Who I learned from · 2019–2021
Athina Vandame
I would not be as good at building software as I am without Athina. She joined Limelight in October 2019 and rebuilt it properly: a new data model, the 2.0 relaunch, the web app and payments, and the Flutter rewrite. She taught me what is right and wrong in software, and I have always admired her skill in design.
Who I learned from
- Who
- Athina Vandame
- Role
- Software engineer; Limelight co-founder and CTO
- To me
- The engineer who taught me what is right and wrong in software, and whose skill in design I have always admired.
- When
- 2019–2021
Who Athina is
A software engineer and co-founder of get.regular, based in New York, with a Bachelor of Computer Science from the University of Waterloo (2017). Athina previously engineered at Amazon and at Limelight Music, as co-founder and CTO.
How we met
Athina was an upper-year computer science student who gave me program advice in 2015. In October 2019 Athina joined Limelight and, within two days, made the case that the first version had to be rebuilt.
What I learned
What is right and wrong in software. I would not be as good at building software as I am without Athina, and I have always admired her skill in design. She was the one who showed me that the first version is a prototype, whatever you call it.
Rebuilding Limelight
Athina argued for a new data model and a migration off my original build, and was right. Working for sweat equity, she rebuilt the app for the February 2020 relaunch, then the web app and Stripe payments that August, then started a Flutter rewrite. Most of how I structure an app today I learned in that year.