👋🏽 We wrote a book! Order Wireframing for Everyone today →

Balsamiq

Toggle navigation

Florian Brauer Joins Balsamiq

· Posted by Peldi in Company · 3 Comments

Hello friends of Balsamiq!

It is my great pleasure to introduce to you the newest member of the Balsamiq family: Florian Brauer!

We first met Florian in July last year, when he posted quite a few detailed and accurate bug reports on our GetSatisfaction forums (here are some examples).

Almost right away, Florian started answering other people's questions there before we could even get to them. We were so pleased with his help that we sent him a limited edition Life's too short for bad software! T-Shirt! 🙂

Then, at the end of September, while we were looking for Kyle, Florian wrote me:

Hello Peldi,

I must admit your software is amazing. I would say I fell in love with the way your software is designed and how you support your customers. And when you fall in love with something you want to be part of it.

The way I could help so far was only via the support forum. But this does not seem to satisfy me. I would like to help in more ways.

I know you are looking for a DevOps in California. I would apply for this job if I would fulfil the requirements you have. I am no system admin or product manager (yet). This might be due to the fact that I will finish my studies in computer science in the next two months.

I got the idea of a trainee programme in my mind. Since I have not found an equivalent translation for it will write a few words about it.

The idea of a trainee programme is to allow people who have finished their education to learn more in a wide field on a certain topic. Often companies require skills other than those that the person might have learned so far. In a programme, which normally takes between 12 and 18 months, the person acquires these skills. At the end of the time he/she should be able to use the new skills.

Trainees would receive a lower salary than their peers to reflect the fact that they are learning.

I would love to work for / with you in such a trainee programme. I attach my CV.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best greetings,
Florian

Because of its timing and of all the respect Florian had already earned from us over the summer, I couldn't have been happier to receive such an email, and jumped at the opportunity.

Florian has been working full-time for us as an external contractor since the beginning of November.

In the last five months, he has helped us tremendously in our effort to pay back the technical debt that we had accumulated since we launched in 2008: he has devised ways to automate the testing of our Mockups editor (which is written in Flash, a notoriously hard technology to test programmatically), and has already written over 500 unit and integration tests. He's caught some bugs, and even fixed some himself. All with minimal supervision.

In short, he's a machine. A German-engineered machine. 🙂

Florian starts today. His job title (not that we care much about job titles) is "developer in testing", and his focus will continue to be writing and maintaining our testing harnesses, helping the devs write unit, integration and scenario tests, and answering your questions in GetSatisfaction and via Desk.com while Lou and Mike are sleeping in the US.

Florian is based in Bremen, Germany. His email is florian@balsamiq.com and his Twitter handle is @balsamiqFlo.

We updated the company page with Florian's bio and added a very northern pin to the employees map.

We all look forward to meeting Florian in person at our next retreat in NYC in June.

Please join us in welcoming Florian to the Balsamiq family! 🙂

Peldi for the Balsamiq Team

Leave a Comment

Comments (3)

  1. Congratulation to the total stranger from the total stranger

  2. Congrats Florian! Welcome. Love the team behind this great tool. I have never come across any other wireframing tool that is super fast. Thanks again Team!!!

  3. Congratulations Florian! Another great addition to the Balsamiq team.