In this article, we want to introduce Pablo Kauffman, our Director of Engineering. When Pablo joined our agency as a WordPress Engineer in February 2019, we asked him a few questions to get to know him a little better.
By the way: The Syde Team is 100% remote
This enables us to bring together the best minds in the world in one team. You want to learn more about our way of working and the Syders? Take a look inside Syde!
This is Pablo Kauffman
Pablo is 31 years old and lives in Bologna, Italy.
Me and my girlfriend always wanted the experience of living abroad, so, we decided to move to Europe. We’re going to be in Italy for at least two years.
How can you be described?
I have two great passions: gastronomy and programming. I really enjoy preparing food for others. That’s my way of showing love. It may seem kind of strange but cooking and programming have more in common than you might think. In both worlds, it is important to be a pragmatic person and a good team member. There is a term in gastronomy which is called Mise en Place which means to organize everything beforehand. If you do so, you are going to work easily. For me, this approach is also important in technology. It’s better to have everything prepared in advance in order to start working.
How do you spend your free time?
In my free time, I enjoy working out regularly and doing different sports. When it’s time to relax, I love reading books and watching movies. One of my favorite authors is Daniel Goleman who wrote about empathy and emotional intelligence. I also read all kinds of books about finance. Also, I love traveling. Four years ago, I started traveling around Europe. On my travel map, I record all the places I’ve already visited. I have been for example in Spain, Greece, Albania, Slovenia, and Austria. I also visited Germany a few times but I hope that I can see more of this country. As you can see from my last name, my family came originally from Germany. By the way, Uruguay’s population is formed by people with different backgrounds, mainly with European origins.
What is particularly important to you?
One thing that I consider extremely important is doing volunteering. I donate 5% of my income to different institutions. About once a week, I do volunteer work for an organization here in Bologna which is called Antoniano onlus. What I do there, is to serve food for people in need. I appreciate that one of the main points of this institution is not only to give food to people but also to provide a place to stay, provide counseling and help them to get a job. This work changed my mind about a lot of different topics because I get in touch with people from different backgrounds and situations which helps me to understand their problems and to have empathy.
Professional Career
I studied computer science and also gastronomy. I started both educations at the same time. After I finished my gastronomy studies, I started working on restaurants at night while studying computer science on the day. It was a busy time but also a great experience. For five years, I’ve worked for several restaurants. One of them was the Rara Avis in Montevideo, a really big restaurant. Working there was a very valuable experience because the team worked great together and acted like a big family.
After that I decided to start working on programming. I started working for a company as a Software Developer. After three years, they offered me a CTO position. It was a small startup company with about five members in the development team. They also commit me to be part of the company BoM (Board of Management). So, I worked there for three years as a developer and CTO. And also on the BoM, where I am still active today.
One thing I really liked about my previous job was that we had clients from all over the world. Part of my job was to get the requirements from different companies and I really loved that job because you don’t only have to understand the reality of other people, companies, and sectors but you also have to help them to find out what they need. That was great!”
When I moved to Italy, it was a good opportunity for me to change jobs as well. I wanted to improve my developer skills further and that’s why I’m here. At Syde, I found a great place to learn!
Pablo’s way to Syde
When I came to Italy and started looking for a job, I first didn’t find a place where I really want to work. I started thinking: OK, I will look for companies that work remotely. At the beginning, I was looking for companies that work on-sight and also would hire some people to work remotely for them. But I found out that a lot of these companies actually don’t want remote working or don’t know how to work remotely.
After some time, I decided to look for companies that really embrace the remote thought. That’s how I found Syde. I started reading about Syde and their work on different blogs and I found that all the people there were happy. Before I made my decision, I created a kind of table with a ranking of different topics that are important to me. Syde was on the top of all of them! I met the team to get to know them and thought: This is a great team. I want to be a part of that. So, I decided to join Syde. Syde provides me a creative space to improve my skills in technology. That’s exactly what I was looking for.
Questions to Syder Pablo
We asked Pablo a few personal questions to give you the chance to learn more about him:
Which famous person was your hero as a child?
They might not be famous but my greatest heroes are my father and my uncle. I really admire them. They were mentors for me and taught me important values.
Who is your favorite cartoon character?
When I was a boy, Captain Planet was my favorite. I also acted as Captain Planet in school!
What makes you really angry?
Bad food in restaurants that are unreasonably expensive.
Which job did you do when you were in school?
A lot of different things. Mostly, I helped my uncle in his company during my summer holidays.
What is your midnight snack?
Most of the time it is Focaccia. This is a special kind of bread, similar to pizza bread.
What should be written on your gravestone?
I don’t want one. I just want to be cremated and my ashes scattered in the sea and thus become part of the earth again.
What is the best present you ever got?
A pasta machine from my girlfriend.
If you had a superpower, what would that be?
I’d like to have the ability to remove all the pollution from our planet.
What was your first reaction when you were given a firm offer by Syde?
My girlfriend and my dog!
What is the unhealthiest thing you do regularly?
I really love bread, especially with sourdough, and I eat a lot of it but I try to compensate it with exercise.
While watching which movie did you cry the most?
I didn’t cry but The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas made me really sad. Ok, maybe I cried just a little.
If you found out that your present life is just a dream, would you decide to wake up?
No, I’d prefer to stay in my life.
What is the best and worst part of your personality?
I think the best part is my empathy. And I am working on not getting angry in difficult situations because I never want to say things that I’ll regret later. And it always helps to keep calm.
If someone gave you an envelope with the date of your death, would you open it?
No, because it wouldn’t change the way I live.
Do you want to join the Syde team?
We are hiring! You can find all the current vacancies on our job page. Take a look!