The Latest Additions to the Breathe Life Engineering Team
Just over 5 months ago we launched the Breathe Life engineering blog with a post introducing myself and our 6 engineers to the world. Since then we have grown the team by over 50% and I thought, it’s about time we introduce our latest hires. However, I wanted it to have a bit of a different spin to it. Instead of simply giving you a bio from each of the newly hired engineers I thought I’d dig a bit further and give you some additional insight into who they are outside of the 1’s and 0’s.
Mathieu Breault joined the Breathe Life team just over a month ago. He recently graduated from Concordia University with a degree in Computer Science and after graduation worked at BigBang ERP as a Software Developer. While there he spent a lot of time engaging with clients which is a key aspect that we look for in our engineers because they end up working quite closely with our partner IT and product teams. A fun fact about Mathieu is that while at Concordia he was part of the Space Concordia Rocketry Team and he got to build a Rocket Telemetry System. Mathieu loves running, which works well because Breathe Life happens to be made up of several running enthusiasts, I sense a Breathe Life marathon team in the making!
Maxime Gaudreault-Proulx graduated from the University of Sherbrooke with a Bachelors degree in Computer Science and has spent the past 5 years working for a few Montreal-based startups including SSENSE and Gsoft. Not only has he worked for startups but he’s an entrepreneur at heart and has started two of his own ventures. Outside of work Max is quite the artist, he plays the guitar and spends a good deal of time painting with watercolour.
Next up we have Benjamin Szwimer. Benjamin joined the Breathe Life team a few weeks ago as our first Engineering Intern. He is currently studying Software Engineering at McGill University and hopes to work within the startup space after graduation, maybe even launch his own company one day. Outside of software engineering Benjamin loves the outdoors and was a Trip Leader at a camp that traveled all across Canada and the US. However, as much as he likes his outdoor adventures he’ll be keeping them ground level as his biggest fear is flying.
Our most recent addition to the team is Amanda Wai who recently graduated from the Co-Op program in Software Engineering at Concordia University. Amanda lives and breathes software engineering. Outside of her studies and her internships she is always participating in hackathons. Some of the more notable ones she participated in are the Hack The North in 2016, YaleHacks in 2017 and HackaTown in 2018. When not behind a computer Amanda is an avid Badminton player and she loves getting lost in a good book.
In 2019, I’ve set myself a goal of growing the engineering team by one talented dev each month and we’re pretty much on pace. My second goal of ensuring that we have a diverse team, however, has fallen behind. Although we have members from a variety of different backgrounds with a variety of different experiences, we’re falling behind in gender parity. Out of 9 full-time devs, there are currently only 3 women, that’s only 1/3 of the engineering team and while that’s ahead of many startups our stage, it’s not good enough. As we work to grow our team I will be ensuring that I put a major emphasis on hiring women and creating an environment that will inspire more and more people from all backgrounds to apply for our engineering roles. I’m also going to continue reaching out to women in tech leaders to solicit advice and gain more perspective on the challenges and opportunities for women in tech.
Want to join us on our mission? Check out our list of open positions and please reach out.
