Tell us about you?
I’m Alex, I’ve just joined Kano as a Junior Full-Stack Engineer. It’s still early days but so far I’ve been working on Pixel Motion, Kano’s awesome tool for creating animations.
I love working on the front-end as an engineer, bringing to life design and ideas in a way that’s intuitive, aesthetic and fun for the user. I’m also looking forward to working on more back-end tasks — I’ve always enjoyed problem-solving and puzzles.
Tell us a fun fact about yourself?
I spent two years working as a carpenter in Gipsy Hill.
While it might seem like carpentry and software engineering are pretty different, they actually involve a lot of the same skills — you need a keen eye for detail and to work precisely with many parts, aware of how they all come together to form a finished product. I love the fact that Kano combines both the physical and the digital to create beautifully designed products.
What is your biggest fear?
Ketchup. It sounds pretty crazy but it’s actually a fairly common phobia, it’s called mortuusequusphobia — look it up.
Why did you join Kano?
What I love about software engineering is its ability to bring ideas to life and to enable creativity. Kano is awash with ideas and creatives so it’s definitely the place to be.
I also really admire Kano’s focus on positive screen time. Technology is often blamed for being harmful to kids but I think screen time can be incredibly empowering and educational when done right.
What is your proudest accomplishment?
Learning to code alongside my Classics degree! I studied Classical Studies with English and while I found it interesting, it wasn’t the direction I wanted to go in.
A friend introduced me to coding and it opened up a new world of possibilities that I was able to engross myself in while finishing my degree.
If you could give your younger self 1 piece of advice, what would it be?
Don’t always follow the easy path, you get more satisfaction from challenging yourself.
My secret passion is…/ guilty pleasure
Mario Kart
In the next 5 years, the biggest thing I want to achieve is…
To finally finish reading War and Peace.
What is something most people don’t know about you?
I was joint president of my school’s chess club, although I’m pretty terrible at it! Hoping to improve my skills soon…
How do you think your colleagues will describe you in one year?
Hopefully at the very least as someone who is able to hold a job for a year!
If you want to know more about Alex, check him out.
