This post is part of the OpenStack Open Mic series to spotlight the people who have helped make OpenStack successful. Each week, a new contributor will step up to the mic and answer five questions about OpenStack, cloud, careers and what they do for fun. If you’re interested in being featured, please choose five questions from this form and submit!
Ryan Brady lives near Jacksonville, NC with his wife and 2 children. He enjoys running and woodworking. He’s a Senior Software Engineer at Red Hat where he works primarily on the TripleO project for OpenStack. Follow him on Twitter @rjbrady.
1) How did you learn to code? Are you self-taught or did you lear in college? On-the-job?
I started out tinkering on my own. I got my first professional programming job while serving on active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps. Through both college courses and writing a lot of code on the job, I learned a lot and continued down the path I’m on now. I’ve been very luck to work with very talented programmers over the years who taught me many things I couldn’t find in a textbook. I’ve also continued tinkering on my own time for fun working on embedded devices and web projects. I feel like I’m still learning something new every week.
2) What does “open source” mean to you?
Freely available to view, modify and distribute. I think it applies to more than source code, but that is debatable.
3) Where is your favorite place to code? In the office, at a local coffee shop, in bed?
I love to work at home. Most of the time it’s in my home office, but during the spring and fall I love to work for short periods of time from my back porch. The lack of a commute allows me a little extra time every day to devote to development and has the obvious economical and environmental benefits.
4) What is your favorite example of OpenStack in production (besides yours, of course!)
I was very impressed by the deployment at CERN to help process data from the LHC.
5) What drew you to OpenStack?
My initial draw to OpenStack was to investigate it for software development and testing. I was impressed by what I saw and when I was offered the chance to work on it full time, I immediately said yes.
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