Nino Raymond, Software Engineer @ Pennylane
Hi Nino! Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Hi Fanny! I learned to code at Le Wagon 4 years ago. I sincerely love coding — and loved my experience at Le Wagon. After I graduated, I stayed with them for about a year as a teacher.
I enjoyed this experience so much that, after my master’s degree [Nino graduated from HEC, one of the top French business schools], I co-founded, with my friends Jules and Maïa, a bootcamp just like Le Wagon — but for product: Noé.
Noé became quite successful but I only dedicated about 20–25% of my time to code — I felt that it wasn’t enough and I feared that I would never become a “true engineer”.
So I joined Pennylane in November 2021 as a Software Engineer — and that’s my story. 😊
You told me you interviewed for a bunch of companies; what made you choose Pennylane, eventually?
Yes, that’s correct — I received several offers, many from scale-ups.
My #1 criterion was the learning curve. I wanted to learn a lot, and fast.
For that, I needed two things:
- A technical challenge;
- To work with the best.
And when I say I needed those two things, I mean it. I declined another company’s offer because, even though the team was solid, the technical part of the job didn’t seem that challenging.
At Pennylane, I found both. During the interview process, I got to meet the two “tech” founders [Quentin and Thierry] and a few other engineers and was impressed with their past experiences:
That’s something I really appreciated about the interview process: I met both Quentin and Thierry — in no other company did I meet CTOs for technical interviews.
Also, back then, Juliette was the most junior engineer and she had 2 years of experience already! She assured me I’d be exposed to very senior, very technical people.
The icing on the cake was Pennylane’s growth. Everybody around me — including my VC friends — was telling me Pennylane was one of the startups to watch. I definitely wanted to be part of that!
So, you joined Pennylane because it seemed like the best environment to learn. Can you tell us a bit more about what makes Pennylane a great environment to grow as an engineer?
Yes, of course! So, there are a few things in place that make it great.
First, the onboarding process: when you join Pennylane, you get two buddies; one to guide you through the company; the other to answer any questions you have on the tech.
Both are extremely available; you can count on your manager too, obviously.
The tech team is divided into several squads, each dedicated to a part of the platform (invoicing, company management…); the onboarding inside the squad is very well-thought too: you start with easy tasks — that grow more and more technical.
Some tickets are labeled “Good First Issues” — they help you get to know the stacks. It’s reassuring and allows you to ramp up very quickly.
I felt very welcomed; I had a 1:1 with every member of the team and participated in the stand-ups very early. I especially liked my discussion with Charlotte, “my” Product Manager. She very clearly explained the goal of the squad and what we were trying to achieve.
In just six months [Nino joined in November 2021], I learned so much. First on the front end, especially on Typescript, which I had never used before. And on the backend, we have some very good engineers — the amount of things they taught me is huge.
Thanks for sharing this, Nino. :) Can you also share what struck you most during your first weeks at Pennylane?
A few things did, actually.
First, the availability of Senior Software Engineers. My manager — who happens to be my tech buddy as well — , Johan, is technically incredibly talented, available, and receptive. I couldn’t wish for more.
Secondly, the technical challenge. At Pennylane, you need to transform a “real-life” reality into a “coding reality” — and that takes some thinking!
Accounting concepts are not easy to grasp — and even less to turn into code. Intellectually, it’s challenging.
One might respond that that’s the essence of software engineering but that’s particularly true at Pennylane: accountants use our platform up to 8 hours a day! We have a responsibility towards them, to make the platform as reliable and as easy to use as possible.
To be perfectly honest, the first months were technically challenging. I strongly experienced the difference level between the other engineers and me. It was unsettling but that was what I had been looking for!
Finally, what’s your greatest achievement as a Software Engineer at Pennylane?
I’m currently developing, from scratch, a feature that both our users — accounting firms and SMEs — will use. It’s a feature accounting firms have been waiting for for a long time — so there is a bit of pressure associated with the project!
I have to design everything and I feel like it clicked a little bit, so to say, and that’s very satisfying. 😊
The achievement is not so much to deliver the feature but rather to feel at ease developing it.
Thank you so much for your time and your honest feedback, Nino!
If you’re looking for a great place to learn and grow as an engineer, take a look at our career page — we’re always looking for curious, eager-to-learn individuals: https://www.pennylane.com/fr/careers
See you soon! 👋
