To be clear, I really liked both Elixir and Erlang. It's just that purely functional programming, the Erlang VM, OTP, and so on all required learning, and so introduced so many possible points of failure.

Go was familiar from the jump, and easy to reason around coming from primarily Objective-C, C, Python, and C#. Considering timeline, it wouldn't have made sense to be so behind the learning curve.

With more time or breathing room, I think Erlang would be a space I'd jump into with both feet.

Edit: I know Martin through common colleagues and have worked with him in Austria. He's a great dev, and that was a good watch. Thanks for the link.