There’s one sure way to spot the arrival of a new developer: a fresh set of headphones. That, and a new pair of furiously programming hands. This time the headphones and hands belong to Caven Erasmus, the newest member of Flow’s development team.
Caven Erasmus got to know Flow through the PHP user group that Flow hosts every month (gatherings spoken entirely in code – at least, that’s how those of us in the non-development world imagine it). The user group offers developers a platform to share ideas and explore new technologies.
“At one of the user group meet-ups, Caven gave a presentation on PHP regular expressions (which is pretty much find and replace on steroids) that blew me away,” says Richard Frank, head of Flow’s development team. “I asked him to come and chat to us the next day and offered him a job on the spot.”
Caven started off in IT, setting up wireless networks in Cape Town, before moving on to build cell towers across Africa. “There’s barely a country in Africa I haven’t been to,” says Caven, “Congo, Nigeria, Mozambique, Zimbabwe – you name it.”
But he’s back in South Africa now, and throwing himself headlong into developing.
“Developing has always been a hobby of mine,” says Caven. “I like to spend my time building websites and figuring out how things work.” While he’s been breaking websites and putting them back together since he was 16, Caven is entirely self-taught, and has only turned his developing skills into a career in the last two years.
“Caven is great,” says Reatile Tshikalange, one of Flow’s senior developers. “He’s bright and a fast learner. We’ve given him some challenging and time-consuming work, including automating infographics – taking a designed infographic and making it interactive – and he’s done it well. We’re happy to have him on board.”
Web developer Darren Caboz agrees: “Caven is hard-working, fits in well and has a great attitude. He’s also good at what he does and has a lot of potential.”
When he’s not PHP-ing, Caven says he does “normal stuff”: “I have drinks with friends, I play games and I do MMA (mixed martial arts) on Tuesdays and Thursdays.” While we could raise an eyebrow at the assumption that doing MMA is “normal”, we’ve decided to let it slide. Caven joined Flow – being normal doesn’t even begin to play into it – and that’s just the way we like it.
Welcome to Flow, Caven. We’re looking forward to getting to know you better, and to showing you what a company that writes blog posts about its new team members (which we know is entirely new for you) is all about.
