Team Presentation : Marvin – Computer Engineer
October 19, 2016
Marvin is : cashew nuts, freaking huge pasta lunchboxes, a will to gain weight and a dashboard. Presentations have been made. Let's dig a lil bit more into the character now (well, not literally, that wouldn't be nice).
Let's start with the scholarship. As usual for all Smiirl members, it's not going to be a walk in the park. Marvin always managed to obtain the average grade in all subjects, but he couldn't stand the system & didn't really manage to find a group of friends to stick to. On the map, you could position Marvin in Guyana where he settled for 10 years, and also in Martinique. After that, he went to a boarding school in France for 1 year. The less we can say, is that he definitely preferred playing Call of Duty over studying, which cost him to repeat the year and a direct comeback to Martinique. Same story in high-school where he only succeeds in music & sport, the only disciplines mattering for him.
Sport is taking a huge place in his childhood/teenage years, his parents putting him into sport really early, along with his twin brother. The result is : vice-champion of judo in Guyana at 10, and champion at 11. Needless to say, you don't wanna mess with him. After Oguchis and Ippons, he decided to hold a racket for little while in Martinique. He then became a Tennis teacher assistant at 17. As for music, he took the traditional music theory classes and played a lot of flute and clarinet, before trying the piano for a year.
What about the baccalaureate huh? EZ, piece of cake, 10.25/20 average. With the "pfiuuuh that was close" mention. His parents indeed thought he would fail it. Retrospectively, Marvin keeps a painful memory of his scholarship, the only subjects he was good at were the one he found an interest in. Sometimes, he had some genius strikes in physical chemistry and science, but only when the subject was interesting enough.
So there he is, baccalaureate in the pocket, hours & hours of boring classes behind him, and, of course, without any idea of what he wanted to do in the future, apart from playing video games. Based on this evidence, he tells himself that computer classes might interest him, maybe. He tries a first school, EPITA. He quits after 2 months, with an overdose of maths & physics, and a disgusting opinion of the scholar system which reminds him of what he went through in high-school. Let's try EPITECH then? Okay. And there it is ladies & gentlemen. The alchemy is finally working. His first year is a revelation, a revelation for coding. However, he fails this first year due to several personal problems. The second year is a close success, but he finally gives up in the very beginning of his third year, drowned by personal problems. His parents can't take it, and decide to cut him off completely. This forces him to go and find a job, in order to, well basically eat and live somewhere. He finds a solution at Sharingbox, an events company not related with developing at all, but where he earns some money and thinks to settle there for a while.
3 months at Sharingbox have passed, and our CTO Romain contacts him for a job application he made way back last December. This exchange is settled with a job proposition, and Marvin then starts his adventure among us! He immediately blends into the team and loves the project, because in his opinion, it's a relevant project because every single company must have a Facebook page nowadays, or at least a website. So, the idea of a connected counter convinced him, motivated him and made him appreciate the startup even more. Besides, Romain told him about all the technologies he was about to use during this experience. And the idea appeared even more beautiful to him.
Today, he works among us as a self-employed, is happy as a kid in Toy'R'Us and finally sees the usefulness in what he's doing every day. And of course, the atmosphere suits him perfectly! Marvin & Smiirl, that's a match!
We hope you liked this article about our cashew nuts serial eater!
I'm out 😉