At A World For Us, there are two kinds of devs, those who live in Lyon and come to the office more or less often, and the others. The remote devs we hear about but never meet, the ones we only know because they make jokes on Slack or because a new feature was released by miracle one morning because they worked on it.
Christophe Benoit belongs to this second category. In nine months at A World For Us, I have only seen him once in the flesh, and yet he exists.
So I decided to make him the new victim of my portrait of a dev, because even we don't really know him.
Chris is 42 years old (and yes, computers already existed back then, I just learned that too), he lives in the Paris area, close to Disneyland with his wife, his two and a half year old boy and his cat.
Yes, he's a dev and he has a cat, more cliché you die.
What I didn't know is that he grew up in the Lyon region, his favorite food is quenelles! Why did he choose to voluntarily move to the north you may ask? I don't know, people are weird.
He decided to turn to web development in high school, playing on the computers in the library, the only place he could access the Internet.
He probably didn't have much time to do computers anyway when he had to hunt for food and build a fire to keep the wild beasts away from his cave.
For him, development is great because there is everything to build, it was already the case when he started and it still is now!
We like people who are passionate.
He then went on to engineering school, then to various jobs and even the management of a company, before landing with us a year ago.
When I asked him the ritual question "what did you like at A World For Us?" he answered the atmosphere - Yes, they all answer the atmosphere, it's because we are really too cool - but also the fact to be able to work remotely at almost 100% which is convenient when you have to take care of a small child and you don't want to take two hours of subway per day to reach your office (we know you Parisians). He also likes the projects he works on and the technologies used.
Today, Chris is a senior dev in charge of a top secret project. We can't tell you about this project in detail because it's top secret, but you should know that it includes an extranet for our clients' customers. It works mainly with our official robot, Edouard (aka Edbot) who works in person. It's thanks to him that we hear about Chris from time to time around here!
More seriously, who is Chris?
A 42-year-old developer who loves martial arts, cats, his son (thankfully) and music, but also an architect according to the sixteen personality test.
He is, therefore, a "pioneering spirit who questions everything and likes to make his own conclusions, a man who thirsts for knowledge but is not the most gifted in human relations."
Yes, he chose his job well.
He shares these characteristics with Elon Musk and Walter White in Breaking Bad.
If he loses his job and discovers a brain tumor, he should be concerned.
But Chris is also and above all a Gemini, which, according to Elle magazine, means that he is an intellectual always looking for solutions, very cultured and avoiding routine, but also that he is a sensitive man, not very good at communicating who seduces thanks to the richness of his mind.
It's always amazing when Elle magazine and the 16-person test agree.
Now you know everything about Chris, the shadow developer.
Stay tuned for a new portrait!
Xoxo, Digiforgirl.
