate day by day tension. The Spanish are famous for their straight forward sense of humor but it doesn't always translate so well to other countries I've noticed.

But so far, so good! Anyone who laughs at my jokes is good in my book but I think our humor just matches great too. Another plus: They have still not killed me. Not even I accidentally send them to the dreaded ‘/dev/null’. Which is known as the black hole of system administrations.

Do you have a lifehack on how to stay focused?
I work from home and staying focused here is easy for me. It’s a surprisingly nice experience because I learned I just have to stop sometimes. Drop everything and take a rest for 5 minutes, then come back more focused. And being in your own home really helps that. But the office supports it too so focussing hasn't been a problem for me so far.  

Who inspires you?
Hmm.. I think for me as a developer it has to be John Carmack. That’s a pioneer of 3D game development and an investor in interesting projects. You might know him as one of the co-founders of Oculus. The first company to really hit it off in the Virtual reality game world. His way of work is really inspiring to me. He's a genius in coding and math eventhough he didn't even finish school. He just learned by working on his projects, which I think is the best method of learning.
 

What’s your favorite quote?
I like this quote because it describes how we are always learning, or developing. Being a developer that's always learning it really resonates with me. But it’s also just a great philosophy to life.

What’s your favorite office saying?
“Godspeed”. 

It’s something we say on Slack when we’re doing something that’s risky and of which we can’t predict the outcome. It was already widely used in the Rinkel team so when I stepped in it immediately gave a sense of recognition and I came to really like the saying.

It’s our developer way of saying, good luck, I’ll see you on the other side.

If you could be someone else for a day, who would it be and why?
 I wouldn’t mind being Conan the Barbarian for a while. 
(The Schwarzenegger version. Not that awful Jason Momoa one) 

I think it works for just about every Schwarzenegger characters. So I also wouldn't complain about being Dutch from Predator or the T-800 from the Terminator.

What is your archetype?
Let's go over the archetype testresults! Apparently David is 42 percent intellectual and 33 percent Caregiver. That basically means that when logic applies David can help. And where it doesnt, David will do what he can. He's good at asking the right questions and genuinely listening to your response. Perfect for a problem solver from team development. His archetype places him in the lineup alongside Neil deGrass Tyson and Angelina Jolie.

What’s your favorite drink?
My favorite drink? I’d have to go for a classic:
Beer. In moderate quantities of course but I just like relaxing and conversing with coworkers over a beer.

What do you like to do in your free time?

These days i read, play guitar, develop some projects after hours. But the thing i most enjoy is walking or cycling through the mountains near my home.

Do you have any fun fact that you'd like to share?
Most people I know call me something other than David. My nickname has always been “kitai”. But i don’t use it professionally anymore.

It’s like a virus. I noticed that if you call me that one time people stop using “David”. There are probably just too many David’s in the world but just one Kitai, so it makes for an easy nickname. But so far so good at Rinkel(fingers crossed) and I actually like Deadlock David. So don’t tell anyone!