The Humans of smrtPhone

Our “smrtie of the Month” is an eclectic team player, who has DJed, played basketball, written code, and wants to help his community how ever he can!

Name

Bogdan Teodorescu

Title / Role in the Company

I am a DevOps Engineer. I take care of the infrastructure of everything that we have behind the scenes. I help implement new things into smrtPhone that advance our systems and help us manage them such as security frameworks, monitoring tools, and data management. 

How long have you worked for smrtPhone?

I started working with Vlad (CTO) 5 years ago, but this current smrtPhone infrastructure project kicked off in September of 2023. That is when I put all of my focus into this area. I took it on because I wanted to learn more and gain skills. In the last year, I saw a huge increase in my knowledge and capabilities, and it’s been life changing. 

What’s your background? 

How I ended up here is a funny story. It doesn’t have anything to do with school in general.

I was at a sports university for basketball. At university we practiced and learned all of the sports: football, handball, skiing, snowboarding, everything. These were our courses for 3 years. I enjoyed it but in the end, I found out I was qualified really only to be a teacher. It wasn’t my plan to be a teacher, so I started a second university for business administration. In total, it was 6 years of school.

During that time, I was a cashier at a store. I was a support rep in a call center. I worked in a telecommunication company. And after that I was an IT administrator for a long time at Superland, a giant indoor playground for kids. It’s a really big facility – 9000 sq meters! 

After that, my friends brought me to REIvolution and I started learning programming. First by myself, and then with on-the-job training in the company along with Adi and Ovi (Co-Heads of Development at smrtPhone). 5 years ago was my true start with the developer part of my career. 

What was your first job? 

When I was 15 my first job was as a party DJ. I have done a lot of things that have nothing in common with my school or my job now!

What do you like about working for smrtPhone? 

Everything. Because I have the opportunity to increase my knowledge and at the same time I have the chance to work with new technology. I explore a lot of new technology, and it’s fascinating and expands my world.

I also enjoy the schedule and my colleagues. It’s not only about my work and my growth, it’s about the community. This is not a company like any other company where you only go to the job at 8am and you finish at 5pm every day and that’s it. It’s with you. It’s about the feeling, the energy, the vibes. It’s a lifestyle.

Describe smrtPhone in 3 words: 

Innovation. Lifestyle. Beautiful community.

Is there a particular moment/project at smrtPhone that stands out and makes you feel proud?  

Yes! Just a few days ago. We were working on the data project. It’s not a single feature, it’s an entire project to break open how we use and transfer data throughout the company. In my part of this project, I changed everything with two lines of code and the impact was incredible. 

Let me try to explain it further: last week, we had a maximum of 350 messages of code every minute that we were able to process between different tools. After we added this 2-3 lines of code, we achieved 20,000 messages per minute. This brings us up to a real-time scenario with our data, making our dashboards and controls more accurate. 

And after that, literally the next day, we wanted to move something that will impact our database. Two years ago, we wouldn’t have had a solution, but I was able to find four lines of code that, when inserted, made it work. I felt very proud that I found it. With those four lines we can evolve smrtPhone 10x more. I can’t believe it. 

I love the process of researching and trying different things. Sometimes I find solutions that won’t work for us, but the process of thinking it through and evaluating it gives me a perspective I hadn’t thought of before. And then I’m able to come up with the correct solution.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I love to spend time with my lovely future wife, Bianca. We’re getting married in June. We go out. We go to the park. We go to the city center. We go to the malls. Not necessarily to shop or buy things, but just to look around and spend time together.

Name something that is on your “bucket list”

I want to do a lot of big things. But I think the most important thing I want to accomplish in life – the thing that guides me – is that I want to help other people. I want to help people build better lives for themselves. 

I know what it’s like to be down, and Vlad, Alex, and Stefan (Cofounders of REIvolution and smrtPhone) trusted in me and gave me the opportunity to have a second chance at building the life I want. I know what it means to have patience and see that everything will be okay. I want to pay that forward and help others get a second chance to have a better life. 

I also dream of having a family and becoming a father. Most people want this. I am looking forward to building my own family.  

And, on a smaller level, I’d love to get better at snowboarding and continue to have adventures.

What is a fun fact people might not know about you? 

I don’t know. This is a tough question. I’m an open person. 

In high school, I thought I was going to be an international basketball star. Maybe join the NBA. But when I went to university, reality hit. Reality hit very, very hard. 

I went to the university because this is what society tells you: “You need this paper.”  When I got there and half of the university was better than me… it was like, okay, time to recalculate. 

What I want in the future is to go to the next level with my knowledge about work. And after that, I want to work from around the world. Become a digital nomad. I want to travel. To Spain. To The United States. I want to know more cultures and really learn them. 

I have only been to four countries: Ireland, Lithuania, Greece, and Spain. When you go to an authentic village, you see another face of that country. It’s not what you see on the internet or the tourist travel blog. You see something different and you can feel that experience in a different way. 

I did this with Bianca in Ireland for an entire week. We just got in the car and drove. Explored. Nothing scheduled and no plan. It was fantastic.