Beyond the terminal.

I was born and raised in Spain, between Alcalá de Henares and Madrid, and moved to the US to start my career. From there it was Virginia, then Boston, and eventually Charlotte, NC, where I’m based now. I’m bilingual in English and Spanish, and bouncing between cultures and time zones has come in handy on every distributed team I’ve worked with.

Most evenings I end up back at the keyboard anyway, building something. Sometimes that’s a side project that’s been bouncing around my head for weeks, other times it’s just an excuse to play with a tool I’ve been meaning to learn. It’s where I get to make the messy first version of things before any of it goes near real production.

I grew up obsessed with Real Madrid, like most kids in Spain, and a kickabout with friends on a Sunday still beats most other ways to spend an afternoon. The rest of the week I try to stay active. Tennis when the weather plays along, snowboarding whenever I can get out to the mountains, and the gym to keep things consistent in between.

Off the pitch, chess is the other thing I take seriously. I’ve been playing for years and I’m hard to beat. Same instinct as the day job: pattern-match, think a few moves ahead, and don’t blow up your own position.

I still split a good chunk of the year between the US and Europe and will take any excuse to fly out and see somewhere new on the continent. And when I need a break from coding without leaving home, the move is usually a drive in my manual Chevy Camaro. Best way I’ve found to clear my head.