We're excited to bring you another inspiring story in our team interview series! Today, we introduce Mathilde, an R&D Engineer with the CryptPad team, where she thrives on the variety of tasks she tackles daily alongside her 6 teammates. Her journey into the open-source world began at the young age of 11, and her passion has only grown since. Dive into our latest article to learn more about her unique experiences and insights!
- Favorite artist: I like way too many! But I've been listening to Mobb Deep a LOT these past months.
- Best book ever read: "Stone Butch Blues" by Leslie Feinberg
- Dream destination: The mountains and forests, just by my house.
- Quote you live by: "Be aware of your privileges, be just and do right to others, but take no pride in it."
- At the office or remote? 100% remote!
Tell us about yourself
Hello! I'm Mathilde, born mid '90s, a self-taught engineer with +10 years of professional experience in multiple IT fields. I have a strong interest in ethics (beware, not in the corporate meaning) and pragmatism. Hence, I value simplicity over complexity. I also prefer fairness to equality.
I enjoy walking outside, taking pictures. Sometimes riding a mountain bike, skiing, hiking or Muay Thai boxing. But you'll usually find me cooking food, listening to music or watching movies, hugging my partner or my dog.
David, Mathilde's manager, also explains briefly about her role and responsibilities inside the CryptPad team:
Mathilde is the engineer in charge of deployment, community, and support in the CryptPad team. Her role is crucial as it extends from the technicalities of installing and running a CryptPad instance, to helping the administrators who do this work, all the way to providing support for end-users. Technologies like web applications and encryption are nothing without the people using them. In our team Mathilde is one of the main points of contact between our work and the public.
🌄 The journey to XWiki
What were you doing before XWiki? Did you change careers when joining our team?
I've been working a wide variety jobs in the past: farmer, waitress, chambermaid, mason, carpenter, car/truck mechanic, stage manager, sound engineer & university tutor. Some while studying humanities (sociology, anthropology, history and philosophy) and others full-time. However, I always dabbled around computers and started taking freelance jobs when I joined university back in 2014.
Right before joining XWiki I was working as co-funder of a cooperative, mostly doing system administration, infrastructure & giving learning courses. Cooperative which we ran for more than 3 years before COVID hit us. Sadly we never fully financially recovered from our losses at this time and decided to shut down the company.
What is it like to be working in the CryptPad team at XWiki?
I joined a wonderful team of 3 people, and we doubled in size in 2 years! Now there are 6 of us employed by XWiki to work on CryptPad, and we also have an amazing trainee. We are a close-knit team where it's super easy to reach out to others and communication is very friendly. I like a lot the fact that I'm working on many different tasks at the same time. While it's a bit difficult to keep track of it sometimes, and it requires a lot of discipline, there isn't a day like another. 😊
🔎 Open-source impressions
Was open source something you had an interest in prior to XWiki?
Of course, I met open source very early in my life. I was 11 when a classmate of mine showed me what Linux was, and how to set up an HTTPd server and all. At this time he was coding our music band website in PHP. Even if we don't see each other as much as before, we are still friends to this day, and he is now a talented engineer, working at Canonical on the Foundations team in a QA position.
What's the open-source value you identify with most?
It's hard to tell for me because I see many flaws in open-source communities. But while I'm thinking about it, it's all about humans and cooperation, giving you the ability to self organize (not always, not for every project, but sometimes) and create great things with the help of very diverse people.
⌛ Being an XWikier
How was the integration process at XWiki for you?
Entirely remote! I haven't been able to attend the company yearly seminars due to various personal reasons. However, I was able to travel to the Paris office multiple time and I enjoyed a lot meeting my co-workers. Those from the CryptPad team and also the others working on XWiki.
In my small team I felt really welcomed and looking at how much we have accomplished in these past 2 years, I'm really proud.
What were the biggest ways in which XWiki changed during the time you've been around?
Again, it's all about my small team, growing from 4 people working full-time to 6! We had to formalize a lot of things, adapt our way of working together, communicate, etc. I rejoice witnessing all the progress we made regarding that.
What has kept you at XWiki so far?
The diversity of my daily work schedule, the flexibility for organizing it, the lack of strong hierarchy and the absence of micromanagement practices. The purpose of our work on CryptPad as well, it's really a project made for the common good and the kind of service it delivers has never been more needed than today in our societies. Especially for minorities, being more and more targeted, even in France and other Western countries where they would feel "somewhat safe" a few years ago.
Favorite memory up until now at XWiki?
The 2022 Christmas dinner in Paris, where I met most of the XWiki French team and some of my CryptPad colleagues attended as well. We had a delicious meal in a vegetarian restaurant, great conversations with people. I felt close to my colleagues and that was super cool.
