Career Takeoff — Interview with Software Engineer Marion Rul

Teads welcome young talents. We believe in learning by doing, and think real-world experience is a unique opportunity to build valuable knowledge. Under the guidance of a mentor, interns at Teads embed within a team and are assigned a project that fits within their internship.

In this second article of our interview series, we ask Marion about her journey to Teads and what she loves about working here.

What was your journey to Teads?

After finishing my engineering degree in Computer Science and Management I had to do an internship of 6 months in a company. It allows to have a first professional experience in an industry that we like, and it helps in making the right choices for our future.

“During this last year at school, I had heard a lot about Teads, mainly because I had several courses taught by people working there.”

These courses were very interesting and I found out that the team works with great technologies. Also, a lot of former students were working there. This is why I looked at Teads for my next destination.

What do you do at Teads?

I work as a Software Engineer in the Performance team, our mission is to bring quality traffic to premium advertiser websites. It requires to select the right ad and the right user according to various signals such as browsing history. My first project was to create a global search feature on our main internal application, called the Console, to be able to search across all the services available for the right content.

“I developed a smart search feature integrating Algolia’s Search as a Service technology. Now, I have a day-to-day role in the team as a Software Engineer.”

What does a typical day look like?

First, I check my emails and other messages on Slack. After that, at 10 am, I participate in the Performance daily standup meeting where the team gathers around the scrum board. Each member gives their project status updates, what has been done and what is left to do and we discuss the projects’ roadmaps.

If we encounter problems we have a discussion about it in order to get help. It’s great to start the day with these meetings, communication is important in a team.

Regarding my job, a typical workday means developing new features or carrying out problem-solving if any. Sometimes we also have quick meetings if there is a problem or if we need to discuss a project. For example, I had a lot of meetings with Cat, one of our UX designers to discuss the design of the global search.

What is the most challenging part of your job?

As I had just finished my engineering degree, the most challenging part was to integrate a company where you don’t know the technical infrastructure and processes. The first time I merged a pull request and pushed my code in production I was really scared. I also had to learn technologies I had no experience with.

But the most difficult part was to learn about the AdTech industry and all the jargon that comes with it. I asked a lot of questions to my teammates who were really kind and helpful and it was fine.

What do you like the most about working at Teads?

“I quickly felt at home at Teads. On my first day, I had onboardings where each feature team presented their work, so I could learn a lot about the organization. I was set up with a laptop and I had a pack of goodies as a welcome.”

As there are not many girls in the world of tech, I was a little bit scared, but people were really nice and open-minded. I was immediately integrated into my team and also in the Teads Girls Montpellier group, a group that gathers all the girls from the office, we have a monthly lunch together.

We also have monthly team buildings, that allow us to know ourselves outside of the work environment and therefore work better together afterward. The feature team organization is great, we share knowledge all the time and support each other. Teads takes good care of its employees and I really enjoy working here.

After her internship, Marion joined us as a full-time employee in Montpellier. Looking for great tech challenges? Check out our open positions here.