Welcome to the team, Ruaridh!

Ruaridh has joined the team as a developer. Before starting at Bad Dinosaur, Ruaridh had quite the varied career, working his way up from KP to line chef at one point, and most recently he worked his way up from an internship to app developer at a delivery tech startup. We gave him a quick grilling to get to know him a bit better:

Why did you move to Bad Dinosaur?

I had been thinking about stepping up and making a career out of app development when a recruiter reached out to me with two jobs, one of which was for a .NET role at Bad Dinosaur. I did a bit of scoping and really liked the range of cool projects and varied focusses that Bad Dinosaur worked on. It felt like a great opportunity to get familiar with different disciplines, and the ethos of the place appealed too. When I spoke to Kyle and Ellen at my interview, they sounded like the kind of people I want to work with, so I knew it was right for me.

How did you get into development?

I’ve always been curious about how things work, so I started buying broken computers and phones when I was 13, just to tinker about with. It started with opening them up to understand how they work, then replacing batteries and hard drives, pretty soon I was doing screen replacements and full board swaps and repairing them. That led me to work at an Apple reseller and repair shop. It was in that job that I picked up my first freelance app development gig, when a client asked me to build him a beer inventory app, with a brief he cobbled together on a napkin. A lot of it has been self-taught and driven by my own curiosity, but I have also completed a computer science degree at Abertay University.

How do you feel about starting remotely?

It’s new, I’ve never done this before, but I’m keen to make the most of it. It’s not that bad, but I am looking forward to seeing the office and moving to Edinburgh. I’m just  happy that there’s plenty to do otherwise it would get a bit monotonous!

Got any interesting hobbies?

Right now I’m building a drone because I got a 3D printer for Christmas. Cheffing didn’t end up becoming a career but I still love cooking, my signature dish is lamb shank or rack of lamb. I also like mountain biking, going to the gym and I play bass and acoustic guitar.

Favourite computer game?

Haven’t played computer games in ages, used to play non-stop on XBox, and I got back into it a little over lockdown. If I had to pick, I’d say Devil May Cry is my favourite game series.

What was the last book you read?

The Girl with All the Gifts, a science-fiction novel by M. R. Carey

If you could live anywhere aside from Edinburgh, where would it be?

The middle of nowhere on a large plot of land, maybe in Australia or Canada. I love Scotland but it would be nice to escape from the mayhem of everything that’s going on.

What gig are you most looking forward to when we can get out again?

Steven Wilson is my favourite artist right now, he’s just released an album so I would love to go to see him if he did a tour.

What's your favourite dinosaur?

Diplodocus

Would you rather have one real get out of jail free card or a key that opens any door?

I try not to get in trouble very often, so I’ll take the key to open any door. It’ll come in handy when I forget my house keys!

If you'd like to join our lovely team please check out our current openings on Linkedin and get in touch for more info.