Meet the Team: Gabriel Farrugia

What’s your earliest tech-related memory?

My quċċija! This is a Maltese tradition where a baby is presented with a number of objects that symbolise career choices, and the object chosen by the baby indicates their future career. I distinctly remember reaching for an orange voltmeter. Also, my childhood was full of Playstation 1 and 2 games.

Describe your day-to-day routine, if you have one.

I normally like to wake up late, eat some fruit and head out the door, but really my days vary quite a bit.

People who work with tech can be superstitious. Do you have a favourite computer superstition or ritual that probably doesn’t work – but you still do it anyway?

When I was younger, I used to have a lot of superstitions, but thankfully I’ve outgrown most of them and now consider myself pretty vanilla in this aspect.

Who is your professional hero?

Probably Bill Gates and Paul Allen – I use a lot of Microsoft products, and I think the whole industry would be drastically different without them. Different industry, but Brandon Sanderson is up there too.

How did you end up working at Cleverbit?

When I was a student, I had several interviews, but Cleverbit was different. Early on, the team was only about four people, and their high skill level really came through during the interview. I knew that I would have a good mentorship relationship joining here – plus the friendly attitude really sold me on the company. The fact that there are no strict times or uniforms also makes a lot of sense to me. It’s been 5 years now, and I have no regrets.

Is there a project that you’ve worked on at Cleverbit that really stood out to you for whatever reason?

From the beginning, we’ve been working on a particular project – it’s challenging, it’s huge, and there’s always something new to learn.

What’s the office culture like at Cleverbit?

Since I’ve started, it hasn’t really changed: everyone knows each other, it’s informal, everyone’s friendly. We’re constantly sharing jokes, but we work really hard too.

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

If I had to choose I’d probably like to be either a game dev or a writer – fantasy would probably be my genre.