Fun Friday: Meet Daniel Bornkessel

This Friday, we’re saying hello to Daniel Bornkessel, a new addition to the backend development team. Learn all about him below:

How are you?
Fantastic: First day in the year I could bike to work without the need of a jacket (and gloves and all the other winter-crap).

Where are you from? How’d you end up here in Berlin?
I am from the world famous “Sauerland”, a very rural, low mountain range area in the middle-west of Germany (for our beer experts: close to the Warsteiner/Veltins/Krombacher breweries ;) ). After a 10-year detour over Bavaria (Nuernberg / Erlangen) and several stops in other countries for internships and jobs, I finally ended up in Berlin, which I think is currently one of the best cities I could imagine myself living in, it even ceased my ambition to go abroad again.

What’s your role here and what do you enjoy about it?
I am a backend developer and currently work in a team whose name is a moving target: Depending on unpredictable rules we call it “Internal Tools” / “Content Team” or “Admin Team”, we are still figuring that part out. We do all kinds of things, most of them not directly visible on the main SoundCloud page.

I enjoy the use of very edgy technologies and the Start-Up-ish pragmatics: Teams can organize themselves as they wish and don’t have to follow specific policies that would slow down the solution of the current problem you are working on.

Do you have any tracks you’re currently into on the ‘Cloud?
I eagerly wait for any new tracks of the new Smashing Pumpkins TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE… well … “album?”

Furthermore I like to listen to stuff done by GMM …he seems to be quite crazy and does some fun mixing.

Apart from that, I like almost every kind of music, browse around and listen to different stuff.

One/two/three reasons why someone should join SoundCloud?
Sure, easy one: Great and very smart people, great product, great community all combined with a very international atmosphere and all the normal fun stuff of a small startup … it’s a company you really like to identify yourself with — and by the number of SoundCloud-Stickers everybody here puts on his laptops, bags, etc. it seems that everybody else sees it the same way.

Do you have any fun facts we should know about?
I seriously love to eat. Good quality food of course but also simple stuff (bread + something), fast food, junk food, fruits, salads, soups — mostly everything apart from cucumbers … if I am out to eat and I don’t like the food I get really, really grumpy (ask my girlfriend about it :) )

As I use “kesselborn” as my username in most services, a lot of people don’t know whether my real surname is “bornkessel” or “kesselborn” … in my last company I even had both email addresses.

Thanks, Daniel! Feel free to follow him on Twitter (@kesselborn) and/or SoundCloud.