Meet Pascal, Team Lead and R&D Engineer at Tixeo

On 16 March 2020, Pascal logged in to Tixeo’s virtual open space for the first time. The welcome lunch planned for that same day, near the company’s headquarters in Montpellier, had been cancelled because of the pandemic that was just taking hold. It made little difference: his new teammates were all there, virtually, to greet him. “I joined at a hectic time. We were fielding an enormous number of requests [following the widespread shift to remote work and the urgent need for video conferencing]. It was a real technical challenge, in anything but normal conditions.”

That appetite for a challenge is what first drew Pascal to the secure video conferencing specialist. After more than 15 years in large organizations, where he held roles as a development engineer and then as a Java expert, he was looking for a smaller, close-knit company with serious growth ambitions. “Meeting Sébastien and Renaud [Tixeo’s founders] made me want to explore the world of cybersecurity.”

A few months after joining, in the middle of July, Pascal — originally from Saint-Quentin — finally met his colleagues in the flesh, at a company offsite in La Grande-Motte. Some of them, as it happens, had already crossed his path earlier in his career.

Development, in software and in sport

Pascal joined Tixeo as an R&D engineer on the back-office side, taking charge of meeting and user management, and now heads up a dedicated team. “What I enjoy about my job is finding solutions, and the day-to-day side of managing a team.” Pascal also works directly with customers, which lets him pinpoint exactly what they need and “see in concrete terms what our work is actually for!”

And if he enjoys being 100% remote, it’s partly because it lets him live his passion 200%. A volunteer secretary at his running club, he has also been able to take on coaching for young athletes aged 10 to 14.

The time saved by cutting out the commute, along with the freedom to organize his days as he sees fit, has freed up energy for his running — and for hiking, walking and cycling in the great outdoors.

/ A typical day at Tixeo?

“I get up fairly early and usually go for a run. Then I log in to Tixeo around 8am and work on my own for an hour. After that the teams join and we go straight into the dailies, our team meetings. I then plan out my tasks for the day. At lunchtime, if I haven’t already been out in the morning, I go for a run! In the afternoon, on specific topics, I’ll sometimes work with a video call open with my team, as if we were all in the same room. In the evening, I log off and head straight to training.”

/ If he had to sum up what makes his role unique…

“Our day-to-day challenge is to find smart solutions that meet the demands of cybersecurity and technological sovereignty, so we can serve the needs of our most strategic customers. My technical choices are constrained by a number of legitimate criteria, all designed to strengthen security at every level. At the same time, I’m given a great deal of trust, which leaves me plenty of room to experiment.”