Who am I?

My name is Emilio Ziniades. I am a South African. I was born in Johannesburg and live in Cape Town. I studied an undergraduate degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, followed by an honours degree in Economics, at the University of Cape Town. I graduated in 2019. I am a software developer. You can find my full resume here.

What do I do?

Being in lockdown shortly after graduating gave me the space I needed to explore computers and programming languages, with which I had always been fascinated.

I learnt Python from an amalgam of textbooks, online courses, documentation and YouTube videos. My exploration then spread to a variety of other topics and programming languages. Then, I realized how little I knew about computer science concepts such as Big-O notation, algorithms and data structures, and so I tried to combine practical projects with theoretical study.

During my time at the University of Cape Town, I worked as a teaching assistant in the Economics and Philosophy departments. Then, I worked as a freelancer, tutoring university and high school students. At some point, I also began to pick up some freelance programming jobs. This gave me the experience I needed to get my first full-time job as a software developer.

What am I interested in?

Coming from an economics background, one of my interests is data analysis.

I have also learnt a lot about cryptocurrencies. It became apparent to me that cryptocurrencies represent the merging of economics and computer science. Growing up in South Africa, I am very sensitive to social and economic inequality, and this perspective informs my approach to cryptocurrencies. Whilst they have enormous potential, I also recognize the very real risks of wealth concentration that exist.

More recently, I have become interested in the world of open-source software. As a frequent user of open-source software, I became interested in contributing back to the software that I use. You can see some of my contributions here.

Maybe we could work together?

Although I am currently happily employed, I am also always on the lookout for new opportunities. I am open to remote work.

If you are interested, please do contact me.