Meet the Team: Julien Déray
Questions and Answers with one of our Engineering Managers.
Why did you decide to join SwissBorg?
After years of working in startups, I was looking for more purpose, for a meaningful project. I had worked in crypto before, and seen a lot of projects that ended up not making sense anymore when seen through the lens of decentralisation. Moreover, the healthy and open company culture that SwissBorg manages to maintain whilst in hyper-growth says a lot about the quality of both the management team and the team members.
Have you always wanted to move into a management role?
The first thing I did after engineering school graduation was starting my own company. I then spent many years as an individual contributor in early stage startups, always looking for ways to maximise my impact. Over the years, I became interested in Agile methodologies and passed several qualifications. I led teams from the inside, until it made sense for me to bite the bullet and jump into a full-time management position.
What are you most passionate about in your position and what traits do you feel make a good manager?
As engineers, our job is to solve problems. But I came to realise that helping a team of human beings collaborate to get a project from start to finish was a very hard challenge to solve. Technical problems become solvable atomically, but human beings are inherently atomically complex. And grouping them together increases this complexity exponentially. Solving the ‘human problem’ is what I love, and what I believe we should aim for as managers. Through coaching, mentoring, guiding, we become king-makers.
You are the Engineering Manager of our Loyal Borger Squad — can you explain the function of this team?
Our job there is to convert people who are unaware of even the existence of SwissBorg into proud evangelists who share the love with their friends and family. This is done through advertisement and collaboration with other companies, all the way down to improving feature discoverability and the virility of the referral program.
What excites you the most about the future of SwissBorg?
We are now at a moment where most of the building blocks have been built. The seeds are planted, and with proper care and weather, everything should grow at the same time! I can’t wait to find out what’s going to fly.
What is one fun fact about you?
I am so committed to exploring Agile methodologies that I organised my wedding using Scrum.
