We have now had the pleasure of working with Bjørn for 20 years, so it seemed like an ideal opportunity to ask him to look back over the last two decades.

Bjørn first discovered APL when Gitte Christensen and Morten Kromberg invited him to participate in an APL course; he also used it in a few courses during his civil engineering degree.

Over the last two decades, Dyalog Ltd has grown from 8 employees to almost 30, has embraced evolving technology and trends, become a more geographically-distributed company with employees across multiple timezones, and seen a change of CEO. However, the combination of freedom and responsibility that Bjørn enjoys has not changed in this time. This has helped him in his role creating interfaces from APL to other APLs – more generally, developing tools that are not written in APL. For example, he wrote an interface from APL to ODBC so that APL user can access SQL databases. Bjørn derives great satisfaction from providing tools that customers need. His proudest achievement is the creation of Conga, Dyalog’s framework for TCP/IP communications (most new applications uses Conga directly or indirectly through other tools). There have been challenges too, such as developing his cryptography skills to a sufficient level to help colleagues and customers, but he has found that good spirits and persistence usually prevail in such situations.

Bjørn’s motivation at work remains his enjoyment in solving interesting problems and helping others. As he states, “I really like helping the customers”! He intends to continue in this role, although is now reducing his hours so that he can spend more time doing the things that he enjoys outside work, such as sailing in the summer and badminton in the winter. He’s also a very good dancer – his tango is legendary amongst his colleagues!

Bjørn is looking forward to many more years of serving Dyalog Ltd’s customers.

[Editor’s note: Morten started at the same time as Bjørn – his retrospective on how Dyalog Ltd and Dyalog have evolved since then will be published soon.]

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Mike is marking his first year at Dyalog Ltd, so we asked him to reflect on his experiences and the journey so far.

Before joining Dyalog Ltd, Mike spent nearly a decade at Optima Systems in Crawley, West Sussex. Optima’s long-standing relationship with Dyalog Ltd meant that Mike was already familiar with many of the people and had even visited our Bramley office on several occasions. At Optima Systems, Mike’s primary role was in website design, where he developed several iterations of the company website. His responsibilities also extended to handling graphic design needs, SEO, social media, website hosting, email signatures, and print work. This was for both internal needs and clients requirements.

Mike’s introduction to being a member of Team Dyalog was rather intense, as he was thrust straight into Dyalog ’23 (the annual user meeting) in Elsinore, Denmark. He had previously attended Dyalog ’16 as a delegate, but this time he experienced it from the perspective of a Team Dyalog member! For Mike, the chance to spend time in Denmark and meet his new colleagues in person was invaluable, as for him online meetings can’t replicate the real-life connection. With his previous experience working alongside Dyalog Ltd in his former role, the transition was smoother and less scary than it might have been.

Mike has embraced the company culture. He finds the environment at Dyalog Ltd relaxed and collaborative, with a strong drive for success and a commitment to doing things properly that resonates throughout the company. The diversity of the team, with employees from various parts of the world, adds to the richness of the working environment, something Mike finds particularly interesting. The opportunity to travel, both for user meetings and internal meetings, has been a new and welcome experience for him.

Design remains Mike’s true passion, and his role at Dyalog Ltd allows him to indulge in this while also delving deeper into marketing. Although he had touched on marketing aspects at Optima Systems, he now has the chance to truly engage with it and bring his creative ideas to life. Good design remains his primary focus, but branding is another area that captivates him, and he’s eager to contribute to Dyalog Ltd’s success through his expertise.

When not working, Mike enjoys spending time at a local cinema that specialises in screening older films and titles not typically found in larger venues (the last one being the 1974 film The Conversation). Alongside his wife, who is from Canada, he also enjoys exploring cathedral cities, galleries, and museums. At home, Mike is an avid computer gamer and finds joy in playing with their two new cats, Esther and Edie.

During his first year at Dyalog Ltd, Mike has been involved in several key projects. He built the website for the new APL Forge competition and is eager to continue refining and expanding its reach. He also played a significant role in the rebranding and redesign of the website for the APL Challenge. Another major project has been developing a new company website, which is work that he began while still at Optima Systems. He’s also spent considerable time refining Dyalog Ltd’s branding, and is pleased with the results so far. His work in social media has seen him create images for various platforms, and he has ambitious plans to overhaul the company’s YouTube channels, aiming for a fully optimised and visually cohesive presence.

