Ricardo has been one of the most active contributors to n8n and has created more than 60 nodes. He now works at n8n, and we talked to him about what drives his passion to contribute to n8n.

1. Can you tell me a bit about yourself?

I’m Ricardo Espinoza, I’m a software engineer. I’m originally from Venezuela, where I got my degree in Informatics Engineering In 2014. Came to the US the same year, to visit a friend (for a month) in Gainesville and have been here five years so far (long story).

2. How did you first get involved with n8n?

Ever since I was at college I always wanted to contribute to an “Open Source” project. It was fascinating to me how a project can be built from people all over the world with different backgrounds and skill sets. I tried many times, however, never seemed to find a proper fit. The source codes were always too complex for me to understand, making it kind of overwhelming. I probably did not have enough experience back then.

I had been looking for a tool to automate a bunch of tasks I was doing manually every week at my job, but the tools I found were either not extensible or I could not afford them. In October 2019, I was scrolling through Product Hunt as I used to do every morning and found n8n. I saw the explainer video, and had an AHA moment. I immediately went to the project’s website, downloaded it, ran it locally, and started to play with it. It was love at first sight.

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