December 14th, 2020
The Humans Behind the Bots: Tomasz Czekajło
Rasa
At Rasa, our team is building the standard infrastructure for conversational AI. Behind the scenes, the people of Rasa come together from diverse backgrounds to solve today's most interesting challenges in NLP and dialogue management. We're pulling back the curtain to highlight a few of the humans behind the bots.
Today we're talking with Tomasz, Senior DevOps Engineer at Rasa. We'll learn Tomasz's story and explore the day-to-day projects and technologies they're passionate about.
Hi, Tomasz. Tell us about yourself! What was your path to joining Rasa?
Hi!
I'm a Senior DevOps Engineer. Before joining Rasa, I worked for a range of different companies, from small start-ups to big companies, such as Allegro or Daimler. I've always found work related to Infrastructure, Systems, Computer Networks the most exciting - connecting small pieces into a system that people rely on was always what I'm the most passionate about.
My path to joining Rasa was very typical-I saw a job listing somewhere on the Internet and that's how it started. As a DevOps engineer, I use open-source software every day, and the fact that Rasa's product is open source was an important part of my decision to join the Rasa team.
Take us through a typical day as a Senior DevOps Engineer. What types of projects do you work on?
A typical day starts with making sure that everything is working smoothly and nothing is blocking other team members' work. I try to balance my day between making sure that Rasa's machinery works as expected, helping team members, and working on tasks that are planned during our biweekly sprints.
The type of projects I work on are mostly ones that every DevOps Engineer feels at home doing: from designing Infrastructure, improving and developing CI/CD pipelines, to spreading good practices among team members.
Which areas of your work are you most passionate about?
I'm the most passionate about working on complex problems that give me the opportunity to try out new ideas, and challenging myself to learn new skills.
What's an important problem you're solving at Rasa?
Everyone who has ever tried to build something knows that you need the right tools to help you build great things. I'm making sure that DevOps at Rasa builds those tools to support engineers at every step of the software development cycle and help them create high-quality products.
How would you describe Rasa in three words?
Passionate. Ambitious. Kind.
How do you collaborate with other teams at Rasa?
The center of communication is Slack, and daily life happens there, supported by other tools such as Zoom or GitHub. With these tools, daily collaboration with Rasa teams stretched out all over the globe is seamless.
I work closely with the Production squad. The team plans its work based on feedback from other engineering squads and the community.
What does a culture of diversity mean for you at Rasa?
The Rasa Team is created by people from around the world with different backgrounds and experiences. This mix of people creates opportunities to hear different perspectives and see diverse points of view. Rasa encourages employees to share their opinions, and it's something that you can feel, that every person is equally important. This kind of environment helps people at Rasa to create products for everyone.
How has working at Rasa helped your professional development?
The Rasa team is a mix of people with different experiences. Rasa is also a big open-source community. I've been at Rasa since May 2020, and work at Rasa has taught me a lot about the open-source community and how important it is.
What's the most interesting thing you've learned lately?
That there is always something new to learn. I learned how to make your own cover for a book, and that the command "git fsck --lost-found" can save someone day :D
What's the best career advice you've received?
"Don't waste your time on work that makes you unhappy"
Thanks Tomasz! You can find Tomasz on LinkedIn.
Want to team up with Rasa? We're hiring! Find open positions on the Engineering team and other roles on our Jobs Board.