Reflecting on his first year, Mike says, “My experiences at Dyalog Ltd so far have been exciting, challenging, and at times stressful, but never dull. I believe I’ve joined the company at a very interesting point in its history, especially with Stine recently taking over as CEO. I love the travel opportunities and how engaged everyone is in pushing forward. I feel that I add value in ways that perhaps weren’t there before, and I’m eager to lift the company in any way I can. From designing a single icon to rebranding an entire competition, I believe I can make an important and lasting mark.”.

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It has been a year since Abs joined Dyalog Ltd, and we asked him to look back over his first twelve months and his experiences so far.

“A whole year? The time has flown by! It has been an intense journey with a steep yet rewarding learning curve so far, but I can’t wait to see where it takes me.”

Abs joined Dyalog Ltd when the IT workload was at a peak due to the company’s growth. “Andy and Jason have been phenomenal in giving me the support and guidance I needed to make me feel like a part of the team. I have mainly been helping them to deal with day-to-day IT needs, such as setting up machines for new colleagues, dealing with queries and fulfilling colleagues requests, and configuring and general housekeeping of our servers and systems. This keeps me busy for a typical working day, but I have also been helping to implement some long-term plans involving Microsoft 365 that will shape the way we work, and, as Andy puts it, ‘pretty much anything else that needs to be done that no one else is able to do’! I like this description as I like to help wherever I can, even if it’s not in my area of expertise; learning about the subject and providing a solution feels super rewarding and motivating.”

Abs’ first few months were intense, as he found that there was a huge amount of information to absorb, but by committing himself and trying to become familiar with everything that IT uses to keep Dyalog Ltd going technically, Abs has become more confident in tackling issues that come his way. “I have also been making an effort to learn APL through weekly sessions with Adám. I often find myself naturally coming across APL when I work, so it’s important that I can understand the fundamentals. These sessions have been incredibly helpful in grasping the key concepts that make APL different and stand out from other languages, and it’s fun taking a deep dive into the product that we are all so passionate about.”.

When not working, Abs likes to play the guitar, travel, and enjoy the company and conversation of his friends. He stays active by playing badminton, and tries to visit the gym a few times a week.

“Overall, I have really enjoyed my first year with Dyalog Ltd. I really respect and admire my colleagues, and it fills me with pride to help fix their problems and make their lives easier (I hope!). You can tell everyone cares about the work we do and, more importantly, each other. You are treated as a person first and employee second, and that motivates me to do the best job I can.”

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It’s been a year since Aarush joined us, and we asked him to look back over his first twelve months.

Aarush joined Dyalog Ltd after studying at VIT Vellore in India, where he received a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering. Forgoing his college placements in pursuit of working on the nitty-gritty of programming languages, Aarush found APL. The idea that if you can do mathematics with symbols, you can program with symbols as well, was something that Aarush found “legen-wait-for-it-dary”.

Most days, Aarush is involved with testing Dyalog, focusing on testing the primitives of the language with the test suite he created – ullu. The main objectives of ullu are to test the functionality of Dyalog’s primitives and enhance code coverage to ensure that users get the best quality code possible. Currently, ullu covers 10 primitives, and he’s working on extending this to cover more (all the rest of them!). A huge achievement in Aarush’s first year has been increasing code coverage, bringing many of the 10 primitives that he’s worked on so far to almost 100% coverage. He’s very excited to work on the interpreter, and is looking forward to running some experiments to investigate the merits of a proposal that might speed up Dyalog’s memory management system.

Apart from work, Aarush likes to travel. “Flights are cool but I still think the best way to explore a place is by walk or a road trip”. If it is accessible by foot, he’s likely to suggest walking there, often underestimating the amount of time and effort it might take (much to the chagrin of his friends). When not travelling, he enjoys watching F1, making and tasting new types of coffee, and playing his guitar.

As for Dyalog Ltd’s famous duck collection, Aarush’s favorite duck in the office is not one of the ones in the ducks-only bookcase, but rather one that’s in the kitchen – it’s the scrubbing brush! He thinks this is not only adorable but also very functional as a dish scrubber.

“Dyalog is the perfect fit for me as a workplace” he says. “I always imagined myself working at a company that is passionate about what they’re making and part of a team that is very close-knit, like a family. I can’t wait to build more and learn more with all the folks at Dyalog”.

