Francisco Almeida

Behind the scenes with Francisco – R&D Engineer 

Francisco was born in Lisbon, Portugal and traveled to Belgium in 2003 to work on his thesis in the Instituut voor Kern-en Stralingsfysica, based in Leuven. There he stayed on to work on his PhD in Physics, which he obtained in late 2011. In the same year he began working as software developer, specialized in C++, for Nikon Metrology Europe. From then on, he has worked in different sectors, ranging from medical sciences to robotics, always as a C++ software engineer. Francisco recently joined Essensium, he tells us what working for Essensium has been so far.

What do you do during a typical work day?

I am part of the R&D team of Jan Olbrechts, and I am solving computer vision issues in the system. My day-to-day work focuses on features development, improvements to tooling, and code refactoring in general as needed.  Our RTLS positioning products (SafeTrack™) uses a very clever, out-of-box solution to track forklifts and pedestrians. Our solution is not like everybody else’s in the market, we are not doing things the standard way. 

What’s the best thing about your job?

I enjoy programming in C++ very much, so the vast majority of my job is greatly appreciated. C++ is a powerful and versatile programming language, that offers high performance programming features. This makes it easier to write reusable and modular code. C++ can be as low level or as high level as you need, it scales easily. Other languages take one specific approach to a solve any problem, C++ allows you to be more creative. 

What is the most challenging part of your job?

I find real-time software design very interesting, and see plenty of space for personal growth as I learn more about embedded software in our RTLS positioning products, SafeTrack™. Overall, as a C++ software engineer, the most challenging part of my job is often finding the right balance between competing priorities while still delivering high-quality code that meets project requirements.