The Radix team consists of professionals from a range of backgrounds and disciplines. This globally distributed team provides the skills and expertise to deliver the potential of the Radix Public Network, a technology built on the learnings over several tech iterations, and the cutting edge of consensus research available today. 

In this blog series, we introduce members of the Radix team to the community. In the previous blog post, we introduced Emre and Katy.

Today we present two of our new colleagues - Aftab and Yulong! 

Aftab Arab - Head of Design - Radix DLT

Aftab has been a Product Designer for over ten years in the tech industry. He has led world-class design teams and designed digital experiences used by millions of people. His primary goal has been making the experience more human for the end customer while increasing retention and revenue for the business. 

Aftab has worked in companies like Deliveroo, BP, Lastminute.com (Travelocity), WorldRemit, Shpock, and several startups, including very recently helping launch a digital bank in the Middle East. 

We asked Aftab a little more about his role below:

I’ve joined as Head of Design at Radix. My goal is to shape the design vision and the user experience. It’s an exciting time to be here!

My first task was to redesign the Radix DLT website and set out a new visual direction. I think we’ve made a good start, but there’s a hell of a lot still to do! At Radix, we’re one of the first projects in DeFi to have the user experience core to the way we think and breathe. 

As a designer, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: both by being paired up with people who believe in this ethos and being one of the early designers getting to shape this space. We finally get to start over.

I’ve worked on many FinTech products out there, solved payment design issues for people ordering food, helped affluent people make more money, and helped migrant workers send their hard-earned dollars back to their homes and communities. Though rewarding, it doesn’t change the status quo. They exist in a system that doesn’t look out for them, is inefficient, and lets a very select few control the opportunities in the financial space.

DeFi changes this. Radix changes this.

We are building exclusively for the DeFi space, solving the foundational issues, and making vast improvements to scalability. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be part of something so radical? Radix has spent many years in R&D, they have a rock-solid solid foundation, they’re incentivizing builders, and they’re proving it works - I’d have been an idiot not to have joined the team. I also happen to be surrounded by some of the most intelligent people I’ve ever worked with. So it’s a win-win.

A great user experience is critical in this space, and to attract meaningful adoption we need to create accessible and simple products. This feels like the beginning of the internet all over again.

Product and Design have to work together to reduce the barriers to entry. This might mean borrowing some concepts that already exist and simplifying what has already been established as the norm. We need to start with a clear head, removing any biases on what we think people want versus what they actually need. It’s going to be quite an adventure.

There is a lot of listening to do, a lot of learning, and a lot of designing to do! 

The community we’ve built around Radix is impressive. If you have any ideas or suggestions of how we can solve these challenges or want to help test out products and concepts, please get in touch. I’m available at aftab@radixdlt.com.

Yulong Wu - Virtual Machines Engineer - Radix DLT

Yulong’s professional background is in software development and research, with multiple years of experience in both big enterprises and agile startups.

Before moving to Radix, Yulong worked for Amazon, where he helped design and implement bespoke financial systems to meet unprecedented user demands and business requirements. The systems processed billions of events every day.

Before Amazon, Yulong devoted his time and effort to the blockchain industry with Aion Foundation. He led the development of Aion Virtual Machine, which enabled developers to build decentralized applications in Java and run safely and deterministically. In addition, he drove the design and prototype of Aion Unity - a PoW/PoS hybrid consensus protocol.

Yulong has a Master’s degree in Computer Science and a Bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering. He is passionate about AI, blockchain, and cloud.

We asked Yulong a little more about his role below:

I'm the virtual machine engineer in the Builders team at Radix, and my responsibilities focus on Scrypto and Radix Engine V2. Today, the Radix tech team is divided into 

1) Network, which delivers the network protocol and associated tools for node-runners and stakers. 

2) Builders, which provides the application layer and related tools for developers, and 

3) Users, which provides tools and services, such as wallets for the end-user. 

My job is to deliver what’s been outlined in the Radix DeFi Whitepaper. At this phase, I’m actively involved in researching and prototyping different compiler toolchains and technologies together with the team. From there on, I’ll transition to working on the implementation of the programming and execution layer on the network. Hopefully, I will have more details to share soon!

Radix has its unique perspective on how decentralized ledger technology and the future of finance look like. It tries to solve real challenges faced by DeFi developers today while not settling for anything less.

And what attracts me the most is the challenging task that Radix tries to resolve - to allow developers to build fast, safe, and scalable decentralized applications. This fits very well with my background, and there are many interesting technical problems to solve, which is a big bonus. 

So far, it has been working very well. The team is excellent and helpful, and I firmly believe that it is going to be a pleasant journey together with the Radix community.

If you would like to join the fight for the future of finance at Radix, check out our open positions on our careers page: https://www.radixdlt.com/careers/.