Meet Confio series #2
Hello, world!
On Nov 6th we started the “Meet Confio” series with Orkun and we’ve got some good feedback, yay!
This week, I sat down with Will and had a lovely chat together.
Who are you, Will?
I grew up in the UK and I moved to Berlin in 2014. I studied psychology and philosophy at university in the UK and taught myself to code. I got more serious about it after I moved to Berlin.
I focused on JS programming because I love the idea of “write code once, run it anywhere” and then got a job working on Lisk, because I’d been interested in blockchain since 2013. Through that blockchain connection, I kind of ended up here, with Confio.
Besides programming, I am really into music, both playing and discovering.
(Since I know there are some other music amateurs in the company, and I myself love singing, I said, “ We should do a company band remotely!”, Will nodded with a polite smile but I’m pretty sure he thought it would be “cheesy” ;))
What do you do in Confio?
I mainly work on CosmJS, a client-side JS library for the Cosmos SDK, which also supports CosmWasm. Sometimes I help out with front-end stuff too. I also did the modeling of Proof of Engagement, which is the approach to consensus algorithms Confio is developing. Currently, I’m helping out with the recruitment process, in particular for the Senior React Engineer position.
How do you work with Confio?
I coordinate with Simon, our VP of engineering, about what needs to be done for CosmJS. But once I pick up a task, mostly I just work away at it on my own and then get feedback when I think it’s ready. If I’m helping out with a front end task, I coordinate with Abel and answer his questions about CosmJS, or add features to CosmJS if he discovers we need them.
My way of working? I just sit there and code actually. I don’t think I can describe it in any more detail than that, Misang!
Sometimes we have to communicate with the Cosmos SDK developers because our work depends on theirs, so we ask questions on Discord or GitHub, or indicate our support for different features.
How do you work outside of Confio?
I work half time for Confio. The rest of the time, I am working on some personal projects, mostly learning things to do with programming or whatever interests me. For example, I am helping a friend who is doing his PhD in anthropology of finance. He’s focused on blockchain and as a part of that, he wants experience what it’s like to release his own ERC20 token, so yeah, we will do that. These days, I’m also learning about “reinforcement learning”, a kind of unsupervised machine learning, where you can train artificial agents for tasks like playing games, controlling robotic hands, etc.
What have you learned in Confio?
For starters, I’ve learned a lot about how the Cosmos SDK works. I also think working with these developers has drastically improved my programming ability. A lot of that happened even before I joined Confio when we worked together previously. It’s different working with every individual, so it is hard to compare working with other people, but
Ethan and Simon are without a doubt two of the best developers I have ever worked closely with.
What do you think about Confio´s working environment?
I like the remote-first approach. I have been working from home for nearly 2 years now, and it suits me. I also like that there is a lot of trust.
In Confio, people just say, “Hey, do you want to do this? Great, go ahead and do it”.
Everyone’s pretty friendly and open. I have really been enjoying the “daily-song” channel in our Discord where we share music with the team.
Anything you want to say to Confio teammates?
Nice working with you. :)
Anything you want to say to people out there?
Come and work here, it’s great! But when I see this kind of thing from other companies, usually I don’t believe it. ;)
Wanna join us?
Find our open positions here, and tell us your story!
