At Cloud City, André is known for well-tested code that is maintainable over time. He is passionate about clean, understandable code, believing every new feature is a chance to leave the codebase in better shape than it started.
No matter what software needs to be built, he offers specific examples of the trade-offs to keep in mind, and helps companies choose the most successful options. André has built and operated web applications at every size and scale, but he’s most passionate about improving the lives of other engineers by giving them better tools.
Before docking at Cloud City, André was the lead developer of Bundler, the Ruby dependency manager, co-authored the third edition of The Ruby Way, a book about how to use Ruby in an idiomatic way, and founded Ruby Together, a non-profit trade association dedicated to maintaining and improving the shared tools used by every Ruby developer.
A regular speaker at industry conferences such as RubyConf, RailsConf, MagmaConf, Ruby on Ales, and RubyNation, he teaches at programming outreach events, and advocates for greater inclusivity in tech.
André spends a lot of time excited to be writing in or about Ruby. His code lives at github.com/indirect, and his writings about code live at andre.arko.net.
Having been homeschooled for fundamentalist Christian reasons, André started college at sixteen and graduated before he could legally consume alcohol. It will therefore not surprise you to learn that his Netrunner card collection — including both the 1996 and 2012 editions, of course — is second to none.
He thinks computers are super cool even though they are also the worst.
