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Gregory PASSENHEIM’s interview, DevOps Engineer at Talan Canada

In this employee testimonial, Greg reflects on his career, his duties as a DevOps engineer and a strong memory at Talan.

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Can you present your journey in a few lines?

In the 80’s, I was already rocked by lines of code. I knew how to write my first name on a keyboard before I could write it on paper! After high school, my grandfather gave me my first laptop, the IBM ThinkPad, in 1996. This resulted in a solid training as a developer, two initial experiences as an intern, and a shift in consulting that now matches my personality.

In 2015 in Paris, I met Christophe Castellani - at the time one of the Partners of the Finance BU - currently CEO Talan North America. 

Beyond my technical skills, he was able to see what I wanted to develop: coordination, PMO, coaching. I had also mentioned my interest in Talan's international dimension. 

In 2018, Talan allowed me to come to work in Canada.

 

What are your current missions?

The C# is at BCPL*, what I am at DevOps: a DevOps#, a passionate who adapts to any context, is not limited to a technology or language, and seeks to best meet operational expectations. All packaged with a big dose of good humour!

In my first years in Canada, I used all this expertise within an application support team at Société Générale.

Now at BNP, my mission is even better suited to my aspirations and still has several facets: coordinator, technical adviser, investigator. A “The Vigilant” superhero in a way!

This related part of the business plays a central role in the success of my missions. It requires a lot of empathy, curiosity and responsiveness.

 

Talan in 3 words?

  • Family: this is the first idea that comes to me when I think about Talan. 

In a family, we have our favourite uncle, the grandma who always talks about the same things, the big brother to whom we can confide. 

Benjamin, my manager, is my big brother at Talan: he took the time to call me several times a week from the start of Covid19, when I was stuck in Cuba with no solution to return to Montreal (I could write a book about it).

Today, I know I am lucky to be in a close-knit team: I am not going to get along with everyone, but we are moving in the same direction together and above all, together with our differences.

  • Trust: I can talk to any director or manager in North America. Sometimes sincere and frank, sometimes imbued with advice, our discussions are always straightforward and tongue-in-cheek. They trust me just as I trust them, and we move forward together.
  • Listen: this is the strength of the people I work with at Talan in Canada. Talan knows my personality, my skills, my desire to help my employees. I'm not just a number!! 

 

At Talan, what is your playfield? How do you manage to explore it?

My playfield today is multi-language development and coordination. I put this passion at the service of my customers, I like to share it during our meetups, and I use it for small internal projects.

I also invest in a new area: RPA (Robot Process Automation), which I have been passionate about since my first scripts. I am committed to developing these skills in Canada, through internal training and coaching.  Talan also allowed me to take the lead on manual process automation projects for the Back Office. 

It is extremely motivating because it puts into practice everything I like: understanding the difficulties encountered, analysing a situation with an outside eye, looking for solutions alone or with Talan's collective intelligence, confronting his ideas, implementing solutions, ensuring that everything works... to ultimately help other employees improve their daily lives.

Another equally important playfield: my colleagues are extremely demanding of Talan events outside work: I am now an active member of the "Happyness Officer" league. What do you do next week? :-)

 

A strong memory since you were at Talan?

On the day in 2016, Christophe Castellani told me, "Do you remember, a year and a half ago, we talked about your desire to go to Canada? You have to meet an employee at all costs, she's based in Canada and she's going to come to Paris." 

I mentioned this point in 2015 during my job interview with him. 

I realised at that time how much Christophe is listening and knows how to keep his promises. I have been resident in Canada since 5 February 2018.

 

Which person inspires you the most?

When I was at Crédit Agricole in 2013, I had the chance to meet Alain Bazzara, a domain architect and team leader. He was the first to put his trust in me and gave me the opportunity to. 

Even as a junior in the role of PMO and Coordination, he was able to see in me an appetite and predispositions to find solutions, coordinate teams and exchange with project players. He gave me my chance. 

This real mentor took me under his wing, advised, showed good practices to become what I am today, at Talan: a real Swiss-Canadian Army knife.

 

* "Basic Combined Programming Language", a programming language from the 60s, ancestor of the C