Return of the Builder

The Cold Dinner I became a software engineer because, deep down, I love building. For me, it has always been the ultimate way to express creative thinking while solving problems with a computer. I first discovered this during my college years through the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC). These competitions were challenging, but I loved the thrill. I’m a deep thinker, I can spend lots of time in front of a problem and face it. I remember nights at home practicing in the University of Valladolid (uVA) problems and encountering a problem so interesting that would make me lose my ability of keeping track of time. My mom would sometimes bring dinner to my room and leave it on my desk. I’d be so deep in the problem, reading it, thinking about it and spending endless time thinking about it, that three hours would pass in what felt like minutes. I’d eventually make progress or solve it, look down, and realize my dinner was cold in the desk! That’s how deep I would go into…