Interview with Alexander "Salle" Keremidarski

Alexander "Salle" Keremidarski is one of MySQL's Support Engineers and Support Group Manager.

What specific tasks are you responsible for? Perhaps you can give an example, to give our readers more insight into your work.

Salle: I handle customer support cases and bugs, as part of the world wide support team.. Examples:

A customer wants to know how to optimize specific query. We walk with him through the details about table structure and MySQL settings and find possible solution which can include one or all of:

• Rewriting the query
• Restructuring the tables
• Tuning server parameters

A customer reports about crashing MySQL. I ask several questions to clarify the details and if the problem is with the MySQL installation and settings I give an advice on how the problem can be resolved. Otherwise if it's caused by a bug I investigate it, prepare a repeatable test case, report it into bugs database [bugs.mysql.com, it's public] and let the customer know when the developers are fixing it.

What job that you were involved with are you most proud of?

Happy customer quotes :)

Please tell us a bit more about yourself?

I am 40 (or to be precise, I was born in 1964). I live in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. I never relocated to another place. Working at home, my working place is just next to the dinner table which I am planning to change very soon.

And how do you like your working environment?

Doing this type of support I don't travel a lot so I am mostly at home. Working at home is a big advantage and disadvantage at the same time. There are various challenges, but the opportunity to work with people from all around the world is fantastic.

What do you do outside working hours?

Most important in my life is my 5 year old daughter. I try to spend as much time as I can with my family. Among my "hobbies" are playing bridge, playing classical guitar, bike riding, skiing, assembling aircraft models, and more. Unfortunately I don't find enough time for most of them. My favorite way of spending holidays is mountain trekking.

How long have you been with the company, and how did you join?

Since March 2002. My first contacts were with Jeremy Cole, Indrek Siitan and... Arjen Lentz. We talked almost everyday on IRC [#mysql channel on EFnet and freenode] since about 1998. I also wrote occasionally on the MySQL mailing list where I had some discussions with the developers including Monty himself.

And why did you want to work for MySQL AB, specifically?

I was dreaming about working for MySQL, because I liked the product. Because MySQL already helped me to earn some money during earlier years and I was feeling like I must contribute to its success too. I wanted a better job, but would never agree to relocate and the virtual team gives me exactly this combination. I have been Open Source minded long before it was defined like it is nowadays. (I believe that the knowledge, ideas, inventions are public domain and must be free of charge. Therefore I disagree with the patents in principle. Not only with software patents.) It is extremely interesting job with which I need to learn new things every single day.

Tell us some more about your use of MySQL before joining the company?

I began using MySQL in early 1997 while seeking for an Linux friendly alternative to Oracle. I was coming from Oracle world, but in year 1997 there was no Oracle for Linux and that is how I tried MySQL. I loved it since the very beginning and never considered looking back. The version was 3.22.something, but soon I switched to 3.23.x-alpha. I submitted a few feature requests ;-)

You are also quite active within the Open Source Community, right?

I am well known among the local MySQL, PHP and Open Source community... well, at least what some of people in Bulgaria say :) I often participate at http://clubs.dir.bg/postlist.php?Cat=8&Board=database and http://linux-bg.org/ (Both sites are in bulgarian only, sorry - do ask for more details if you wish) and at almost all events of http://fsa-bg.org/bin/view.cgi/Fsasite/WebHomeEn

Finally, can you provide me with at a photo of yourself, outside of your work environment?

I have to ask my friends for one ... I don't take much photos of myself you know.