Doğukan Tunç, or simply DT as called by most of his friends and colleagues (since his first name is a little tedious to pronounce and he loves the band Dream Theater), was born in 07.07.1986, Ankara.
His mother was a pre-school teacher and his father was a government officer at the time. He has a brother, Baran, who is 2.5 years younger than him.
He and his brother had an extremely high rate of trouble-making both at home and at the kindergarden (in which their mother was one of the teachers, sadly). But they surprisingly made through their childhood without any major accidents (only small ones).
White & Nerdy
He gained literacy around the age of 5 (which is the main reason his hand-writing is permanently ugly). Then he started his formal education in one of the local Elementary Schools in his neighborhood at the age of 7. The most important thing he learned in this arena was how to deal with different kinds of people.
Tunç Brothers, circa 1994
He then went to Çankaya Atatürk Anatolian High School, or better known as “Ankara Atatürk Lisesi”, a school with a fairly good reputation. Here, his grades and attitude were fluctuating rapidly between “bright student” to “I will call your parents”. And his trouble-making skills seemed to remain intact since childhood.
After spending 7 chaotic but happy years in this ancient institute, he faced the monster that is called “University Entrance Exam”, a ruthless competition among those who desire a good quality higher education in Turkey. He was never very good with what his peers called “test technique” and therefore never aced the exam except for Maths and Chemistry part.
He was intrigued by Chemistry, but he decided to major in Statistics instead, as a result of consultations with his close friend, Burak (the left-most guy in the previous picture, and the one on the right in the next). The plan was, to excel in a field in which there are better job opportunities and that is easier to merge with their affinity/skill towards computers and mathematics.
They were buddies during High School, and they continued to be buddies in their higher education, also in music.
A bunch of devout Dream Theater fans at the time.
DT grinded and battled his way through university, both tackling the courses and other endeavors (such as music) at the same time. He started his real music career at this point. Taking the drummer position at various bands and musical theaters, he also had an endless hunger for the general musical consepts such as composition and harmony. He and his friends formed the band Ukemi and performed at various stages semi-professionally for long years.
Aside from being a rock drummer, he also participated in various musical theater performances like Evil Dead:The Musical, Across the Universe and We Will Rock You as an orchestra member. He even got on stage as part of the chorus or for minor roles in famous musicals like Sweeney Todd and Phantom of The Opera.
Sweeney Todd – Several seconds before being a victim of Pirelli
During his undergraduate education, he continuously tried to excel in the area of coding, and sought out means and chances to advance his skills. He aided his teachers in their academic studies by writing statistical number crunchers and small utilities. He attended every course he could find, sucked every bit of knowledge and sharpened his edge in software design.
Becoming more and more obsessed with programming, he got his first full-time programming job around 2011, while still attending school. He was mostly writing SQL and C# at the time. Then he started climbing the ladder.
After proving himself in the field of codewriting, he was promoted to a junior developer position around 2012. He found a chance to gain Java knowledge and had the chance to learn from very capable engineers. He then rose to the rank of System Administrator in this company.
After juggling school and full time work at the same time for more than 1 year, he finally graduated around early 2012.
He left the company temporarily in order to fulfil his mandatory military service at December 2012. That was a 6-month full of tough but well-earned experience for him.
He resumed working in his company after discharged from the army with full honours.
In October 2013, Özge and Doğukan got married in Ankara.
In the beginning of 2014, he was recruited by MİKES, one of the defence companies of Ankara (which no longer exists). They offered him a Software Test position, which was a new thing. This career led to Aselsan and Space and Defence Technologies (SDT). He spent nearly 6 years in the defense industry. He gained a mountain of knowledge and went to the next level in codewriting and testing during this phase.
In January 2017, Ekin was born. She instantly became the most important and beautiful accomplishment in his life.
In the meantime, he seeked to dig deeper into software development concepts by starting Software Engineering master’s program in Middle East Technical University Computer Engineering department. He was granted his MSc. degree with a very good GPA (unlike his Bachelor’s GPA) in January 2018. This was an exemplary display of resilience on his part, considering the fact that he finished his graduation project while working full time and caring for his infant daughter. Also, he and his brother coincidentally had the chance to walk in the same graduation ceremony, thanks to his brother’s ability to postpone his bachelor’s graduation a couple years, just like his elder.
He and his family made a decision to move to the Netherlands in the beginning of 2020. He’s been working as a Software Design Engineer at ASML since then, and the family is still residing in Eindhoven.
In July 2022, Ediz has joined the family, bringing even more joy and happiness to their lives. Ekin was especially excited with his arrival.
He mostly spends his free time with his family or playing computer games, listening to/making music and writing. He also enjoys cooking and experimenting with new recipes every now and then. His favorite sports are cycling, running and hiking.
