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2 minute read
Aaron Sinclair is an Engineer at BetterComp with over 30 years of programming experience. Based in Bay Area, California, Aaron joined the BetterComp team in 2021 and has made a significant impact in advancing BetterComp’s platform. We sat down with Aaron to discuss more about his role and his life outside of work!
Can you share a brief overview of your professional background and how you ended up in your current role?
After freelancing for a few years, I started as a frontend developer at Intergen where I met BetterComp’s CTO, Derek Watson. I joined him on a few endeavors, first writing backend code and then into systems & network programming. We were later acquired and after a few years apart, I rejoined Derek and his team to help scale BetterComp.
Describe your role at BetterComp:
I work with the platforms team, building and maintaining the infrastructure and workflows that bring BetterComp to life.
What is your favorite part about your job and working at BetterComp?
Picking one favorite thing about the job is tough, because I cannot decide between the work I do and the people I do it with.
What do you like doing when you’re not at work?
On the weekend I will either be in the garden, apiary, kitchen, workshop, playing music, coding, or off hiking for hours. My kids, whom I affectionately call the “Child Labor Force” are incredible little helpers.
What has been your favorite project or assignment so far? Why was it special to you?
My favorite project has been the release of BetterComp v2.0 which brought several large initiatives together, delivering an enormous amount of capability to all aspects of the system. It was special because given the size of the release, everything (...almost!) worked the first time and for what little was left, the team banded together to get things up and running quickly.
If you could give one piece of advice to someone just starting in your field, what would it be?
Get really good at the command line: add as many commands to your CLI belt as you can, and then KEEP getting good at them. There is so much to learn and it will take years, but just like watching a master woodworker, there is something so very satisfying and inspiring witnessing a developer deeply proficient in their craft.
Is there a piece of advice you received early in your career that has stayed with you?
Two pieces of advice that have made an impact stick out: “Good programmers think about code. Great programmers think about data structures, their relationships, and their algorithms.” and, regarding building distributed systems, “EVERYTHING fails.”
Fun Fact:
During the Mandatory Week of Fun Week (MWOFW) while at Riverbed, I entered a 4-person eating relay challenge as a team of one. I came in second place, by a matter of seconds. I have not yet recovered from this humiliating defeat.
Do you have any hidden talents?
I’m a self taught pianist but I can’t read music. I learned “Revolutionary Etude” by listening to 100 different Spotify recordings of it on repeat for about 4 weeks, trying to follow the sheet music while on the train. I spent two weeks imagining what fingers I would use to push those notes on the piano, then was able to play the song on the piano in two days. I don’t do this very often.
If you could have dinner with any one person (living or dead), who would you choose and why? What would you talk about?
My uncle, who passed not long ago. I did not get the chance to say goodbye. I wouldn’t do any talking - he had all the wisdom in the world and I would’ve listened to him for years.
If you could time travel, where in time would you go and why?
I would probably go at least 60 million years in the future. I’m really curious about what the trees are going to look like.
