Alex Castillo
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castillo.io
Alex Castillo
@castillo.io
Left Netflix to start Neurosity. I share about the brain, computers, and brain-computer interfaces.
I saw a post the other day where some dude got 200Mbps on a plane via Starlink.

The future we’ve all been waiting for.
May 12, 2023 at 1:09 AM
For sure! It’s one of the things I vet for when interviewing candidates for my team.
May 11, 2023 at 4:50 PM
Thank you, you really get it 🙏🏽
May 11, 2023 at 4:49 PM
Thank you, Jamon.

I was afraid people would label this as toxic and lacks work-life balance, and whatnot.

But I truly believe in doing what you love as much as you want as long as it is healthy and fulfills you.
May 11, 2023 at 3:54 PM
I went with X’s app.

This was the first time in my life that I felt a sense of belonging at work.

I was no longer the only person who cared.

Right then, I knew I only wanted to work with people like that.
May 11, 2023 at 2:31 PM
X’s app was built with React + Redux.

I was waiting for my manager to decide which app would make it to prod, but he didn’t, instead he said:

This was going to be your first assignment, so the decision is yours. Use your judgment.
May 11, 2023 at 2:31 PM
Did you see the new app that X built?

I was in disbelief, my other teammate had the same idea I had, and rebuilt the app from scratch as well.

I told my manager:

You’re kidding, right? Because I also rewrote the app.

It was true. We had two new app rewrites.
May 11, 2023 at 2:31 PM
Many lines of code and a few GrubHubs later I finished the app. I was done by Monday at 8am. Just enough time to shower and walk to the office.

I was pumped to tell the team I just saved the day. As I was walking to my desk when my manager said with excitement:
May 11, 2023 at 2:30 PM
I didn’t have the full context on the app but I read the whole codebase until I got a grasp on how everything was wired up.

I decided to use Angular 2 aka “Just Angular” which had come out a few months prior.
May 11, 2023 at 2:28 PM
“Fuck it - I’m gonna rebuild the whole app this weekend”.

I wanted to impress my team. Show what I was capable of.

The old app was an old AngularJS codebase.
May 11, 2023 at 2:27 PM
This issue was disrupting the Netflix certification process.

It was a big deal.

The team decided to regroup on Monday and figure out a solution.

I went home and couldn’t stop thinking about it. Until I thought:
May 11, 2023 at 2:27 PM
TVs, Setup boxes, phones, tablets, you name it.

That friday, we had just found out that a legacy app we inherited from a previous team was broken and we could no longer run the UI locally nor deploy a fix for it. We were stuck.
May 11, 2023 at 2:26 PM
Let’s call one of my teammates X to keep his name private. This will be important later.

Anyways, we were responsible for many apps and microservices that power the engine that enables Netflix to be installed on the thousands of devices we all enjoy using Netflix on:
May 11, 2023 at 2:26 PM
Check out:

“How not to be wrong” by Jordan Ellenberg
May 9, 2023 at 2:06 PM
It’s a brilliant model.
April 29, 2023 at 12:26 AM
Yeah, and it’s gonna get crazier once this gets adopted across the board.
April 27, 2023 at 11:37 PM
Yes, please 🙏🏽
April 27, 2023 at 6:30 PM
What a paradise
April 25, 2023 at 8:16 PM