Sylvain Kalache

Raised in a blue-collar family, Sylvain grew up to pursue a Master’s degree that took five years to complete but realized soon afterwards the investment simply wasn’t worth it. It was through his love of learning, optimistic nature and on-the-job education that he rose quickly to senior-level technical positions at LinkedIn and SlideShare prior to co-founding Holberton School in 2015. Having moved many times during childhood for his father’s work, Sylvain learned early on to value adaptability and empathy, both of which are on display today at the School. Holberton selects students with a blind, automated process, granting admission to individuals with an inherent desire to discover and explore regardless of race, gender, learning style or financial ability. A focus on critical thinking and soft skills allows students to scratch their own itch, similar to Sylvain’s experience in the earliest years of his own career. Sylvain’s hope is that Holberton can help its students thrive as citizens in the kind of world we live in today and tomorrow, giving anyone a chance to learn, not to memorize or duplicate, and to self-direct based on their interests. He knows from experience that this is where the magic happens. Sylvain’s endless smile may annoy some but when he walks through the school’s doors in its San Francisco location (San Francisco is where Sylvain calls home most (these?) days), his energy is contagious. He says his favorite sounds are the laughter and engaging conversations he hears as he walks the hallways of the Holberton School. Sylvain was formerly senior SRE (Site Reliability Engineer) at LinkedIn, where he co-created an automation framework called Skynet. He was also part of the small SlideShare startup team and contributed to the LinkedIn acquisition. He is co-founder of the while42 community, a Tech Engineer Network with 3,000+ members in over 50 cities across the world.