Primitive Employee Spotlight: Elie Andraos

Name: Elie Andraos

Position: Product Architect

Location: Lebanon

Job Description: I research, architect and write web softwares.

Tell me a little bit about your background. 

I was born and raised in Lebanon, a very small country located in a messed up region called the Middle East. Growing up, I barely liked to study. My grades were always “meh” and my passion was mainly for basketball and music. I studied classical piano for nine years and played basketball for about 15 years (school, local clubs, with friends, etc.). I also taught myself the 

English language beginning around age 13 through music, movie subtitles, and using the PC.

How did you find Primitive?
Believe it or not, I found Primitive by a random tweet from one of Primitive’s previous employees. He tweeted that his company needed a Laravel/vuejs dev, so I DM’ed him and now here I am.

What are your favorite parts of your job?
Unlike many thinkers (even developers), I find my job very creative and artistic as opposed to just hard-core coding. Proof to that, you can probably have 10 developers deliver the same functioning piece of software, yet I am absolutely sure that none of the codebases will be 100% similar to the other.

Moreover, the market is global (not limited geographically to any place) and not limited to one kind of client. You can create and sell products to doctors, marketing people, businessmen, engineers, media people, heck, even my mother.

What are some challenges you’ve faced since starting with Primitive?

Honestly, nothing major. Everything has been smooth since day one. However, if I had to say one thing, it might be working remotely with an 8 hour time zone difference.

Up to this day, I don’t know everyone at Primitive or their roles.

Okay, now let’s talk more about you. What’s your daily routine?
I am not a morning person at all. (The time zone difference serves me well here.)

I wake up around 9:30 -10 a.m., have a giant cup of coffee and usually some fruit for breakfast. At this time I’ll check all the Slack messages/emails/announcements that happened when I was asleep. 

Then I have two to three hours of full-focused, deep work, followed by lunch, coffee again, another two to three hours of deep work, coffee again and end it with a team Zoom call. 

What do you like to do outside of the office?
During my younger years, it was always going out and meeting new people. 

Nowadays, I just like to spend time with my nephews/family, or have a getaway weekend in the mountains or at the beach. I’m really not as much into the city as I used to be. 

What is something not everyone knows about you? 

I find it hard to read books (if it’s not coding books) and I am a heavy smoker.

Who do you admire?
Because I live in a country divided by sects, religion, and so much more (stemming far beyond before I was born), I admire anyone who preaches peace, love, and freedom of thoughts regardless of race, religions, color, sex, etc.

How do you stay motivated?
Short-term goals. 

Achieve one and plan the next one. I live by that in both my professional and personal life.

What’s your secret to success?
Adapting to changes. Once you adapt, you can plan and think clearly. Then everything falls into place.

If you could have dinner with anyone in the world, who would it be and why?

The late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., because even up to this day, humanity still needs men like him in every corner around the world.