Our team keeps growing. Continuing our interview series with new SoundCloud teamsters, today we’re introducing you to David. He’s been on the team for a while now but has only been able to sit down for chat now. So here it goes:

David, what’s your role in the SoundCloud team and how long have you been on board?

I’m the SoundCloud Evangelist and Community Manager, my role is to get people excited about SoundCloud and doing everything in my power to keep it that way.

I send out virtual band-aids (read: answer support emails) to users experiencing “Doh’s” on the site (read: bugs), post news to our blog, Twitter, Facebook & Tumblr accounts and pretty much everything in between that doesn’t require my non-existing coding skills.

That includes helping artists and labels get their accounts or remix competitions ready and managing our forums on GetSatisfaction, where with the fantastic help of our users we’ve grown a massive help resource and have collected some really great suggestions we then evaluate with the team. Besides, there’s a lot of copy tweaking here and there, lots of networking and I love adding more emails to Dave’s inbox. He then reciprocates my love by adding even more to mine. (Oh look, pandas).

Currently, I’m busy reaching out to some users and speak with them on Skype about how they’ve been using SoundCloud, what they think of the upcoming updates on the PRO accounts and see if they have any good suggestions based on their daily usage. It’s great to be able to get to know our users on a more personal level and it’s even greater to see that today’s technology makes it super-easy to do exactly that. Contact me if you wanna chat.

Although having met Alex & Eric after they just got started, I only joined in late July. Haven’t looked back since.

What’s the funniest support request / report you’ve received since you joined?

My absolute favorite goes something like this: “Hey guys, awesome site but I noticed a little typo in the upper left of the page. It says “Hej” and I think this should say “Hey”.” This makes me giggle every time. It actually means “Hello” in Swedish.

How many emails/tweets/comments/forum posts do you write on a normal day?

Normal day? Are you kidding? Well, let’s see: I have 6 email accounts, the GetSatisfaction admin panel, two Twitter accounts (Hey Tweetie, you’re awesome!), a Facebook account, the SoundCloud Facebook Page, two Tumblr blogs and our main blog right here.

Yeah, I write/post quite a lot every day & night. “Inbox Zero” currently is more like an urban legend to me but I hope to find a great intern soon to help me out.

So, how do you become an Evangelist & Community Manager – there’s not really an education for that?

Tough one, Eric. I have no idea – no, there doesn’t seem to be an education except for “the street school” I guess. But let me try.

In my opinion, the most important thing is passion. Personally, I’ve always admired SoundCloud as a product & service, the team and the way it has evolved to what it is today. It solves a problem, it is user-focused, technology-driven and a remarkably well executed business. So to join SoundCloud with the task to evangelize the service and its users was a no-brainer for me. I love this quote by Tumblr staffer Jared in his post about AnyClip from earlier this week: “You log on to AnyClip with a mission, and you leave with passion“. What a great mantra for any given web service.

I think you need a couple of years of experience navigating through different parts of a (web)business: it requires a marketing mindset, communication skills, deep understanding of the product, strategy and the vision behind it. You basically take all that knowledge and energy and put it out there, gather users and friends around you and march forward. The more you are, the stronger you get and the more you receive back.

If you would like to tap into what this actually means, I suggest reading Creating Customer Evangelists written by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba and Tribes by Seth Godin. Both are great books to start with. Even for an artist or a label, you’ll find a lot of useful insights in there. Remember: it’s all about the people you get excited about the things you do.  A recent post on Guardian.co.uk titled How can a new act stand out of the crowd wraps up with the question: “Who are your trusted filters?” – can you answer it?

Your last name (Noël) sounds french – what’s your background?

I was born and raised in a small town in Belgium called Eupen which is in the German-speaking part of the country. I dropped out of college, moved to Cologne, Germany where I worked as an A&R for an indie label before spending three years on the roads all across Europe tour managing bands from around the world. After that I worked for a marketing agency while going to school in the evenings to get a Marketing degree. In 2006, I co-founded a startup and left at the end of last year before an epic reset on the beaches of Thailand. Returning home, I spent a couple of months consulting startups and agencies before finally joining the mighty Cloud.

You spend a lot of time on the web – any favorite sites or trends right now?

Unfortunately I don’t find the time to hang around any new/other sites too much. I absolutely love Tumblr: drop-dead simple blogging platform and an awesome team & community around it. Big fan also of Anthony and his little (actually not so little) Hype Machine. I love the power of Twitter, am happy to be a Spotify Premium user and can’t wait for Foursquare Berlin. If Facebook works a bit on its UI, it’s close to be a perfect social network. Oh and Google is plain and simply great. Everything these guys do is amazing, we use it all the time – it’s incredible what they’ve achieved for the entire tech-industry.

What I love about the web right now is its openness. Instead of closed gardens like a couple of years ago, the web has grown into that huge connected octopus (a very cute one) and it flattens the world much more than ever. We love API’s and believe in the power of the layered web. It’s incredible to see all that creativity out there, triggered by accessible data, turning something into something totally new. Can’t wait to see how developers play around with our own API.

On the contrary – what do you hate about the web?

