March 2019

This journey has started about 1 year ago.

No wait, that was dormant for a long time before that. I guess I have to go back to my studying time: at that time my days were full of maths and computers. And my days were flying as crazy. It happens to me (to you?) when you’re just in a middle of something you like very much. 10 hours looks like 1. And the opposite is true as well.

2000 - 2004: software development

Most of my days and weekends at that time were dedicated to code in Java and bash. Java mainly for server-side developpement in J2EE at Unilog Management. Bash from time to time to automate some tasks on my personal PC. At that time it was mainly about learning what is an operating system. I had started with LFS (Linux From Scratch). And in 2002 with Gentoo which was a much more powerful way to mimic LFS.

2004 - 2009: project management

Strange period. I don’t remember exactly why but I had a shift in my professional orientation. I moved away from software development and turned into a project manager. In 2005 I entered into Michelin company. And sofwtare technical matters at that time were considered as unimportant (and embarrassing subjects) Fortunately in 2009 I have been started my agile journey. A lot to learn, and it was less about software than human relations and empathy. It was like a start from scratch.

2009 - 2015: agile journey

Quite a new world for me. I had some basic knowledge by following Jono Bacon. At that time he was a community manager|release leader at Ubuntu. And was reporting progress using burndown charts. In 2009 I launched a project to create an employee portal (closed to what netvibes and igoogle were at that time). Using standard java portal technologies and more importantly using agile approach. A lot to learn about Agile, Scrum, and endless discussions about how to introduce Agile into a non-Agile organization. In 2010 I started another more ambitious project, with many colleagues (~30 persons) and a vague vision. It was about to create a product lifecycle management solution for semi-finished products.

2015 - 2017: lean journey

In 2015, I met lean approaches for office. I was immediately convinced there was powerful and deep roots within lean. And it could bring a lot to people and organizations. I turned into a lean coach, to work with teams identifying what they could improve, how they could work better, with more pleasure.

2017 - 2019: Welcome to USA!

Nice opportunity at that time to move from Clermont-Ferrand (France) to Greenville, South Carolina (USA). I have loved every part of it. Except maybe that 2 years were too short to make a full tour of this amazing country. It is crazy to think how different we are when we look like the same.

2019 - : back to France and turning as a datascientist

Sept 2019 - back to France and for 4 months to prepare for a complete new position: datascientist for Manufacturing within Michelin. I spent many days to learn from various sources specially datacamp and Andrew Ng. That was just the beginning. My intent was to move away from project management, team leadership and focus about what I can do by myself. I wanted to return to math domains without giving up an IT landscape. My colleague Francois Deheeger told me about data science and Artificial Intelligence. That looked as interesting as terrifying. I was in. I was not afraid to learn a new language, and to restart my career from scratch.