Hello!

Why I'm here

I chose Saint John, as many before me: the Wolastoqiyik, the French, the Loyalists. It has unreplicable geographic features: the solid rock, the high flow river, the ocean, the surrounding forests. But I fell in love with the historic buildings and the community.

The city has many things going for it: the UNB campus, the hospital, the Aquatic Center, Rockwood Park, the Imperial Theatre, a decent public transit network. Full AP program at Saint Max, IB at Saint John High. When it comes to services, Saint John punches above its weight.

Where I come from

I was born in Hungary. I was raised in a three-generation household, by engineers and scientists.

Our family's history is one of new beginnings. My ancestors migrated from Germany to Budapest. Weathered both world wars just to lose the family fortune to nationalization. I was six when the Iron Curtain fell, and our three generation household moved from an apartment to a single family home. We relocated to Manosque for my middle school years. But returned to Budapest. Throughout my career I worked in Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, before making the big jump to Toronto.

Throughout more than a century of turbulence, one thing was constant in our family. The pursuit of knowledge. Our family gave the world a composer, many scientists, an architect, business men, engineers. All excellent in their fields.

What I bring

...I'm not one of them. I'm a software engineer by trade. A good one - good enough for Ericsson, Coursera, Amazon -, but not an exceptional one. My passion is understanding people and solving their problems. My interests span much wider than what any regular job could fill.

I feel lucky that I chose software engineering. Because the strong mathematical and logical foundation, paired with formal training in sciences allows me to approach and try to understand many systems outside of the narrow field of software.

Modern agile work environments also provided me with a toolkit that helps tackle any problem methodically. Defining the scope, identifying the target metrics, modelling, prototyping, then iterating over a solution while measuring and evaluating. It also helps me think in structures. Interfaces, data structures, contracts. Break down bigger problems into smaller chunks, find logical dependencies, eliminate unnecessary couplings. All useful tools when dealing with complex requirements and systems.

I learned that:

• The stated problem is rarely the real problem. I have to dig down to the root cause through provable causal links.
• Data lies.
• The most efficient system is the one that you don't build.
• Maintenance kills projects.

These principles can be applied to different fields.

Outside the campaign

I'm a proud father of two. A good enough husband. The baker of the best pizza - according to a captive audience. We live on Duke Street, Uptown (or South End, depending on whether there's a real estate listing or a shooting). Over the course of this campaign, I've been spending time with the people and organizations already doing the hard work in Saint John: shelters, food banks, community centres, neighbourhood groups. However the vote turns out on May 11, I want to keep working for the community.

If any of that resonates. Let's get in touch or share what's on your mind.