The Poka Team
If you’ve been following this blog, you may be curious to know who’s writing all these awesome articles. Here at Poka, I have the privilege of working with a diverse team of very talented individuals. Let me have the pleasure to present to you (some of) the members of the Poka crew.
Marc-Alexandre Bérubé
What do you do at Poka?
As a software engineer, I am building an amazing iOS experience for our customers :)
Tell us a bit about yourself!
Father of the two most lovely kids in the universe eats all my spare time (spare what?). Aside from that, I love to watch hockey, play hockey, talk about hockey and also cook stuff on my charcoal BBQ/smoker.
Pepsi or Coke?
Please… Pepsi
Tabs or spaces?
Please… Spaces
What was your first programming experience?
Creating dynamic websites in PHP running with MySQL databases. I was also great at designing those websites with photoshop slices and HTML tables
What’s your favorite TV series?
Dexter is one of my all-time favorite TV series. I mean, I have enjoyed a lot of series that just waited too long before coming to an end like 24, Prison Break, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, The Walking Dead and probably many more.
Name one thing you hate on your pizza
Mushrooms.
Maxime Cloutier
What do you do at Poka?
Front-end Developer. Working with Angular (2,4,5,6..?), Typescript, Electron, Node.js and other technologies; I help developing the web application, administration and desktop app of Poka.
Tell us a bit about yourself!
I love being outside, riding mountain bikes and finding new places to explore. I also love to be lazy and eat pizza.
Do you have an addiction?
Energy drinks…
Can you fit your whole fist in your mouth?
Who’s the best doge at Poka?
Mini Max. I mean, is this even a competition?
Gabriel Pelletier
What do you do at Poka?
DevOps
Tell us a bit about yourself!
I love pushing my limits and try new things.
Tabs or spaces?
Although I’ll sound like an heretic, tabs.
If you could be a superhero, who would it be?
Professor X, so I could chill lazy in my wheelchair.
What quote represents you the most?
If it’s stupid and it works, it ain’t stupid!
How do you pronounce “gif” ?
With a hard G, is there any other way?
Charmander, Squirtle or Bulbasaur?
Charmander, because he’s the number 1 in my heart!
Mathieu Marcotte
What do you do at Poka?
I handle the boring part of security at Poka: policies, GDPR, compliance, Customer requirements, SOC 2, you get the point. I’m still fun at parties.
Tell us a bit about yourself!
My favourite hobby would be video games, especially single player games where the story is engaging and interesting. Aside from that, I try to read books when I have the time about human psychology, decision making, design and behavioral economics, and comics! I’m also interested in finding the best memes and sharing them in our #memes Slack channel.
Charmander, Squirtle or Bulbasaur?
Charmander for the win. Fire type ❤
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Happy :)
What’s your favorite snack in the Poka kitchen?
Them Kit Kats. I also need my daily fix of chocolate milk.
What do you like in your job?
Yes
Maxime Leblanc
What do you do at Poka?
Information Security Operations (SecOps). Implementing security tests, features and monitoring tools. “In-house hacker”, whatever that means ;-)
Tell us a bit about yourself!
My background is from security research in academia, and this is where I discovered one of my favorite things: Attending Infosec conventions all-around, would-it be Hackfest, NorthSec, Defcon, Hack In Paris, PHDays… I also try to be active in the local Infosec community.
Pepsi or Coke?
Diet Coke > Coke Zero > Pepsi > Coca-Cola > Diet Pepsi. In this order, with ice of course. Except for Cuba Libre: Coca-Cola Classic only in that case.
Who was your favourite Power Ranger?
The green one, that was bad and became white and good for some reason (It was in english, which I didn’t understand at that time…)
Do you like to wear socks?
I do. Even at the beach.
Etienne Talbot
What do you do at Poka?
I lead the frontend development team. That means I do a lot of Angular and spend way too much time in Jira. I probably disturb of lot of my colleagues with my mechanical keyboard (I use Cherry MX Brown switches so it ain’t that bad :P). I also blog from time to time.
Tell us a bit about yourself!
