Jose J. Fernández Jose J. Fernández

This website is under construction.

About me

My story

I was born in 1988-02-24 in León in Flag of Spain Spain . I have been into computers since I was 12. At first it was only hardware. Reading manuals and learning about the pieces and what they did was amazing, and kept me entertained as a kid. Then websites became a thing. I started reading many, participated in some and created a few. As a teenager and young adult I spent a lot of time in online communities.

I got my first paid role writing articles in a videogame website. It was one of the Top 3 videogame websites in Spanish. The site is now defunct, but you can still find some of my writings in Archive.org. I also contributed as a moderator in their forums, and at some point I became a manager in that website, with duties ranging from guiding and mentoring new authors to managing the publishing schedule and doing quality assurance. Those were awesome times of which I keep sweet memories.

Some time later I founded an anime fansub with my brother and some friends. The anime scene back in the days was not very good, and only a very tiny fraction of the animes created in Japan were aired out of Japan. We downloaded them and added subtitles in Spanish so more people could have access to that content, in a non completely legal way. I basically created our web infrastructure and helped translating subtitles from English to Spanish. Our key seeling point was precisely excellent translations, which was not that common back then.

After being involved in some other minor projects here and there, my “online communities” era reached an end when I completed my studies in software engineering. This happened around the financial crysis in 2008. The situation in Spain (and especially in León) was quite difficult, and landing a job was almost impossible, so I could only try to find (or create!) my own job. Begins the “self employment” era!

A lot happened in this time. During my previous ventures and education I could learn a lot about online communities, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and software development, so the natural thing to do was to start designing, developing and maintaining websites and ecommerce stores for small businesses in León. Doing some SEO and creating WordPress plugins and themes was also a thing for me during this time.

It was also the time when I met my wife, who also had projects he wanted to start. So aside of the personal endeavours, we started many projects together, learned a lot on the way and also, most importantly, enjoyed it all. We never got rich or famous, but that was probably not our goal anyway. Luckily the situation improved after some years, so I could start working in software development and since then I have never gone back to self employment.

Something I have been doing constantly since I started studying is teaching and mentoring. I really love to teach and help people learn and acquire new competencies, and have been doing it with fellow students, fellow workers, elders and remotely with people in other countries. Being part of someone else’s growth is an awesome thing.

But also being part of my own growth is awesome. I have never settled with what I knew. I have always looked forward to acquiring new knowledge and learning new things. I found writing the code to “do stuff” or “solve problems” a nice thing to do, but also somewhat “lacking”. I learned early that writing the code is not “all of it” in the process of creating and delivering software. I found that many of the companies I worked for were one way or another struggling with poor code: poorly written (low quality), poorly timed (late, or too early!), poorly documented, poorly aligned (with what the customer wanted, or with the business goals)… So I started to care about those factors, and to learn about how could one avoid those pitfalls.

It should be evident at this point that I am a person who likes to have a broader focus area, so after some time working as a software developer I started looking for a role in architecture, were I could care about all of those factors and more. I found that I enjoy such a topic more than just writing the code (even though I enjoy writing the code), because the scope is broader (“technical breath”), and I was never a person who could make a living from doing only one thing forever (“technical depth”) anyway.

At some point I started working as a software architect and team lead. I really loved the role. For me, it was the perfect match between high level technical tasks (architecture, analysis), low level technical tasks (implementation), team work and alone work (the leader pushes together with the team, but is also sometimes alone), definition of processes, attention to other factors such as quality, standards, timing, making sure everybody is happy and has the knowledge and tools they need…

I loved being part of the team, instead of being “just a manager” that approves holidays. That’s the kind of work I love.

I recently moved to Flag of Denmark Denmark , which is something I had been dreaming of for a long time. Danish culture is really different and usually surprising from a Spanish perspective, but I feel that my values seem to be aligned with theirs. It is a nice place to live, and overall I am quite happy with the change.

The story is being written right now at this point, come back in a while to see more…

My hobbies

I have always liked videogames and still play them today. One of my favourite games during childhood was Terranigma. I’m currently enjoying Ark: Survival Evolved’s mix of sandbox, dinosaurs and sci-fi. Anime is something else I have loved for a long time now. I watched Akira too early as a kid, and it really impressed me. I still feel a little impressed when every time I rewatch that movie. My favourite animes ever are Kara no Kyōkai and the 2007 remake of Toward the Terra, both of which still touch me deep today.

I also really like music. Almost everything, for instance: metal (Manowar, Neue Deutsche Härte), dark (Deine Lakaien), folk, cumbia… And anything in between. Fusion genres (Electro swing, Synthwave, Psychobilly, Folk-metal) are absolutely amazing.

Aside of all of this, I enjoy photography, watching movies and TV shows (top tier: Interstellar), and I spend a lot of time learning and tinkering with anything that catches my attention.

My personality

I’m an introvert. Sometimes INTJ, sometimes ISTP. I love to analyze, read and learn, but I learn the most by doing and seeing. Learning makes me happy. I’m analytic, but also really hands-on. I love to teach and help.

I’m open minded and tolerant. I’m a xenophile, I LOVE whoever and whatever is diferent. I have a strong sense of justice. I’m straightforward, direct and to the point, but I could be speaking for hours about anything I like. I have opinions and I like people with opinions. I love debating. My opinions are sometimes strong, and are usually backed by facts but sometimes they aren’t. I think with my brain, and thanks to my wife I’ve started thinking with my heart as well.

Trivia facts

Countries I have visited:

Countries I would love to visit:

Stuff I like: Sci-fi. Astronomy. The Universe. Straightforward people. Freedom. Honesty. Tinkering. Dinosaurs. Rodents. Pizza. Salads. Mexican food. Niche sense of humor. Niche, non mainstream stuff. Debating. Speaking. When someone knows you enough to complete what you are saying before you actually say it. Discovering things that surprise me. Empowering my inner child. Things that have a story behind. Skilled people. Respectful people.

Stuff I dislike: Learning by memorizing like if I was a hashtable. Lies. Fanatism. Unfair discrimination. Segregation. Classism. Any form of abuse. Bullying. Shallow, superficial people. Doing the exact same thing too often (automate it, heck!).

Other facts: I was the class representative (3y) and the students representative (4y) in the School Council in the school where I studied Software Development and IT. I organized the yearly LAN Party in that school for 3 years. I almost created a +18 business based on a crazy idea, which failed due to me not finding the adequate co-founder for it, but we got really far…

Eurovision

I am really into the Eurovision Song Contest. Some of my favourite songs are (links point to YouTube):