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About to ski down to the fjord in Norway’s Sunnmøre Alps

It’s now one year since Stefan joined Dyalog Ltd, and we asked him what he made of the experience so far. “I can’t believe how time flies. It feels like it was only yesterday I arrived at the Bramley office for the first time, to pick up my laptop and meet everyone.”

Prior to joining us, Stefan worked for IBM, where he discovered APL more or less by accident. “Coming from a huge, anonymous mega-corp, it’s a welcome change being able to actually get to know the whole company,” Stefan continues. “Here, of course people have their particular core areas, but everyone gets stuck in with a little bit of everything.”

Stefan takes a particular interest in the Mac platform, as he is a life-long, unapologetic Apple user. Everywhere else he’s worked (especially at IBM, inventor of the PC), developers demand Apple hardware, so he was surprised to find that at Dyalog Ltd, that’s more unusual.

Epic powder day in Italy’s Courmayeur

Outside work, Stefan likes the adventurous side of the great outdoors. He spent many years rock climbing home and abroad, until chronic elbow tendinitis forced a stop to that. Back country skiing is another hobby, and he tends to take all his vacation days in winter. “Living aboard a boat in Svalbard, skiing with a rifle to ward against polar bears was a bucket list experience”, he says. “Sampling the famous japow and live volcanos on Hokkaido, and ticking couloirs in Canada’s Purcells range is up there, too.” Stefan rides bikes to keep fit, and his garage has accumulated far too many bikes over the years.

“Dyalog is my dream gig,” he says. “I always wanted to work for a company where the people really care for the product they make.”

Top of the Grandpa Peabody boulder in The Buttermilks, Bishop, California

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This week marks one year since Jada joined Dyalog Ltd, and we asked her about her experiences thus far.

“It’s truly been a whirlwind of a year. I don’t know where the time has gone! It’s been intense, but in the best way possible. I’ve been able to get a feel for everything that being a part of Team Dyalog involves in a very short amount of time, from my first user meeting (Dyalog ’23) to my first product release (Dyalog v19.0). It’s been a steep, but fun learning curve.”

Jada joined us when it became apparent that the administrative needs of the company were growing. She was tasked with taking on some of the jobs that were being done by the Karen and Stine (then the Financial Officer). However, Jada was familiar with Team Dyalog even before she joined, as she had previously attended Dyalog ’19, Dyalog ’22, and various Dyalog internal events as a guest of her partner, Rich Park. Through Rich, Jada was introduced to Dyalog and the world of array programming. “I’ll be honest, a lot of the technical stuff does not yet make sense to me. But that just means there’s so much still to learn, which keeps my work life very interesting. Seeing others try to understand APL code reminds me of Derrida’s views on language, intention, and the need for deconstruction.”

Jada’s daily routine has begun to take shape. “Initially, I had so much to learn, it was rather daunting. From our products/services, our customers, my colleagues, the history of the company, to my actual job…I could go on! But all that initial familiarisation work was worth it, and I had plenty of support along the way.”

So, what does Jada actually do? “Well, think of all the things you need to do to run a business. That’s what I do. I help wherever I can. I deal with office maintenance, renewals for licences, billing, sales of physical products (books, APL keyboards), contract reviews, and all things compliance. I’m also an Apprentice Cat Herder – luckily, I’m learning from the best! Karen has really been my rock this year. She’s one of the most thorough and competent professionals I’ve ever met. I’m hoping to continue to learn a lot from her and Stine.”

Jada also enjoys her life outside work. “I like to read (fiction and Japanese manga), love going for long walks and the occasional run in the woods, and canoeing the Thames with Rich. I always enjoy a good night out as well – gigs, bars, and dancefloors call my name! My latest hobby has been learning to play bass guitar. I’ve got no immediate plans to sell out Wembley, but it’s fulfilling to set my sights on a piece, learn it bar by bar, and gradually improve and gain muscle memory. It can be frustrating at times, but practising is so much fun. My rhythm has improved a lot too.”

Overall, Jada has really enjoyed her first year with us. “I’m so grateful to be here. You see a lot of corporate speak about ‘family’ to distract from poor business practices, but not at Dyalog Ltd. Although this is a company, the heart and soul are the people behind it and the community around us. We’re real, we care, we listen. There’s no apathy or shilling. The passion for Dyalog is infectious. My colleagues’ hard work, meticulousness, and honesty motivate me to apply those qualities to my own work. When I work hard and produce quality work, it’s recognised and that makes me feel valued. I couldn’t ask for a better job with better people.”

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