Benjamin Marquis

Building a small DEFI and DAO DAPP to teach blockchain :
I started to grow an interest in blockchain technology and how it could change the web and impact some of our social processes. My family and friends also got curious about blockchain the more I talked about it. I started teaching sessions where I explain blockchain fundamentals, getting into technological and practical concepts. There is nothing better than practice to retain learning information so I built a small DEFI and DAO DAPP so that the persons I am teaching to can interact with Ethereum’s testnet. I created an ERC20 token named Astro Light that people can buy and then either swap for another token or stake. As ASTRO holders they can also participate in the DAO and make a proposal of their own to change the color of a UI element that gets its color from a smart contract managed by a set of governance smart contracts.

Replacing the heart of an e-commerce:
I joined Aldo just before the start of a big project that was to rebuild from scratch the OMS (order management system).
It was not an easy task since this system is interconnected with multiple other systems and OMS is the glue that connects them all.
The new OMS was built with the latest concepts and technologies with an event driven microservice architecture using Eventbridge and Lambda functions.
I also created a CLI and IDE extension to smooth out development and eliminate the need to access AWS console when interacting with EventBridge and Lambda functions.

Getting out off MVP:
When I joined Spockee, the product was getting some traction but the tech has been a bit left behind.
As a lead developer one of my first initiatives was to build proper CI/CD pipelines to automate the deployment of the applications.
I learn Infrastructure as Code and Terraform so we could also automate infrastructure management and deployment. Moving the applications from EC2 instance to Fargate containers.
I also passed my scrum master certification to help the team mature in agile methodologies.
I was also there to support the team to grow in those new technologies we were adopting with lunch and learns and pair programming.

Growing a product:
During Centech's acceleration program I met with Olivier his goal was to be able to recommend you the best SaaS for your needs, and offered me to hop in the project and lead the development of the Tooly's MVP.
With Tooly we enrolled in Next AI's incubation program. I, of course, had to build the tech side of the project from machine learning models to an admin panel with Koa and Graphql.
But I also had the opportunity to participate in the development of the whole product from business model to MVP experiments.
I followed a product ownership bootcamp to tace better product decision.

Implementing new processes:
Alongside Tooly, there is another business Cominity, the agency.
Being part of an agency has led me to learn a handful of technologies. I was able to engineer the whole CI/CD pipeline for the applications Dockerizing the app on the way. I learned Kubernetes and serverless tools like Lambda to figure out the best solutions for our multiple needs.
I help junior developers in their coding journey.

Entering the entrepreneur's world:
At the end of Le Wagon bootcamp, one of the students came to me: his idea has been accepted to the Centech's Acceleration program and he proposed me to be the CTO for the project.
Following the training offered by the Centech made me enter the entrepreneur's world which I have found too thrilling to quit since.
The project was a data visualisation tool for physical rehabilitation professionals. I use this opportunity to learn some new technology like React to quickly build our first MVP.

Teaching one's passion:
After graduating from the Wagon they asked me to join their forces and become a teacher assistant, soon enough I became a teacher.
I always liked explaining things to others and finding ways they could understand the same with their own logic. Becoming a teacher for the Javascript part of the program allowed me to share my passion for the language. Even if I had great confidence in my technology's skill I had to overcome my fear of speaking in front of an audience..

Beginning the Full-Stack journey:
After having successfully built a data pipeline to automate my reporting, I realised that I was having more fun developing and coding than building marketing campaigns. I already Learned Javascript and Python on my own, now it was time to practice my coding skills with a team.
The Wagon offered me the opportunity to do just that. My project was selected as a final project. We built an app that would bring people together depending on their cultural interest. The app included a built-in instant messaging service using WebSockets.

Discovering data and data-pipeline:
Working as a digital marketing specialist, I had a lot of reporting to do, especially because I was in charge of multiple clients. To make this reporting easier, I Learned Python and used Apache Airflow to build a data pipeline
The first part of the pipeline connects to different APIs (Google Ads/Facebook/Google Analytics/CRM) to get the data I need for my reporting. The data is then sent to a Big Query data warehouse. The second part of the pipeline uses Pandas to process the data from different sources to get some useful insights. The result is sent by email.
To make the development of this app easier I used Docker so I could Docker-compose my app anywhere.