Spam. Can’t believe they’re still trying. Even worse: can’t believe they actually succeed in some cases.

Could you name three artists to describe your musical taste?

That’s way too hard to answer. If a track is great, chances are that I’ll love it. To see what I liked recently, see my Last.fm and Hype Machine profiles or check out my favorites on SoundCloud. Current favs: Tom Petty, Neil McSweeney and Mumford & Sons.

Thanks, David! And welcome. Any more links for us?

Sure, my pleasure. Find me on Twitter (@David), SoundCloud or Tumblr.

It’s been a while since our last teamster interview so we thought to share the news with you today about our latest addition to the team. Henrik joins the rest of the gang. Read on…

• Welcome to the team, Henrik! Could you tell us how you fell in love with computers & technology in general and how you ended up moving to Berlin to join SoundCloud?

Thanks, I’m really excited to be here! The short version is that I bought Cubase to learn about music production when I was about sixteen. Music and technology have always been my main interests (alongside sports) and I fell in love with the idea of combining them. I got into professional sound engineering and radio production but eventually felt like doing something different and began studying.

Engineering physics was totally boring but I specialized in interaction design which is a really interesting subject. I did my thesis work at Propellerhead Software and stayed there to work with the beta testing of Record. It was a great experience and I learned a lot about the music technology industry and software development in general.

I had met Eric and Alex through university so I used to pop by the SoundCloud office whenever I was visiting Berlin. Applying for this job was a natural decision since I had plans to move to Berlin and really like the SoundCloud spirit. I knew I wanted to keep working with music and technology and this job also gives me the opportunity to learn more about the web.

• How have you been enjoying Berlin so far and what do you think is so special about Berlin?

It’s been a lot more work and a lot less clubbing this time, but I’m really looking forward to start building a new life here and see the city from that perspective. Berlin has a special atmosphere and I think it’s the most interesting city in Europe right now, at least for people like me. I believe it will continue to evolve in interesting ways and it’s great to be part of that.

• Tell us a little bit more about what you’re working on right now.

I’m getting everything in place for setting up new partnerships and also making sure all ongoing projects run smoothly. It will be very interesting to see how we can improve the musical web by integrating applications and services with SoundCloud.

• What sort of music do you like? What are your favorite artists?

I mainly listen to electronic music, especially when I work, but I also like pop and hip hop. Here are some artists to give you a better feeling for what I like at the moment: Kollektiv Turmstrasse, Mathias Kaden, Intrusion, Burial, Junior Boys, Empire of the Sun, Bon Iver, and Gang Starr. Perhaps I should also mention that I was a fan of Eric’s (Forss) album Soulhack before I got to know him.

Thanks!

How’s it going Cloudettes and Clouders?

We’ve been working on a few background things these last few days, so unfortunately we don’t have any spectacular new functions to present you. But hold tight to your mice, trackpads, trackballs and other interactive devices as we’re preparing a major release in 2 weeks!

While you’re waiting for the next SoundCloud bonanza we’d like to present you a new installment of our popular “Interview Time” series. This month, super-skilled programmer Hannes Tydén switches off his browser tabs for a few minutes and tells us a bit more about the real life up in the Cloud:

• Välkommen Hannes! Glad you could find the time between your intense coding sessions to introduce yourself! Could you tell us how you fell in love with computers and how you ended up moving to Berlin to work on SoundCloud?

I’ve been interested in technology as long as I can remember, and played my fair share of video and computer games since the age of seven. I remember trying to program my Commodore 64, without any success. But the interest in programming started growing in high school. I studied natural science and got a programmable calculator. I programmed it to solve all the physics and chemistry formulas, so I didn’t have to keep them in my head. Of course this made me learn the formulas by heart, but it was fun trying to beat the system.

A year later my mother bought a computer and I started playing around with Photoshop. Another year passed and we got an Internet connection, then I started coding my own personal websites, mostly about the bands I listened to back then. After a while I noticed that I was more interested in designing and coding the websites than in the actual content. It was more fun to build the tree house than to sit in it.

After graduating from high school, Eric, whom I got to know during high school, gave me a tip about an open position at SyncMediaCom, a small web agency in Stockholm, so I applied for a the job and got it. By then I was interested in industrial and graphic design and I started out doing some design work and front end development, but as the company grew I found myself doing less design and more development. This was when I realized that I’d rather work as a programmer than as a designer.

I knew I wanted to get a degree, and in 2002 I started studying computer science at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. After a trip to Berlin in 2005 I decided to move here and in September 2006 I began to study at Technische Universität Berlin as an exchange student.

During the spring of 2007 Eric contacted me and asked me if I wanted to write my master thesis for SoundCloud and now, one year later, it’s still not finished…

• Haha, so Eric tricked you into working for SoundCloud without really mentioning it. But I guess there must have been something about the platform that appealed to you?

At first I thought I would just write my thesis for SoundCloud, but as time passed I understood that there was so much more to do and also that SoundCloud really can make an impact on how musicians work, collaborate and promote their creations. This was the first time I felt that what I did actually could make a difference to other people.

