The basics
I’m a 49 year old guy living in Santa Monica, CA. I speak English, French, and Hebrew fluently. I also speak a bit of Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Moroccan, and Japanese, but mostly as a hobby and because I have a fascination for languages. I’m currently learning Japanese.
I also have two children, and I love Karaoke and playing music when time allows. Learning new things and reading, in general, are exciting activities for me.
I define my profession as a technology leader with a background in software & hardware engineering, and with experience creating products from scratch, covering the full stack. This includes local and overseas manufacturing experience. I am well travelled, well spoken, and always patient, polite and elegant. I love people and I love working with people. I believe a team can achieve a lot more together than any single person ever could. I also believe very strongly in building people and leaving them better than you found them.
I can be reached at aric@fedida.com or +1(609) 422-0311
Management Philosophy
TEAMS: I care deeply about my team members and their career progress. I love working with professionals who’s inner fire is stoked by challenges, people who ideally do not mix ego and work together. I make sure they are challenged and constantly learning. My hope is that by the time they move on to their next big job or large scale project, that they are significantly better engineers than when they started.
PRODUCT MANAGEMENT: I created several businesses and ran them as an entrepreneur, so despite my technical background, I understand the importance of ROI in a way that only past business owners can. I also believe quality products and delighted customers are solid foundations that drive sales and bring ROI closer.
JOURNEY: I take pride in my work, but I also take pride in a journey well travelled, with company worth traveling with.
My preferred stack
I’m a staunch supporter of Open Source based systems. I believe the Open Source model flips the power dynamics and grants more power to the users. A customer should never be held hostage by a vendor, especially as they try to outcompete in an increasingly competitive world.
This matters because modern companies need to navigate and adapt to an ever changing and developing technological world, and allowing a vendor to hold you back may become a death sentence.
I love building large systems that are comprised of smaller, well defined components that do specific things very well. I believe in micro-services, well designed APIs, full automation across the board, Test Driven Development, Continuous Integration, and advanced deployment models (Canaries, Active/Active, Active/Passive, Phase Out, etc). I also believe in actively trying to break things (see Chaos Monkey). I also believe internal engineering teams should be treated as if they were themselves customers.
| Documentation | I absolutely love BookStack, and it is my favorite documentation platform that combines text, images, media, and diagrams all in a single system |
| Hosting | Linux Servers: On premise, Google Cloud, Amazon AWS. Preferred Linux flavors: Debian & Ubuntu |
| Databases | PostgreSQL, Oracle, MySQL, MongoDB |
| Source Control | Gitlab, Github, Git |
| Deployment Stacks | Vagrant & Docker for local environments Docker & Kubernetes for cloud environments Bash & PHP Wrappers |
| Frontend Stacks | Web: ReactJS, jQuery, Angular Mobile: React Native, Flutter / Dart |
| Backend Stacks | PHP 7.x, Golang, ExpressJS, Nginx, Redis, Memcache |
| Design & Mockups | Figma, Retool, OmniGraffle, Google Draw, Google Docs, TinkerCad |
| 3D Design & Prototyping Tools | TinkerCad, Fusion 360, Cura Slicer, Anycubic 3D Printers (PLA, ABS & TPU), Formlabs Printers |
| Electronic Prototypes | Raspberry Pi 4, Pi Zero, Arduino, Custom controllers, Actuators / Wireless Components, Cameras, Computer Vision, etc. |