I like running and practicing kung fu but I haven’t slept in a while because of my two kids and the lack of sleep that comes packaged with them (just kidding, I love them). Fan of Star Wars (all of it) since I was a kid and newly fan of Asimov’s Foundation book series. If you offer me scotch whisky or a japanese single malt, you automatically become my best friend!
What’s your favorite snack in the Poka kitchen?
I have to pick ONE??
Name one thing you hate on your pizza
I don’t know how you call the miniature plastic table they put on my pizza but it hurts my teeth every time and it tastes like crap!
What are you known for?
I accidentally started a Post-it pixel art war that grew out of proportions all over Quebec City…
What do you want to be when you grow up?
As a kid I wanted to become Luke Skywalker. Today, honestly, I take inspiration from Mark Hamill. That man is the best in the world. Seriously, follow him on Twitter!
Charmander, Squirtle or Bulbasaur?
Strategically you almost have to pick Bulbasaur, but let’s face it… Squirtle is the best.
Simon-Pierre Gingras
What do you do at Poka?
I currently work at collecting and managing all sorts of data that we store in Redshift, to later be queried in ChartIO. In the past, I have worked on many infrastructure tasks sur as video encoding, backups, analytics and I did some features on Poka’s Python backend. I now work from home in Surrey, BC in my underwear.
Tell us a bit about yourself!
When I’ve got some spare time, I like to listen to podcasts, audiobooks and ride my mountain bike down the gnarly trails around Vancouver. Also, I love going to Whistler when there’s been a fresh dump of pow!
Name one thing you hate on your pizza
Mushrooms, hair
Pepsi or Coke?
Coke is the OG
What was your first programming experience?
Outside of university, I helped a research team build software to simulate high speed projectiles to help protect satellites against space debris
Can you fit your whole fist in your mouth?
Nope.
Mathieu Dargis
What do you do at Poka?
I work in the iOS team, still using Objective-C instead of Swift 🙃 I am also doing my best to make Poka easy to use for people with big fingers.
Tell us a bit about yourself!
I’m a bit grumpy in the morning unless I rode my bike to work. I love mountain biking and cross country skiing. I just love spending time outside.
Do you like to wear socks?
Yes, especially in my flip flops. Not even kidding.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
I’ve been 5’ 6” for too many years. I don’t plan that far ahead. 🙄
What do you like in your job?
Definitely the people I work and play board games with during lunch breaks.
Marc-Antoine Aubé
What do you do at Poka?
I recently joined the backend team. Still getting my bearings.
Tell us a bit about yourself!
Cycling, running, climbing, long-distance hiking. After clocking my hours in front of the computer, you will probably find me on a trail somewhere remote, reading a book in my hammock. I’m one of those obsessive ultralight backpackers that only travel with a carry-on and weigh all their stuff.
Used to be a cheerleader in college, can still do a couple gymnastics moves. Can solve a rubik’s cube. Huge fan of microbrews. I also play guitar. I think the perfect number of bikes is n + 1, n being your current number of bikes.
Tabs or spaces?
Whichever is the project default, consistency FTW!
Ok, scratch that. Spaces…savages.
What are you currently reading?
Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer. I find it fascinating how you can “hack” your memory to remember all sorts of random and abstract things by relying on your spatial memory.
Do you like to wear socks?
Hate it, and I also hate to wear shoes, but social norms I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Arthur Sylvestre
What do you do at Poka?
I am a software developer working on the backend of the poka apps, but mainly I build amazing API experiences for our IOS and frontend engineers ;)
Tell us a bit about yourself!
I am a bit of an whiskey enthusiast and love making people laugh, as they say ridicule never killed anyone. I also love hunting, playing video games with friends and I have a passion for backend programming and software architecture.
Tabs or spaces?
When I hit the tab key my IDE decides the rest for me ;) Which means space… obviously.
Do you have an addiction?
Hmm only to name a few… energy drinks, laughter, scotch and … I’ll stop here for now
Charmander, Squirtle or Bulbasaur?
Charmander will forever be my first pokemon.
Pepsi or Coke?
