My name is Romén Rodríguez-Gil and I live in the beautiful island of Tenerife (one of Spain’s Canary Islands). Besides a Software Engineer and Digital Entrepreneur, I’m a Lifelong Learner who seeks continuous improvement and cares about the human side of technology.

The digital world has fascinated me since I was very young. I started building software about two decades ago, and I’ve been wearing many different hats in the industry since then. As a software engineer, I have worked on many different products, teams and technologies. As a manager and entrepreneur, I have led several multidisciplinary teams and worked on business development, product management, user experience and digital marketing, learning very valuable lessons. I have also been lecturing for a while, sharing what I’ve learned so far in my career. Thanks to these varied experiences I’ve developed a 360-degree view of the creation and evolution of software products, which I consider a great asset for a software engineer to have.

My current interests are in the technical space. I thrive building software products in healthy and transparent environments, where people are always willing to collaborate and where motivation is pursued through our intrinsic motivators: autonomy, mastery and purpose.

As an engineer, experience has taught me to focus on core skills and portable technical principles, rather than on framework-specific knowledge. I’m also a big fan of combining Agile Software Development frameworks (such as Scrum) with engineering excellence (as eXtreme Programming does). I truly think that combination, along with a data-driven Lean Startup mindset, provides a huge potential for success.

But above practices, tools, or processes, I’m convinced “Peopleware” is the key element of every knowledge-based company; even though many forget about that. As a blogger, speaker and consultant I try to highlight the importance of building a healthy company culture, where people feel safe, valued, and can grow. I see this as the foundation to create a successful environment, both for developers and for managers; and from a business as well as from an engineering perspective.

Well, that is me professionally. But apart from all the above, I also love to spend some time away from technology, be it having fun with friends, playing with my kids or hiking.

If you want to know more about me, you can explore the talks & courses section, where recordings and materials of my talks are shared. You can also take a look at my GitHub repositories, find me on LinkedIn or follow me on Twitter, where I share more thoughts, news and articles about software, internet and entrepreneurship.

By the way, I’m always open to considering new adventures when there is a good cultural fit. So, if what I have described here resonates with you and your team, feel free to reach out. I’ll be happy to chat.