In our section ” Portrait of our employees “, today we present you Cyril MOURISSARGUES, one of our DEV Consultant Techso. He joined us 3 years ago, and he tells us about his career with us.
- What is your educational and professional background?
I first obtained a “BAC S option SVT”, then a “BTS” in business computing at the CCI of Nîmes and finally an engineering degree with SAP specialization at EPSI Montpellier.
I worked at Carrefour (supermarket) in parallel to my BTS to pay for my studies and my apartment, and I worked as an intern on various technologies. I did my 3 years of engineering school in a GIS company as apprentice (Geographic Information System) mainly on VB6, PHP, PostgresSQL (postgis), linux server management (Debian), autocad transformations.
At the end of my studies, I decided to live in Montreal and I arrived on December 29th, 2015 (under equipped for the cold…). A few weeks later I found my first job as a developer in a company specializing in public transportation. I mainly worked on Windows servers, C#, SQL server, PHP, and on many projects with international clients (mostly in Miami). Then I decided after 2 years to change company, and I quickly found Techso where I have been working for almost 3 years now.
- What convinced you to join Techso?
Several points convinced me!
The first point is the Techso mentality: here there is no hierarchy, whether you are new, old or even a trainee, we consider ourselves as equals, we work together to advance projects, bring our skills and expertise to customers, share, train and build ourselves within the company, like a round table!
Another point that convinced me: to be a consultant and to be able to change projects regularly, to renew oneself and not fall into the monotony of a technology or a project.
- What is your role at Techso?
I am a Full Stack Senior Consultant, as such and like all my colleagues, I am here to support the company and my colleagues if they need me. Techso is grateful, so we want to get involved, it is a natural thing to do.
I have assignments for more or less long-term mandates with clients, on a variety of projects; I can do development, consulting, auditing, or even “crisis management”.
- What have been your assignments since you have been at Techso?
I have done many internal Techso projects, but I have also had several missions for one of our clients in the event sector. But I have also managed projects in the banking sector on PHP development and critical data management; in the digital sector on an audit and development project in C#; in the notary sector as a temporary Functional Analyst/Product Owner; as well as in the health sector on backend development in Java; to name the main ones.
- What skills have you developed?
On a technical level, I was mainly able to develop my Java knowledge. But I was also able to increase my skills in project management and in managing relationships with clients from various backgrounds.
- What was your biggest challenge?
The project in the notary sector really required a lot of effort and patience. When policy is in conflicts with the expertise and work of a consultant, it is necessary to be able to adapt and find compromises between the parties. It is a project where I learned a lot both on a technical and human level, and having good interpersonal skills is an essential skill for a consultant.
- What made you want to move to Montreal?
Before my engineering studies my parents could not afford to make my sister and me travel, so I never left France even for vacations (even never in parks like Disney). I only went to Spain to see family.
After these frustrating years, I felt like traveling and going on an adventure at the end of my studies. I then decided to organize my departure for Canada with 3 other friends from my engineering school. I chose Montreal because I had heard a lot about Canadian courtesy and “good-living”, wilderness landscapes and work opportunities.
- What was the most exotic when you arrived in Montreal?
The most exotic for me was probably the accent, the vocabulary, and the familiarization. Clearly there are a lot of small differences that are disturbing like the timed pedestrian traffic lights, having a debit card and a credit card whereas in France we only have one that does both. And of course, the temperatures have been very exotic!
- What did you miss?
What I missed the most was obviously my family and some friends.
- What do you want Techso to do next?
Projects always more motivating, continue to learn within the company and always as much fun!
- Bonus question: a funny anecdote from Techso.
I probably have several of them, but I think of one in particular that was last year: we had, on a Friday evening, organized a cocktail party with students at the office (to meet them and prepare our future hires), the students had to arrive around 6-7pm. However, at 7pm nobody arrived, and suddenly the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the building. When we arrived on the street below, I learned that we received a call from one of the students who was supposed to come, she told us that they were stuck at 10-15 in the elevator and that they had fun jumping. The elevator was overloaded, had smoked and triggered the alarm that evacuated the whole building …
An evening full of twists and turns that ended well with a cocktail, a little later than expected!
