We recently added Dan Fried to the Lua engineering team. After meeting Dan as a Techstars Hackstar, and having a ton of fun working with him, we were lucky enough to bring him on full time at the end of the program. Dan is a native Brooklynite with a never-ending supply of fascinating stories acquired on his extensive and bizarre journeys around the globe. Get to know him through our interview below.
Where are you from, what were you up to before Lua?
I’m Dan, I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. I was a Hackstar at Techstars prior to joining Lua. Before that, I was working on a project mapping Greater New York’s ethnic neighborhoods over time. Before that, I was working at Shapeways, a 3D printing company.
What do you do for Lua, and what are your engineering specialties?
Initially I’ll be working mostly on the API, but I think I’m gonna be touching most of the site eventually. I’m a full stack web developer, and I love learning new things.
What are some of your hobbies?
I like to cook a lot. I’ve been growing vegetables on my roof all summer. Tomatoes, hot peppers, cucumbers, and now they’re all in full bloom. I’ve been spending a lot of time doing that. I like to build things. I’ve been playing with my Arduino a lot and I’m really excited for my Raspberry Pi to get here. I want to build robots, computer stuff that actually moves.
I’m also really passionate about Electronic Dance Music, and I DJ a bit, though not as much as I’d like to.
Tell us about your time hitchhiking:
I spent the summer I graduated from College hitchhiking over 10,000 miles around North America, through 20 states. New York is a really different place from the rest of America, and I wanted to see what the rest of the country was like. Of course, since I’m from New York, I didn’t have a Driver’s License, so it was either Greyhound or hitchhiking, and I had already done Greyhound. Continue reading
