ASTRAILS - Key Persons
Dressed to the nines and always ready to program, Boris Nadion combines his Fred Astaire moves with over twenty years of professional programming experience to get the job done, whatever it may be. Boris started programming in 1992 and has been developing on the web with an assorted combination of programming languages ever since. Although his background is in storage technologies, file systems and reverse engineering, he specializes in Ruby, Rails, Node.js, Javascript of all flavors and machine learning. If he was stranded on an island with a lifetime supply of beer and only one programming language to code with, no doubt he would pick Ruby. Boris founded Astrails with his two friends, Michael and Vitaly. When he isn't working, Boris enjoys listening to jazz and beating Michael at tennis.
David is excited to create innovative products that br ing happiness to their users. He likes using inventive thinking methods to solve problems and generate new ideas. Tech-savvy, Experienced in full life cycle of the software design process including requirements definition, prototyping, proof of concept, design, implementation and testing. David has an experience in different environments (Windows, Linux, RT/Embedded, Web Applications). He is an "advocate" of Test Driven Development (TDD) and Agile methodology. David is a Certified SCRUM Master since 2007. David adopts Winston Churchill's quote: "Of course I'm an optimist - I don't see much point in being anything else."
An artist at heart, Matt Witek's first encounters with the digital world originated from graphic design. Witek started tinkering with Photoshop as a teenager and eventually discovered Flash where he experimented with animations and UI design using ActionScript. It was at this moment when lightning struck and Matt realized just how much he enjoyed writing code. He dated PHP for a bit, but things didn't work out. Then, one bright day he met the love of his life, Ruby, and has never looked back. Ruby satisfied Matt's desire to express his creativity and passion for code.
In addition to being a full stack developer at Astrails, Matt is also an award-winning photographer with works published in Photographer's Forum Magazine. He hails from Detroit, the motor city, where he loves spending time learning new programming languages and hanging out with his family, his dog Lucky and cats Noah and Mila.
When Mike was 16 years old, he was already working as a Linux system administrator and freelance programmer. Later on, he channeled his experience, dedication and focus into building and managing large scale Linux-based infrastructure projects. Specifically, he's worked on some very big and serious enterprise web applications for insurance companies. When he isn't hacking on one of his projects, Mike can be spotted zooming through the streets of Tel Aviv on his beloved bike, smiling to the world as if he knows something we don't.
Vitaly has more than twenty years of industry experience in a wide range of technologies, from Sinclair Basic to Linux kernel drivers. Vitaly started using Rails in 2005 and to this day still refers to it as his primary "weapon of choice" for developing web applications and mobile back-ends. He is a public speaker and has been promoting Ruby and Rails in Israel since 2006, when he helped to organize and manage the first Israeli Ruby Group. Vitaly speaks at conferences and teaches Ruby on Rails courses.