Ioannis Tsiakkas

Meet Ioannis, our Backend Engineer

You've been part of Fairlo for more than four years now. Looking back, what are you most proud of?
What I’m most proud of is seeing how far both Fairlo and I have come. The financial industry has gone through challenging times during my years here, and navigating those moments together has been a big part of my journey. I’m proud of what we achieved - from being a small team to becoming the company we are today, while continuing to ambitiously move forward. I joined Fairlo early in my career and over the years I've taken on bigger challenges, solved increasingly complex problems, and learned from talented people around me. Growth rarely happens all at once - it comes from being curious, asking questions, making mistakes, and realizing there’s always more things to learn.

You’re always exploring new ideas, but seem to never get stuck in them. How do you approach that balance?
I have a saying - “Procrastination is where ideas go to die.”  The first step is always the hardest. It’s easy to spend time planning, but the perfect moment to take action rarely exists. You learn much faster by simply trying, making mistakes, and improving along the way. Even if you don’t end up exactly where you thought you would, you’ll almost always end up somewhere better than where you started.

Outside of engineering, you're also a passionate photographer. Do you see any connection between photography and software development?
In some ways yes. In both photography and software development, it’s all about finding the right balance. The best photograph isn’t always the most technically perfect one - it’s the one that captures what you wanted. I think software is similar. You want to build something technically sound and solve the problem in the right way without becoming unnecessarily complicated. Delivering a software solution on time without compromising quality is, in many ways, similar to not missing the shot you intended to take.