David Ecklund
Ruby on Rails Engineer · Founder, In the Original
About
I build bridges—between languages, and between complicated problems and software that just works.That combination is what led me to build In the Original, a reading platform where anyone can pick up Goethe, Rilke, or Kafka in the original German and start reading today. The reader adapts to you automatically, with AI narration synced to every word and support that fades as you learn, until one day you're just reading.I came to the project from both sides. Before becoming a software engineer, I worked as a professional German-to-English literary translator. I know what readers need because I've spent years inside these texts. Then, after building production Ruby on Rails applications at klarx and NTT DATA, I had the engineering experience to try solving the problem myself.Building In the Original has taken me deeper into Rails product engineering and applied AI, from resumable and idempotent backend workflows to systematic evaluation of LLM-generated content. What interests me most is still the same thing: understanding a complicated problem well enough to make the resulting software feel simple.I'm currently looking for Ruby on Rails roles in Germany, where I live. I'm a native English speaker and speak German at C2 level. For a closer look at the product and engineering work behind In the Original, view the portfolio.
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