Welcome Titouan and Tim 

A New Chapter Begins at Mind 

About ten years ago, Tim began his studies in Applied Computer Science at KHLeuven and lives in Etterbeek but grew up in Leuven. After graduating, he worked at Ernst & Young, where he was involved in consulting and finance projects. His focus was on penetration testing high-level software, mostly web applications. However, Tim wanted to deepen his knowledge in more low-level topics, which led him to pursue a second bachelor’s degree in Electronics at Thomas More. After that, he transitioned into working with embedded systems. Tim got to know Mind through friends and his interest in the open-source community. Today, he is primarily focused on embedded development. 

Titouan lives in Brussels and commutes to Leuven by bike and train. He did his  Bachelor and Master in Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). During his studies, he worked at Railnova as student, where he focused on developing small computers used in trains across Europe, specifically systems located inside the locomotive. After graduating, he continued working at Railnova full-time before moving to Scortex, a startup company in Paris. There, he worked on specialized camera technology related to detecting non-compliance defects, utilizing Python extensively. Titouan became familiar with Mind through the Buildroot dev meetings back in his days at Railnova and is now happy to be a part of it.

 -Can you tell us a bit about your responsibilities?

Tim

At the moment, I’m on the bench, which means I’m not currently assigned to a specific project. During this time, I’m using the opportunity to train myself and experiment with a Doom port. I’m also working on writing an article about it for a technical blog. I’m really curious about the job and eager to learn more about embedded systems and programming because I want to deepen my professional knowledge.

Titouan

I’m currently on the bench as well, working alongside Thomas on the Long-Term Support (LTS) version of Buildroot, reviewing security fixes and improving the tooling for LTS maintenance. I’m also learning new tools such as Yocto or OpenAMP, and I am developing a MIDI2-UDP stack for Zephyr (which I am going to speak about at the OSS-EU in Amsterdam in August)

-What’s the best thing about your job?

Tim 

From a work perspective, I don’t have a full opinion yet since I’m still getting started. However, everyone here has been very helpful, kind, and the team is great. The way they treat me feels very welcoming. My buddy, Maarten, helps me whenever I have any kind of question, and I think that’s a really good system.

Titouan

The best thing about the job is definitely working with open-source projects! Also, the people here are really helpful and friendly. My buddy, Thomas, supports me whenever I need help, which I really appreciate. 

-Which things are on your bucket list – what do you absolutely want to have done?

Tim

I don’t have very specific goals, but traveling is definitely something I’d like to do for example, visiting Thailand. Although, right now, it is a bit challenging because I’m not a big fan of flying or spending long hours on a plane. But hopefully I can visit it one day. Professionally, I’m keeping an open mind and just seeing where the future takes me!

Titouan

Professionally, when I first started with open source, many people helped me along the way, and I want to be that person for others in the future. Helping young people with anything related to embedded systems, whether it’s Zephyr, Linux or the kernel. I would love that. 

On a personal level, I’m passionate about trains and I like cheese, so one day I hope to take the “Fondue“ train in Switzerland, that would be a dream. 

-What do you do in your free time? 

Tim

I enjoy going on long hikes with my dog, it’s a very active dog: a Border Collie crossing with a Golden Retriever. Usually, I spend about three hours walking each day, broken up throughout the day, so like 1 hour in the morning and two in the evening. I also like cooking, especially trying out new recipes and preparing fresh dishes like lasagna and pizza. Another hobby of mine is playing Runecape, an old-school game I really enjoy.

Titouan

I enjoy biking around in Brussels and the Brabant region and cooking. I also like hacking on Zephyr whenever I get the chance. Music is a big passion of mine, when I was younger, I studied piano and also learned guitar with a friend. I’d really like to get back to it more often, though I haven’t had much time lately. I’m into metal music these days, and I’ve also produced some drum’n bass.