Meet the Team: Antoine Dozois, Software Developer
We’re thrilled to launch a new blog series at VIA called “Meet the Team.” Through a Q&A-style interview, you will hear from VIA team members about things like a typical day at the office and favorite foods.
What does a typical day at VIA look like for you?
Like most startups, we are working on lots of exciting projects. Here are some of the challenges that I’m involved in on a daily basis.
- Infrastructure: This means having the right data storage and resources through AWS necessary for our workloads. This is in constant evolution because every new project or project phase has different needs. So, we always look for improvements ranging from storage capacity and ease of use to performance and access management.
- Data (management, cleaning, processing): To deliver the best AI solution, data needs to be widely available, in the proper format, with good workflow, and overall managed well. This part of the work is more around trying to structure the workflow and the processes involved in the team’s recurrent tasks. We also need to understand the data to manipulate it and find insights that are most relevant for our customers and internal teams.
- Building software to empower the team: Software can be built to access data, compute some metrics, build a machine learning model, or display some insight. We build libraries to help us automate and optimize our workflow. Overall, we are always trying to create efficiencies internally through streamlining and automating recurring tasks.
- Collaborating with the team: This relates to reviewing code, meeting to organize our work, and helping each other when needed.
What’s something you have worked on at VIA that you are most proud of?
It is hard to pick just one piece of work that I am the most proud of since we are tackling lots of exciting new projects and challenges. But, in the first months of being at VIA, I wrote code to help us better ingest and manage data. It was the first time that I was put in charge of developing some code to solve a problem and make tasks more efficient for the team. We still use part of the code today and are continuously improving it. I think it was a real issue and being able to solve that problem was really rewarding.
What’s your favorite VIA memory?
My first offsite was really special for me, it was the first time I saw the whole team in-person and was able to learn more about every member of the team. It was also really nice to learn about the next challenges we were going to take on as a company.
If you were given an extra hour in your day, what would you spend it doing?
I like to learn, so anything from reading, learning a new skill, watching a documentary, or building something new would be mostly what I would use that hour for.
What’s your go-to food?
As a proud Montrealer (born and raised) I must go with Poutine (from La Banquise for the best in Montreal). I wouldn’t eat it every day because it is not the healthiest food, but I never say no to Poutine when proposed to me.
What’s something everyone may not, but should know about working at VIA?
The different backgrounds and diversity of every person in the company makes it a unique and fun workplace.
