Welcome Wednesday: Martín Valencia Flores

This week we get to know a bit more of one of our most prominent content creators, our beloved Platform Engineer, Martín Valencia Flores.

Martín is Mexican native and left the beautiful beaches, amazing people and food – aguachile makes this writer wish she was not terribly allergic to shrimps – of Tijuana to adventure in Europe, and for our luck ended up joining our Data Services’ team two years ago.

While his path began in his childhood, when literature and Beakman’s World sparked his interest and curiosity, Martín since then has walked an extraordinary path, and brought us some awesome content himself. 

1- Although you are a anynines’ superstar, can you please introduce yourself one more time? 

My name is Martín Valencia Flores, I’m 33 years old, I come from México – hence why I have two last names.

I’ve been living in Germany for a bit over 5 years now, and I am currently a Platform Engineer at anynines.

I’ve always been interested in computers and science in general, and actually dreamed of working at NASA at some point in my life – I may or may not have imagined this with robotic arms attached to me… don’t judge 7 y/o me that harshly.

This was only furthered by my parents getting me a small library’s worth of science-related books, and my liking of educational shows such as Beakman’s World.

2- What is your educational background?

I have a Bachelor in Computer Engineering from the Universidad Autómoma de Baja California.

I worked as Software Developer, and quite a bit of tech support, for a small tech company back in my hometown for roughly 3 years, until I decided to uproot myself and try to build a life here in Germany. 

3- What does your path look like until now?

After completing my bachelor’s program, I worked in my hometown for about 3 years, before I uprooted myself and arrived in Germany, for study purposes initially.

I eventually found myself in the middle of a job hunt and I, during this challenging time, applied to work at anynines, after stumbling into the job advertisement due to my growing interest in Cloud Computing. 

I was fortunate enough to be a fit, and now I am a Platform Engineer within the a9s Data Services team, it has been awesome 2 years, actually a bit more but let’s round down.

4- What are you doing when you are not working?

My hobbies and interests are board games, drawing, painting miniature (collecting, TTRPG, and Wargaming), reading, role-playing games (I’m currently a DM), video games.

5- Where are you originally from?

From Tijuana, Baja California, México. Born and raised.

6- What would people love about your hometown and why should they go there? 

The food – surprise! We have more than tacos -, the warmth of its people, the overall diversity.

7- What was your motivation for joining us?

I’ve already mentioned HOW I ended up applying to anynines, but the WHY I chose to accept the offer boils down to the company’s culture, specifically my teammates.

I am lucky to be surrounded by smart, stubborn, respectful coworkers that make every day at work an opportunity to learn something new.

8- What can you tell people who are considering computer science as their path?

DO NOT BE AFRAID TO ASK.

I like to sum all of these potential feelings in the following sentence:

“Hello, I was VERY lost and scared when I started, and if you are as well, let me tell you why it is not bad”.

9- What will you tell people who are interested in Tech?

I’ve mentioned it before in one of my talks, that this field of work looks and sounds like a scary, huge behemoth to tackle, but don’t be afraid -that much at least- since the Cloud scene has quite an interesting and helpful community. 

10- How can people catch up with you online?

My online presence can be summed up to:

GitHub pages: https://martinvf88.github.io

Twitter: martinvf88

Catch up with some of Martín’s content here at anynines: