Meet Aleix, Kleros’ Full Stack Engineer

Aleix works on front end programming, breathing life into the Kleros V2 designs while providing support to our smart contract building processes.

Tell us a little about yourself.

Since I was a kid, I always had a clear aspiration of what I wanted to be professionally. When I was very little, I wanted to be the man that goes on the back of garbage trucks because I thought that was so cool. Then I wanted to be an archaeologist and after that - an astronaut. In my last years of high school I aimed towards aeronautics or something closer to space engineering. I even started dabbling in political science and sociology.

The funny thing is that I never actually desired to become a computer engineer, that is not until I spoke to my high school philosophy professor who I asked for advice. He told me I would be a great fit for the job and here I am today. I wouldn’t change anything about this, I really enjoy computer engineering and I’m happy with my career.

How did you get involved in the blockchain space?

The first time I was introduced to a blockchain project was through Monero. In 2017, a friend of mine in college presented it to me and inspired me to develop a blockchain based voting system that I ended up writing a paper on with my cryptography teacher and yeah, I’m quite happy with how that turned out at the end.

How did you start working at Kleros?

The fun fact about me starting to work at Kleros is that I was actually rejected during my first cycle of interviews. I ended up second during the process, but at that point I was told that I did quite well and that if Kleros found another front end engineer, maybe they would accept me too, since I was applying for a back end engineer position.

A couple of weeks passed, I didn’t get any reply, so I decided that it was time to learn front end engineering. I asked Clement if I could apply as a full stack developer and he told me - go ahead, so I started learning, applied and got the job.

What are you working on at Kleros?

As I mentioned, I’m a full stack engineer at Kleros. I mostly work on front end programming, since that’s where I’m needed most, but I also really like smart contracts and back end programming. Being at Kleros means we work with a relatively small team, so we wear a lot of hats and I always end up doing some smart contract reviews or helping with the hiring process.

Inside the Kleros front end team I’m mostly working on the Kleros V2 user interface, basically taking Plinio’s designs and bringing them to life.

Where do you see Kleros in five years?

I would like to think that in five years Kleros will become the backbone of most of our internet interactions with content moderation and these huge remote worker contracts, especially taking into account our escrow service. Additionally, I think that one of the biggest things about Kleros is that it has the potential to bring traditional services to the blockchain and in this way increase the value that blockchain can add to the world. For example, by being the intermediate step in the custom customer service departments of some companies, Kleros can be a more efficient and cheaper solution to achieve client success.

I think Kleros has a huge potential with the added benefit of creating Web3 jobs for jurors that will arbitrate Kleros, hopefully making them a significant enough amount of money for living and thus creating a system of users through challengers and lawyers, as well.

What do you do in your free time?

To be fair, I have a lot of hobbies. I tend to do quite a lot of sports. When I was younger I did taekwondo, then I did some boxing, learned how to surf. I also like to skate and now I’m also doing some bouldering in the gym. On the other hand, I really like chess, I like magic (both, performing magic and Magic The Gathering), I like F1, also watching (but not playing) league of legends, and I am missing some hobbies for sure.

I tend to read a lot of board game manuals, as well. I never get to play them, but I maybe have a collection of 50 table tops and I read the rule books for all of them. I really like to read the rules and imagine how a game would develop, why the designers chose different mechanics and then try to compose the perfect game in my head by patching together different rulesets. I really enjoy that.

Are you reading something these days? Any book recommendations for our readers?

Right now I’m reading Dan Passarelli’s “Trading Option Greeks”, a trading book I found quite interesting. Before that I was reading mostly fantasy, a great dark fantasy trilogy I recommend is “Iconoclasts” by Mike Shel. It’s pretty good. For non-fiction, I’ve been reading the “No Gods, No Masters” anarchist anthology, featuring passages from different anarchist books and authors from history.

As for some computer-related reading, the book that influenced me the most is the structural interpretation of computer programs also known as “The Wizard Book” by MIT’s Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman.