I’m Daniel da Rocha. I live in Berlin with my dog, Mao.

I'm a Brazilian self-taught software developer and formally-educated architect, based in Berlin.

Son of a pair of computer scientists, I've been around computers my whole life. We always had the latest and greatest back then: XT with a red screen! CD-ROM, wow. Windows 98! It wasn't long before I dived into coding: always accompanied either by a The [insert language name here] Bible or some O'Reilly guide, I went through PHP, MySQL, Actionscript (Flash yeah!), lots of HTML, and some CSS back then. I was the first to have a website and even got a little "famous" blog and podcast back when you had to download the MP3 with iTunes and sync it with your iPod. Using cables.

Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with Architecture and decided it was to become my profession. After all, "I'll build real things, real buildings, not just online stuff." For a long time, I loved it: I worked my ass off and did pretty well in my career. And even during it all, I was always coding. It started with Maya 3D and Python scripting back in school (generative design!), followed by Grasshopper, Rhino, and more Python scripting, in practice.

In my free time, I would go deep into modern web development, going crazy with all the possibilities at my fingertips. I felt I could build anything I wanted, fast, have people using it, learn from it, and iterate. This cycle is non-existent in architecture. A project you design today might take years to be ready. By then, you'll have moved on, missing out on learning what was actually working or not for your end-user.

I wanted more of the never-ending feedback and learning cycle in my life. I wanted to have a stronger connection with people who are interacting with my work. That is why switched careers. From years in architecture, I brought all I learned into tech. And kept on building. Because "online stuff" turned out to be quite important, after all.