WHOIS... Antonello Fratepietro?

WHOIS…? is a format in our tech blog where we present you the many faces of our tech community. These are the people, that work every day on our state-of-the-art technical solutions to make BurdaForward so unique.  

 

We're excited to present once again a valued member of our tech community: Antonello Fratepietro. Antonello was not only the very first employee at BurdaForward Italia, but works every day to connect our Tech Community with his contagious laughter, his expertise for tech and his passion for good coffee (===espresso). 

What’s your name & what techie cliché is totally true for you? 

My name is Antonello, the techie cliché that best represents me is that the amount of good code and work is directly proportional to the amount of coffee (===espresso), without which I can't start. I turn on the PC and then the coffee machine (the order is often reversed). 

What is your role at BurdaForward? 

I'm the Managing Director at BurdaForward Italia. I started off in 2019 as Lead Developer, but now I get to wear many hats and contributed to build our awesome team. I was the very first employee at BurdaForward Italia, so I’ve been here since day one! 

What do you do as Managing Director? 

As Managing Director, I juggle a bit of everything. I work closely with our BurdaForward Italia management team. I also take care of recruiting and finding tech talent. Growing our team from just me to 50 amazing colleagues has been a thrilling journey. My goal is to keep us innovative, productive, and, most importantly, having fun while doing it! 

What is the job of your team at BurdaForward? 

My team's job is to make BurdaForward known in Italy as a Product & Tech company, so not just journalism but innovation, technology and cutting-edge products. So that we attract talent and make sure that those who join us can work in the best possible way. This means not only talking every day with many stakeholders from different teams throughout BurdaForward, but also dealing with management and administration aspects, making a company work even if it has 'only' 50 employees, it has the same needs as a big one. I am fortunate to have in my management team at BF Italia people with experience in different aspects such as finance, technology, and with great experience in business management from whom I learn something new every day! 

When & Why did you start to work in tech? 

I’ve been hooked on tech since I was 10 years old, programming on my trusty Commodore 64. I built my first website in 1999, back when a 2400 baud modem was the pinnacle of speed. Running a local BBS with an Intel 386 and Commodore Amiga back in the day just cemented my love for technology. It's the thrill of creating something out of nothing that got me into tech, and I haven't looked back since. 

What is your favorite part about working in tech? 

The best part about working in tech? The endless possibilities! There's always something new to learn, a new problem to solve, and innovative ways to make life better or more fun. Plus, I love the community – it’s like being part of a giant, worldwide hacker club. 

What is your “tech superpower”? 

My tech superpower is a deep understanding of technology and IT, which I use to truly connect with developers and attract top talent. I speak the same language as our tech team. This insight helps me identify skilled professionals who will thrive in our environment and ensures we create a culture where developers feel valued and understood. By leveraging my tech background, I bridge the gap between management and developers, making our company a magnet for exceptional talent. 

And how did you use it recently? 

I recently used these powers to help a team write a Coding Challenge to be sent to candidates during the interview process that would be useful in understanding both the candidates' technical skills but also, and above all, their problem-solving abilities and use their creativity to find new and easy solutions to sometimes complex problems, 

What advice would you like to give techies out there? 

To all the techies out there: Never stop learning! The tech world evolves at breakneck speed, and staying curious is your best asset. Don't be afraid to dive into new technologies and experiment. Also, remember that collaboration is key – the best projects come from diverse minds working together. And what makes the difference in getting ahead is not just writing the best code but how you present it and explain it to others, so communication skills are very important. 

Did you find any nice tool/software/technology/… recently that you would like to share? 

I have recently been attracted and fascinated by AI Multi-Agent Systems, which are based on the fact that the combined behavior of many relatively simple agents can lead to the overall more complex (or intelligent) behavior of the system as a whole. Theoretically, this is based on the principles of Collective Intelligence. In particular I’ve been studying and test Microsoft AutoGen: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/autogen/  

It is a framework for developing applications using multiple Large Language Model (LLM) agents that can communicate with each other to solve tasks. These agents are customizable and can interact with humans, operating in various modes that combine LLMs, human input, and tools. AutoGen includes several types of agents:  

• Assistant Agent: Performs tasks like coding and reviewing 
• User Proxy Agent: Acts on behalf of users, facilitating human interaction with the agent systems. 
• Agent That Can Be Taught: Designed to learn from provided information not available in LLMs. 

It is like having the possibility of creating a small team, each one is specialized in different tasks who divide the work according to specialization. It's great! 
 

Can we find out more about you on social platforms (LinkedIn, GitHub, Tech Blogs, Link to an article on our post…)? 

My domains and personal web page (very old and not updated): https://fratepietro.com/  
LinkedIn profile: https://antonello.dev/  
Here on my Medium profile you can read in Italian about when I was talking about AI in 2018: (who knew it would explode in 2024!): https://medium.com/@antonellofratepietro 
Here is my old twitter profile, which I have been updating for years automatically thanks to a social tool I created as a start-up: https://twitter.com/hack_the_cloud 
and here the press review and some books that have talked about me and my work as a startupper: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=antonello+fratepietro 

Any famous last words? 

I love the Murphy's Law "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong," because it is a constant in IT and software development. Bugs emerge unexpectedly, minor changes cause major issues, and deployments often fail due to unforeseen problems. Projects face scope creep and delays, while user behavior can lead to unpredictable errors. Security vulnerabilities and hardware failures add to the chaos. To mitigate these, it’s a best practice implement thorough testing, robust monitoring, automated backups, and CI/CD pipelines, write clear documentation, use agile methodologies. This is what our tech community does every day at BurdaForward!