A couple months back Fi posted an entry calling out to all Interactive Gurus. After evaluating the numerous submissions we received we were fortunate to have found our latest gem, Jens Fischer. 

Born in Germany in 1982 Jens is joining Fi as a Senior Interactive Developer. For the last couple of years he has worked at Firstborn, where he was a Lead Developer and in charge of the “Group Therapy” presentations. For more information about those sessions you can either read the FWA Article he wrote or watch this video of Fi’s own first “Group Therapy”. He also spoke at the FITC conference in Toronto this year.

We are currently looking to further grow our interactive developer and design teams and are accepting applications here.

Please join us in getting to know Jens a bit more and find out what goes on in the mind of our most recent import.

How did you end up working with design/development?
I had a life changing moment, when I was around eleven years old and my parents got me my first PC – a very impressive, state of the art 386 SX. Since then I’ve been fascinated with the digital world – especially interface and interaction design. I put my first website online with MS FrontPage at the age of 15 (it was terrible beyond words) and soon after that I created my first Flash timeline animation – without knowing of motion tweens, duplicating and altering things frame by frame. After graduating from school I studied communication design with the major “interactive media” and then came to New York to become part of the lucky group of people in this world, who are able to earn their living with what they love doing most.

What makes a good interactive developer?
First of all I strongly believe, that no matter what you do: having the right mindset is the first step. And with this I mean the will to work as hard as you can on something in order to excel at it. Talent is only half the rent, if not even less. In the end it comes all down to: “When there’s a will, there’s always a way”. Now, to be a bit more specific: As an interactive developer you have to be somewhat of a Jack of all Trades. Drawing wireframes, editing videos in After Effects, accessing a Linux Console remotely via Putty, keeping up on latest design standards while also keeping an eye on the latest frameworks, it goes on and on and it’s all part of the job description. To me this multidisciplinarity is the best part of it all though: I can be sure my job will never get boring.

If you could be a superhero, who would it be and why? 

I often tend to over think things, so here are the 3 superheroes I would pick as an answer based on the specific situation I’m in when you ask me.

If you ask me while I’m working, I’ll answer that I wish I were Flash. Not just because that’s the name of the software I like to use the most, but because I would be able to code and learn things at the speed of light. Finally I would be able to do everything on my huge list of things I want to learn, try out and experiment with.

Now if you ask me early in the morning before I had my morning coffee or for example when I hear client requests that obviously don’t make sense (“We don’t know what we want the website to be about, but we want Twitter and facebook”) then I kind of feel a little bit of the Hulk in me, wanting to rip my shirt in half and go and smash and break things.

If you’d ask me while discussing philosophy over a beer though, then my answer would probably be Superman. The thing that’s the most intriguing about Superman (apart from the fact that he’s a grown man wearing tights in public of course) is that he’s always Superman. Other heroes are normal people who at some point have a freak incident and then put on a mask to become a superhero. With superman it’s the other way around. He is always Superman, he was born this way. He puts on a mask to become Clark Kent, he needs a mask to be normal.

Which of your past projects are you most proud of?
That would have to be “National Grid Floe”. It was my first Actionscript 3 project, when I just had been hired by firstborn, who threw me into the cold water by making me the Lead Developer for this. In the end the code could have been a bit cleaner, and there’s a button or two without rollover state, but within an extremely short timeline we made an awesome website. I played a big part in creating the concept for this site and am proud that it achieves a really nice balance between being informative and entertaining, always keeping the user involved and interacting with the site.

Who has had the most impact on your professional career?
If I’m allowed to pick multiple persons I’d have to say that without my co-workers I wouldn’t be where I am right now. In the end everything we do is a team effort and I have been fortunate enough to work alongside some of the top tier people in the industry. They inspired me and contributed to my growth, each in their own way. I am looking forward to work with a new set of people at Fi now and to be inspired and inspire others in the same way. 

Why did you choose Fi?
Very simple: Attention to detail. It doesn’t matter if it’s websites, mobile apps, e-mails, client calls, blog posts, etc… No matter what it is, if it leaves the house, you can be sure that it lives up to the Fi quality standard.

What three things can you NOT live without?
In the order of importance: my fiancée Maria, a computer with internet access and coffee. 

Thanks Jens!