Another great thing with SoundCloud is the focus on quality and functionality, in both the big and small. There is room for being creative and at the same time the technological level is higher than I’ve ever experienced. The best of two worlds.

• Well, it’s great to have you on board! Could you explain what your coding colleagues and yourself are working on at the moment?

SoundCloud as a platform gives all the smart people the chance to build what we haven’t thought of yet. At the moment we’re developing players for MySpace, Facebook and blogs so people can share their music to the public more easily. Other stuff you could build with our API (Application Programming Interface) are desktop players, applications for uploading files and also integrating comments into instant messengers like MSN and iChat.

But I think the important aspect of this is that it’s not us at SoundCloud who decides how you want to listen or react to the music in the Cloud, but anyone who feels there is some feature we overlooked while building the site.

The possibilities are endless…

• Sounds really exciting… speaking of which, what sort of music do you like? Who are your favourite artists?

It’s a wide span. At the moment it’s mostly thrash, sludge, progressive metal and hard rock mixed with minimal techno and electronica, then add a dash of pop classics. Might sound like a weird mix, but I really think they blend well.

• That’s interesting because, currently, most of the artists on SoundCloud are House & Techno producers. Do you think SoundCloud could appeal to rock & metal musicians?

Yes, of course. I believe the way they create their music is different, but after the music has been created and recorded it’s more or less the same thing. I know of people who live in one city, go to a studio in another city to record their songs and then the mastering is done by the guy at the studio. Uploading the songs to SoundCloud makes it easier for people to work this way, having a much tighter feedback loop.

• I totally agree. Did you have the chance to discover some interesting new artists via SoundCloud?

Mesak and Snax who both did excellent performances at the SoundCloud party a month ago, even if they’re completely different acts.

The last week I’ve been listening a lot to Demir’s Vorwein set and Superd who gives me some Heimweh for Stockholm.

We’ve got something special for you this week, as you’ll get to know the new recruit at the SoundCloud HQ, programmer-extraordinaire Sean Treadway.

Born in Johannesburg, but raised in Seattle, Sean moved to Northern Europe about 8 years ago where he has been offering his programming skills to various media and web companies. He has joined the Cloud since the beginning of this year and we’re all looking forward to a fruitful relationship! Let’s now learn a bit more about Sean the don:

• Welcome Sean! We’re really glad that you’re now part of the SC crew! First of all, could you tell us why you’ve decided to work as a programmer?

When I was about 10 years old, my teacher had an old Apple ][ computer in the back of the class. I was kind of curious about the thing, and one day he taught me how to type and run the following:

10 print “magic ”
20 goto 10

The green screen lit up in pages and pages of scrolling text. Pure magic. That little program turned into more lines that eventually drew things onto the screen, then that program turned into things that drew things over a network and now to playing sound over the internet.

I love programming and love to see people benefit from using computers and the programs that run on them. It’s still magic.

• And how did you end up living in Berlin and working for the best music site ever?

About 8 years ago I took a little break from work that led me to meeting a Danish girl at the Burning Man festival. We fell for each other then, and her 3 month stay in the states was too short to find out if we were meant to share our lives together. I traded my job for a ticket to Denmark.

Over those years in Copenhagen, I established my own life as an expat, worked closely with the artists Superflex and found a taste for culture, streaming media and the internet. But the city began to feel a bit small, and I was considering New York or Berlin. About the same time, Plazes, a Berlin based web company called to ask if I was available. For the last year and a half, I helped Plazes develop its web site.

Through friends of friends, I met and got to know Eric, Alex and Hannes. Great guys with a solid sense of choosing the ’simplest things to be effective’. I really liked the value, potential, and design of SoundCloud, so I approached Eric to see if they wanted extra help.

I’m now living in Friedrichshain with my lovely girlfriend and I’m very happy here at SoundCloud. We’re laughing at least 6.28 times a day.

• So what was the actual motivation to work at SoundCloud? (apart from fame, fortune, women and a free wifi connection)

I want to help SoundCloud make people drool. I want people to think “oh, wow, can it really be THAT easy to share my music with the world?”. The technical, social, and design problems that SoundCloud must overcome are also interesting for me. The self-awareness of the creative process, the practical considerations of ownership, and the benefits of mass publishing are all new grounds which are currently shaping our reflection of culture and the music market. And SoundCloud is in a great position to offer a valuable alternative to all the makeshift methods that people use to do what they love – make music.

• On that note, what sort of music do you like the most? Who are your favourite artists?

I love beats. Overlapping, rich, psychotic, chill, syncopated beats. Aphex Twin, Autechre, Squarepusher, Boards of Canada, Mouse on Mars, etc… I like to be surprised by music so it’s not just limited to the electronic sphere, it’s anything that is playful, moving or multilayered.

• Sounds like our type of ish aswell! Have you already discovered some interesting new artists via SoundCloud?

I mostly play the hotlist and I like what I’m hearing. You’re all making great music!

• I’m sure all the Clouders will appreciate that! So, one last thing that the SC crew is dying to know about: where did you get these great pair of glasses?

There’s a little optician on Værnedamsvej in Copenhagen called “Optikken” (or something like that).  They have a great selection of all kinds of crazy frames.