ALEJANDRO OLIVAN ALVAREZ

I was born in Tarragona, a coastal town 90km south of Barcelona, Spain, on August, 03, 1977.
Although I like stability and tranquility, my life and my career has been anything but quiet!.

I started working early at 16 in my parent's Bar, now, being , looking backwards in time I realize that I could create one of the most bizarre occupations lists ever for someone who ended up being an IT specialist:
Barman, technical drawing teacher, gardener, soldier, chemical plant operator, tech-Lab analyst, sound Technician, DJ, refrigeration field-technician... but finally, IT, my beloved Hobby since the days mom decided "Computers are the future" and brang a Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2 home back in the late 80s... I became professional on IT.

During almost 9 years, but, I worked in the local, strong, Chemical Industry, here in Tarragona.
I started in BASF as field operator after completing their required training of the time, but soon I joined BAYER as Tech-Lab analyst, where I stayed for many years.
Due to the big economical crisis on the industry, In 2009, I had to face the decission to leave Spain and go to Germany, or leave the company... and I took the right decission.. I leaved the company!
That was far from easy though... but in the end, it payed off. I managed to reset my career (and my life) becoming an IT professional.

Now I'm happy playing with servers, virtualization infrastructures, networks, monitoring systems and, last but not least, I'm starting to onjoy developing web applications, monitoring plugins, system scripts or even Android applications... Now I really love my job!

I have coursed 4 spanish CFGS (somehow equivalent to US Associate's degree / UK's HNC / DE's Berufsausbildung höheren Grades): First was "IT systems and telecoms" on 1999, second one "multi-platform apps development" on 2015, third one being "network IT systems administration" on 2016, and the last one, "web apps development" finished early on 2019.
I have also been gaining experience and certification in skills such as CISCO networking at the CISCO Networking Academy (CCNA R&S), Linux and BSD Routers, Mikrotik, Wireless, VoIP, and a plethora of IT technologies, ranging from Linux Administration, monitoring systems, streaming systems, Back-end developing, fron-end-developing or Python scripting language just to mention some.

Living in Tarragona, south of Barcelona in Spain.

Email me on: alex@alexolivan.com