Hi, I am Robert! My plan is to share here some of the insights and curiosities I run into during the course of my day-to-day life – be it software engineering, photography, travel, or just life in general. I hope you will enjoy reading these random posts as much as I enjoy writing them.
Things I enjoy doing:
- gD myself into the deepest corners of bits of machines
- lift weights (not me in the video)
- reading books and capturing random moments with my camera (these two hobbies are probably unrelated)
- looking at photographs of others (that’s where books and photography intersect)
- taking long walks (luckily, as a European without a car, this is easy!) with my camera in hand
- baking, I am specializing in cinnamon buns and chocolate babka (if you’ve never had babka, you’re missing out!)
Skills
Golang, Python, Kafka, Postgresql, Cassandra, Scylla, Backend engineering, Monitoring, Leadership, Software Architecture, Microservices, Docker, VIM, Linux
Experience
- Apropos / Founding Engineer (July 2024 - PRESENT, Remote)
I have built the complete asynchronous backend for the MVP.
- Qonto / Backend (January 2020 - July 2024, Remote)
At Qonto, I’m a Staff Software Engineer on the Ledger team, dedicated to our bookkeeping operations. We tackle resource-intensive processes, handling vast transaction batches. Since joining, I’ve played a key role in our ongoing migration from a synchronous HTTP-based flow to an event-driven architecture, utilizing Kafka as our messaging queue.
I also lead our Golang coding academy, mentoring newcomers in the art of backend Go development. Often, I find myself driving technical scalability initiatives – optimizing batch processes to reduce execution time and database strain, and benchmarking our services to guarantee they can withstand surges in traffic.
- Kiwi.com / Backend (November 2015 - December 2019, BRNO, CZECH REPUBLIC)
I began my journey as a Senior Software Engineer in the Booking tribe, specializing in backend development for core booking creation and payment fraud detection services. My responsibilities included being the on-call expert for critical systems.
Later, I transitioned into a Tech Lead, pioneering Kiwi.com’s first Go backend team within the Search tribe. I was instrumental in migrating our flights storage from Cassandra to Scylla, a fully distributed database (3 data centers, 7 nodes each). This system handled a staggering 700k writes and 500k reads per second. Continuous optimization was key, leveraging profiling and tracing to enhance our services. Read more at www.scylladb.com.
- Red Hat / Software Engineer (APRIL 2013 - APRIL 2016, BRNO, CZECH REPUBLIC)
I worked on a user experience team managing cPython within Fedora and RHEL products. One of my major accomplishments was spearheading the transition to Python 3 as the default, successfully completed for Fedora 23. Additionally, I co-authored PEP-493, providing HTTPS verification migration tools for Python 2.7.
Talks
I’ve had the privilege of speaking at several conferences, namely:
- 2018, Pycon.cz / Bits and bytes of Python memory management
- 2016, Pycon.cz / Feed your code to coala
The Story Behind Σ and 伝える
Σ is used to denote alphabet in Automata theory (which happened to be my favorite subject at university). Σ^* is then set of all possible strings over the alphabet Σ. It reminds me of my favorite quote from M*A*S*H:
Interviewer: Is there anything from home that you brought over with you to set up for yourself? Creature comforts?
Hawkeye: I brought a book over.
Interviewer: What book?
Hawkeye: The dictionary. I figure it’s got all the other books in it. I like to read the dictionary.
伝える (tsutaeru) meaning “to convey” in Japanese, perfectly captures the essence of this blog - a space for sharing ideas, experiences, and knowledge.