README for Reuben Firmin

Hey! I’m Reuben. Y’all new yorkers should have no issues pronouncing my name (like the sandwich), but down here in Latin America it gets mangled into “reeeeuuben” or sometimes “ribbon”, so I’ve learned to put an accent into the name when introducing myself: “Hola, soy Rubén”.

At Cadence OneFive, my role is…

I am helping out part time as a consultant in the engineering team. My current mission is to help polish processes and documentation around the edges to prepare for scaling the team.

Who am I?

Non-work

Bomee and I first worked together back in 1999, at a bookmark organization startup called Blink.com, and we’ve kept in touch since.

I live in Costa Rica with my wife Claire, and our six dogs (Gus, Jose, Hugh, Ginger, Goat and Mo). They’re all strays (except Claire); several of them were adopted in the US and then shipped down here on DHL mid pandemic, when we moved, and the rest have found us since we’ve been here.

Costa Rica’s an interesting place to live. In the late 1980s the country had only ~25% forest cover remaining, with the deforestation primarily driven by McDonald’s et al’s unrelenting pursuit for beef; this wave of resource exploitation had followed the earlier misadventures of United Fruit, who had laid waste to much primary forest in order to grow bananas. (They got kicked out of CR, and many of the banana plantations were then replaced by palm oil monocultures. Also, talking of United Fruit: cf Guatemala.) In the late 1980s, the conservation movement started getting some traction, and by blazing the ecotourism trail has steadily worked on reforestation; forest cover is now at around 55%. It’s illegal to cut a tree - anywhere in the country - with a trunk diameter larger than 15”. Costa Rica’s power is 98% zero carbon (mostly hydro, with some solar and wind); they have yet to get serious about electric cars, though that’s on the horizon.

Other facts: I’m a conservationist, a mediocre surfer (/bodyboarder) and a fruit tree collector (200 planted with 80 varieties). I live in a 200 acre forest reserve, which is shared by 5 houses.

Work

I’ve been doing software architecture and management for startups for around 10 years; I was full time CTO at a startup which got acquired in 2022, and as of May ‘23 I’m back to part time consulting.

Ways of working together

I’m here to help, so please get in touch if you need anything!

You can lean on me to

I’m good at asking all the dumb questions, and helping to get to the bottom of why something refuses to work - I make a great rubber duck (it’s a software engineering term, google it.) I’m hoping to uncover anything that’s hard for new engineering team members to get their heads around, and make it smoother, so that the team will have an easier time ramping new hires. I’m also here to do engineering tasks that nobody else has time to do right now - let me know what you’ve been meaning to get to but just haven’t managed to make space for.

How to support me as we work together

I’m a cogitator - might take me a while to digest a question or issue and get back to you with a solution. In meetings I’ll generally ask questions, and then often will follow up later once I’ve thought things through.

How to support me as a person

I’m part time, so if I’m offline / take a while to report to your slack, don’t be hating.
I’ve got a sick doggie right now (Gus, who has been having seizures overnight 😢), so some days I’m more sleep deprived than others. I may need to take a raincheck if I’m too wiped out.

Teamwork preferences

I can work independently or in a team, as needed.

Feedback preferences

Bring it on. I try to leave my ego at the door. If I can be doing something better let me know.

Technical preferences

My favorite tech stack right now is Kotlin on Postgres. Pragmatic all the way.

Meeting time preferences

I’m on central (non daylight) time, so 2 hours behind New York currently. That said I get up early and start work early. I’m working part time, so I’m trying to manage my time in blocks, though I can defintiely be flexible when needed. If booking a meeting, please try to aim for somewhere in Mon-Thurs 11-4PM ET.