Welcoming Ahmed Tolba, our new SRE Engineer

Today, we're excited to share that Ahmed Tolba is joining the team.

Ahmed is joining Resend as a Site Reliability Engineer from Vienna, Austria. Ahmed's started in the software industry in 2014, working as Ruby, and Ruby on Rails developer, then moved down the stack to be an SRE. He worked in the DevOps industry, Banking and Sports.

He's always excited about building reliable systems at scale. Focused on distributed infrastructure, observability, and keeping things UP.

More about Ahmed

How did you get into software?

I was always good at video games and navigating digital machines in my parents’ eyes. In the 90s, I went to learn about computers during one of the school holidays, so I learned about DOS and Windows 95/98, and for some reason, I was the youngest in the room, aged 9. Back then, we used to memorize commands by writing them in a notebook (paper) and studying them at home… We got our first computer when I was in middle school, around 2004 or 2005.

That was a 4k EGP Computer, a fortune back then. Also, dial-up was 32kb when our luck hit.

At some point, I wanted to break into systems and become a hacker. I met someone at a cyber cafe in Egypt, where we played LAN games, and it was the first time I was introduced to hacking.

To keep the story short, my mom decided I couldn't use the internet for a year or two afterward. Then, one day, I read: How to become a hacker guide, And to my mind back then, I thought it was about being a hacker and breaking things, but what stood out from all the English that I wasn’t fully speaking yet was “Learn how to program”.

I then took it on myself to learn that, and to do that, you have to go to a school of computer science. I made many failed attempts at programming, until I was old enough to go to university, and I started the CS school at 19.

I started with. NET/C #, then Ruby and Rails, and here I am, many years later, from simple front-page/Dreamweaver/Notepad code to being an SRE.

What does your desktop/home screen look like?

I started using minimalistic resend wallpapers before applying, I just love them.

Why are you at Resend?

From the very first moment I started using resend for my side projects, it felt like a breeze. I used to have hell experiences with other mailing systems. But for the first time, it felt like a natural developer friendly tool.

I love making both products and working for products that makes meaningful impact on peoples lives, and Resend is one of those. I also aspire to make it scalable because I truly believe the future is bright for Resend.

Where do you find #inspiration?

Reading, watching and looking, whether in books or art in any form or shape

I always find something new to learn in books, something new to my eyes in art. And I love learning something new continuously.

If you weren't programming, what would you be doing?

I would be a writer / novelist.

Favorite tool?

Bear I tried many many tools for writing, but bear was the right natural choice after all.

Favorite hotkey?

CMD+space / CMD+K, The former for opening anything I want, the later for taking actions.

Favorite place to visit?

Egypt / Austria, biased? a little, but I am always the happiest being in either and I call both home.

Advice for ambitious software engineers?

You don’t have to have goals, yet, you will score many. Just keep learning.