About -

I’m Robin Penea

I’m a passionated software engineer.

To me, software development is a craft. It has to be practiced, again and again. Through trial and error, it improves. With theoretical knowledge, the craft deepens.

I’ve been doing it for more than 10 years, and I love it. I worked in small startups and huge corporations. The constraints evolve, but the fundamentals stay the same:

Understand the technical stack: where does it come from?
Connect with the people: where do they want to go from here?

Tech

I’m the most proficient

Android / Kotlin / Flutter — More than 5 years working full-time on the Android OS and created or maintained dozens of applications ;
Python / Django — Started in 2010 with an entreprise oriented Dropbox-like product, I always integrated DevOps (Linux, Docker, Ansible, CI) as a natural extension of my backend development ;
C++ / Qt — My attraction to low level graphics with OpenGL / Shaders naturally blended with C++. The encounter with Qt solidified my relationship with this language. It gave birth to a 525 pages book and multiple projects.

I’m ramping up my skills

Go — The continuity of Python’s expressiveness coupled with C++ performances. A joy to use!
Clojure — because one needs to study a different thought process to see his craft with new eyes ;
VueJS — I’ve spent long enough with JS and JQuery to feel that it scales badly, and in an ugly way.

Last Technical Books

Getting Clojure — Russ Olsen
Writing An Interpreter In Go — Thorsten Ball
Clojure for the Brave and True — Daniel Higginbotham
Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests — Steve Freeman & Nat Pryce
Clean Code — Robert Martin

Gryt is my company

It embodies how I want to practice my craft: with dedication and attention.

Gryt stems from the English word — Grit. It is the combination of perseverance and motivation for a long term goal.

Goal

My goal with Gryt is to strive for quality. There’s no such thing as a perfect product. But within the constraints, it’s possible to achieve the best possible product.

Values

This goal can only be achieved with practical values. Only then, we’re able to measure up our decisions against this long term goal. I founded Gryt with the following principles:

Resilience — Learning, Working and Living is hard. It’s a bumpy road and to play the long game, I have to show a lot of grit.
Curiosity — An open mind unveils unexpected new paths. The sheer joy to learn new things and the hunger the question my preconceptions ;
Quality — There’s no free lunch. My customers feel if the product was crafted with care. Quality attracts quality and appreciation ;