Pepsi, unless it involves rum
Alexandre Dufour
What do you do at Poka?
I am a software developer working on the backend of the poka apps, but mainly I build amazing API experiences for our IOS and frontend engineers ;)
Tell us a bit about yourself!
When I’m not in front of my computer, you’ll probably find me climbing ( bouldering ).
Beside that, I’m an outdoorsy kind of guy, who especially enjoy snowboarding and hiking.
If I’m not doing one of those, you’ll probably find me cooking, playing video game, playing guitar or petting my cat Murphy.
Pepsi or Coke?
As long as there’s rum in it… I don’t really mind.
What was your first programming experience?
Strangely enough, it was an online library coded in Perl. ( For old time’s sake )
Would you rather fight 1 horse-sized duck, or 100 duck-sized horses?
I’ll take my chances with the 100 duck-sized horses since they can’t fly.
Do you like to wear socks?
Aggressively neutral
Laurent Jalbert-Simard
What do you do at Poka?
I’m the infrastructure dude. That means I “try” to oversee everything’s that’s related to our Cloud Infrastructure, from its architecture to its reliability in production. I’m also an unpaid/unofficial AWS evangelist, so I preach to my colleagues the good news of Infrastructure-as-Code serverless microservices and other cloud-native solutions.
Tell us a bit about yourself!
Before Poka, I’ve worked in the video game industry, making AAA titles (and some with less As). Outside of work, I have so many hobbies that I’ve lost count. Lately, I’ve been messing around 3D Printers, IoT projects, drone racing and woodwork.
How do you commute?
Longboard, bicycle, motorcycle, all of which are incompatible with our country’s winter season 😢
Sweet you got a motorcycle, do you have a picture?
Of course! (Answering my own questions is awesome!)
What quote represents you the most?
How come I can eat Domino’s twice a week and still be fit(ish)? I’m probably dead inside.
Téa Rudolf
What do you do at Poka?
Black magic.
No seriously, I’m a backend developer. I really like the abstract universe of software architecture and I’m a clean code enthusiast.
Tell us a bit about yourself!
I’m a curious person. I love learning news things, software or not related. I’m outside pretty much anytime the weather allows it and I have two lovely cats.
Name one thing you hate on your pizza
Pepperoni ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Pepsi or coke?
Water
What are you known for?
Hating cilantro. Genuinely can’t deal with it.
Who’s the best doge at Poka?
Mini Max. I mean, is this even a competition?
What is your favorite meme?
Adrien Russo
What do you do at Poka?
As backend architect, I’m mainly working with other backend developers to build clean, scalable, testable code for our API/Tools. In day to day, I help the backend team to go in the right direction.
Tell us a bit about yourself!
I’m the french guy of the company, I left France 10 years ago. Father of two, I love spending time with my family. Otherwise, I like driving cars/motorcycles, play soccer and video games (PUBG, sorry Fortnite fans)
What are you known for?
Everyone at Poka knows they have to stop talking when I have to talk! Not because they fear me, but because I’m more a whisperer than a speaker.
Do you have an addiction?
Motorcycles, Cars, Volkswagen Cars and VW Golf R.
If you could be a superhero, who would it be?
Ironman because he’s rich and I could buy more cars/motorcycles.
What do you like in your job?
The challenges I face, and of course the team!
Mathieu Bourgeois
What do you do at Poka?
I’ve joined the WebApp Front End Development Team in the past year and kept learning a lot about Angular and the Poka App since then.
Tell us a bit about yourself!
In my spare time, I read books on many subjects like how to saves our bees or about the potential of randomness in politic. I am conscious about environment and consumerism (I don’t have an Amazon account! Help!), and an amateur Ultimate Frisbee player.
What’s your favorite TV series?
The Office is a really funny one.
“That’s what she said!”
What are you currently reading?
«L’élan vers l’autre» written by Ianik Marcil. It’s about social injustices and ethnic divisions.
Would you rather fight 1 horse-sized duck, or 100 duck-sized horses?
Can I wait to see what will happen to Alex against the 100 duck-sized horses?
I think it will be a good show 🍿!
