🙌 Meet Jean-Philippe
A few days ago we welcomed Jean-Philippe or JP (gee-pee) to Missive’s headquarters aka our cozy basement in downtown Quebec City.
He is employee number #1 and we’re very excited to present him to you! With his expertise, he will be working to help us accelerate the rate at which we ship new features, fix bugs and continue to make Missive an even better product.
JP, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Where are you from?
All my childhood was spent biking around a small town of 6000 people called Mont-Joli in the Canadian province of Quebec. But since 2007 I live in beautiful Quebec City.
Favourite spot to get a late night poutine?
(Poutine is a local dish made of french fries and cheese curds topped with a brown gravy).
A great one is the Smoked Meat poutine from Phil Smoked Meat but they are not open that late. If it's closed I usually fallback to Le Cactus Bar.
How did you start coding?
Like most developers (I think) I started by creating a couple of small websites for fun in high school. We all remember the GeoCities days, right?
I also played a lot with mIRC scripting at some point back in high school too.
What do you like the most about being a developer?
All the creative side of it. Being able to do almost anything I want to cater to my needs. Solving problems, making people’s life easier.
What brought you to Missive?
For a little over a 1 year I worked with Rafael (our CTO) 10 years ago — wow time really flies by. I enjoyed every part of it. We were always the guys pushing others to do more, trying to make everything as good as possible. Since then I’ve always been a fan of his work with Etienne and Philippe. I’ve also been a long time user of Missive, almost since day 1 and I really enjoy it.
I wasn’t looking for a new job, but when I saw they were hiring I knew I couldn’t let this opportunity pass. And here I am today.
Oh and of course everyone is super nice and friendly :)
What excites the most about working here?
The level of care for the product and customer is just incredible, that’s always been how I see things. All the nifty little details are what makes Missive’s UX what it is today.
Another really interesting thing is working all day long with the tool you’re developing, for work or personal messaging.
Missive is part of my life on a daily basis.
How do you balance work/life?
When I’m not at work, family and friends are my priority. When I have some me time (with 2 young children, it’s pretty rare 😂) I love trail running, LEGO building & casual retro gaming.
Did you like something about the hiring process?
Yes! When Philippe (our CEO) sent me a screenshot of the order confirmation for the desk he purchased, just 3 minutes after I accepted the job offer! 😆
Weird last question, what do you absolutely want to do before dying?
Haha this one will probably make you laugh. I’ve been a HUGE fan of LEGO, both in my childhood and now as an adult. I would really love to experience a LEGO® Inside Tour in Billund, Denmark. And don’t forget… Everything is awesome!!!
Thanks for your time JP and we hope you enjoy our traditional welcome present.
We understand that calling this a tradition is an overstatement, since it’s the first time we do it. But we intend to keep this tradition alive. At least until employee number… 15? Otherwise we will need to pivot into a restaurant!
