We've been on a bit of a hiring streak lately, and we're excited to introduce the newest member of the Backend team: Carlos Ruiz Lantero, who's based in Reading (United Kingdom). Meet the rest of the bunch on our team's page.
Carlos describes himself as a "chill, analytical person with a certain obsession for pragmatism".
What made you join k6 / Grafana Labs? I knew Grafana from using their products. But also the remote first culture just fits my lifestyle. I was already working remotely before the pandemic started, but working for a company that treats remote work as a first class citizen means that I join a diverse family of talented people I can learn from.
Last but not least, I had a very good feeling about the people I met during the interview process!
What's your background?
I was born and raised in Cartagena, on the South-East coast of Spain, and blissfully unaware of the concept "winter". I studied Computer Science at the University of Alicante. During this period I also did an exchange program of 6 months in Boone, North Carolina (US).
Shortly after I took a one-way flight to London, planning on making a living there, but moved to Reading soon after.
I have worked on Backend systems and API's in Python and Go. These ranged from monolithic systems to micro-services approaches, including serverless variations on AWS. Kubernetes is on my list of things I want to learn properly next.
I performed DevOps duties, mostly CI systems and infrastructure-as-code with tools like Ansible and Terraform. I love to automate things with scripts and config files.
I've always had a thing for testing, setting myself 100% test coverage checks for my own small open source projects, and also developing different tools and frameworks to improve test coverage in the places I have worked.
What did you show off (or: find) during your week of testing? I wanted my week of load testing to be something not just useful for me to dive into k6, but also be an interesting use case for other people.
AWS recently released the arm architecture for Lambda (the same Apple is now using for their new processors), claiming it is faster and more cost effective. So I decided to build a test serverless API using API Gateway and Lambda, using both x86 and arm architectures. Then I would put k6 to work and test its basic metrics under load, to finally compare the results of the two architectures side by side.
For this experiment I also look at other general serverless API metrics, like cold start latencies, concurrency levels and such. Stay tuned for the results!
What do you do outside of work?
Roadtrips! I prefer long roads to exotic/wild places while catching up local radio tunes over tight schedules and checking off tourist attractions. Memorable trips include a 14000 kms journey around Western Europe, a trip from Santiago de Chile to Ushuaia, Iceland South-to-North with a 4WD through trails and rivers, and a bit of the Sahara desert in Morocco.
I love music and I listen to a wide range of genres. I've been to many concerts and events in different places. I play the classic guitar for fun sometimes, but I am not any good at it. My brother is the actual rockstar of the family, so kudos for him and his great band, Nunatak.
I play football (soccer), and I enjoy watching matches, as a F.C. Barcelona supporter.
Reading (finance and economy, psychology, sci-fi), board games, video games, other sports (surf), cooking/baking are some of the other things I enjoy doing.
Do you have anything exciting coming up? I recently bought an apartment in Valencia, where I plan to move at some point in 2022. I am going to renovate it entirely with a new design, literally taking down every non-structural wall, pipe and cable. My brother is an architect and promised to help me (keep my feet on the ground). Really excited to start building my future home!
Eager to join a fast growing company? Have a look at our open positions and apply today!