When Andrea joined Dyalog Ltd a year ago, she quite literally took up residence next to Stine, as they shared a desk in the 4 by 3 metre office that Stine and Martina worked in. That changed in March, when Andrea oversaw moving the Copenhagen branch of Dyalog Ltd from an office hotel into a three-room office of their own. Handling the move was one of her first big tasks, apart from co-organising our internal company meetings. Now everyone in Copenhagen has room to work, and there’s even room for visitors! There are, of course, also 401 small ducks and four regular sized ducks.

“In some ways, it doesn’t feel like it’s only been a year. I feel like I’ve been at Dyalog Ltd forever – in a good way!” Andrea says, before continuing “but on the other hand, I still have so much to learn, so I also still feel quite new. Next year will be my first user meeting, for example, so I’m looking forward to taking part in that.”

Trying to summarise the last year can be hard. “My days are varied, and I do a lot of different things. Some days I do accounts, plan meetings, and write up minutes. Others I advise on communication and presentations, draft new processes, and facilitate discussions. This is part of what I like about working at Dyalog Ltd. I always have a plan for what I want to get done when I start my day. Sometimes that happens, and sometimes, other things turn out to be more pressing. I like the unpredictability, and I like trying to navigate that, keeping clarity high and chaos low.”

As an executive assistant, Andrea is involved in multiple varied projects across Dyalog Ltd, helping Stine and her colleagues wherever she can. “That’s how I like it, really. I like helping. I think it’s as basic as that. My best days and proudest moments are when I make it easier for others to do their job or make them feel more ready to give a presentation.”

Andrea plans to spend the next many years at Dyalog Ltd, doing exactly what she’s doing now. “It seems that as soon as I’ve finished one task, two more have appeared on my list, so I don’t fear running out of work. I’m excited to keep working on my tasks in communication, administration, and management support. Dyalog Ltd is a really warm and welcoming place to work, and even though most of my colleagues are far away physically, they are never far away socially or mentally.”

Updating us on her time outside of work, Andrea must admit that she still doesn’t spend as much time sipping coffee and reading the newspaper as she would like. She tends to pack her schedule tight, but her new goal is to only have two social events per week, leaving time for calling friends, spending time with her partner and hopefully some of that quiet reading time!

A year passes quickly, especially when it’s your first year with a new company! Neil has now been our “JavaScript guy” in the Tools group for a full trip round the sun, and we asked him how he’s enjoyed his first twelve months. Fortunately, he seems to have settled in well – “Most of all, I don’t think any company has done as much to make me feel welcome, or to check in sometimes. Being a remote worker, that was always greatly appreciated. Also, I’ve worked for quite a few companies – so I mean it.”

For anyone considering working at Dyalog Ltd. Neil has the following advice – “Be prepared to be involved in conversations that push you to the limit of both your practical and your theoretical understanding. I mostly get to watch the APL masters work from a slight distance. If anything, that was the reason I chose to join Dyalog Ltd. The patient mentorship from Adám (and glimpses in to APL language decisions and history) has been a delight. Watching how quickly Morten can work, knowing every nook and cranny, has been… humbling. However, that’s where it’s interesting: there is so much skill and ability packed in to such a tiny company. But they’re nice people and there’s nothing to fear.”

At Dyalog Ltd, Neil mainly works on a project that will allow cross-platform ⎕WC-style interfaces, optionally remotely, and even embedded in webpages. He has also dedicated himself to steadily increase his APL skills. His broad experience with non-APL environments and languages has provided another useful outside perspective to our efforts at connecting APL with the outside world.

When not working, Neil enjoys spending time outside. He spends a lot of time in nature, walking and enjoying the lovely lakes where he lives in Germany. He likes to grow wildflowers because he hopes that they will grow without any help, but unfortunately this is not always the case and this year, he had only two flowers before August – it’s as if they hadn’t read the packet that very clearly stated that they should bloom in ‘June – July’!

Five years has passed since Stine joined Dyalog Ltd, and in only a few weeks she will also celebrate a year and a half as our CEO. When asked about her first five years, Stine said “Time passes very quickly when you’re having fun, so for me, this anniversary has come far sooner than I was expecting! Taking over this role from Gitte meant not rocking the boat too much – if it’s not broken, there is no reason to fix it. I do make changes though – I try to use my fresh perspective to identify places where we can improve. These changes must be made while still staying true to the Dyalog culture and making people feel safe, both within Dyalog Ltd and in our user community. I try to make small incremental changes, and give people plenty of opportunities to contribute and complain along the way.”

The most important skills for a person in Stine’s position are patience and empathy. Change can be difficult, even if it’s for the better – this is especially true at Dyalog Ltd, where Stine’s favourite part of our culture is the passion. “Every employee is passionate about the company and our product. Dyalog Ltd is not just a workplace, it is a family…a lifestyle. I try to guard that passion so that it never burns out, while feeding it new firewood in the form of good working conditions, influence on the product, and a collaborate leadership style.”

Stine works from our office in Copenhagen. It is here that her favourite ducks are – they are part of a flock of 400 mini ducks that Martina placed around the office as an April Fools joke!

When asked about her most significant project in her time at Dyalog Ltd, Stine replied “Since I became CEO, things stopped being about me. My main task is to make sure that everyone else has the chance to shine, so I have nothing that I have done on my own”. If she must identify her proudest achievement so far, it is getting everyone to arrive on time for meetings (sometimes even five minutes early!).

Even though Stine grew up with APL being the language of choice at home, she never really learnt it (despite trying multiple times), mostly because her interest lies more with people and processes. Helping people grow and making their lives easier makes Stine happy, so even though she is still being teased about her lack of APL skills(!), we can understand that she prioritises other things.

Stine is working on making Dyalog Ltd future proof. She aims to ensure that knowledge and skills are shared from the more experienced employees to the newcomers, so we can continue to operate and support our users for many years to come. We have many key people in the older generation of employees, and the challenge of externalising years of accumulated knowledge and experience is one that Stine has been happy to take on. Some of us have been with Dyalog Ltd for as long as Stine has been alive, and no single individual joining us today can possibly assume their roles without extensive mentoring and knowledge transfer. For Stine, playing role matchmaker and facilitator is both exiting and very rewarding. She plans to serve Dyalog Ltd for many years, continuing to focus on improving and simplifying our work lives, so that we can deliver a good product that remains in touch with the latest technological developments.

Outside work, Stine enjoys dancing and reading books, as well as taking care of her proudest achievement: her children. Long-standing members of the community might remember a Dyalog user meeting in Elsinore where she led a Zumba class every afternoon for the whole week; Stine still does Zumba twice a week, and it is one of the things that helps her to stay sane and in shape.

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.]