Hi Julia! Can you tell us a bit about your background?

Hi! I'm Julia, and I joined GitGuardian a few months ago to lead the product management of Internal Monitoring for on-premise clients. I have a quite long experience in software as I worked as a production engineer, application manager, incident manager, both in B2B and B2C environments.

I studied at Supinfo Paris because I wanted to be a videogames programmer! Well, for a moment I also considered medical studies but that didn't work out...Fortunately!

And for the videogames, I soon realized that mixing hobbies with work can be arduous, so I decided to keep it as my passion (everyone is invited to my Mario Kart Battle once every two Fridays!).

During my studies, I also did volunteer work to promote FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) inclusion. I mostly did project management and translation with the Mozilla foundation. We had a huge number of people from all around the world contributing to the documentation and we had to manage that, so I learned quite a bit there.

Actually, when you joined the company, you said that documentation was indeed one of your passions!

Yes, I've worked extensively on improving the documentation for large software projects and I could see the impact of the results! It's funny because I know this is often considered as one of the "boring" tasks of software engineering, but when you have the right methodology it can become pure bliss: it removes so much of the hurdle and frictions when working with different teams and a large number of clients. It can actually make or break a product!

It's also deeply bound to the organization itself and how it grew over the years. To tackle documentation issues, you need to first sanitize and then improve it as you go, otherwise, you will run into a lot of problems.

Did you know about cybersecurity before joining?

No, but I wasn't too worried because I'm used to starting new jobs on topics that I don't fully master: when I was first contacted by Louise (GitGuardian Talent Acquisition Manager), I was asked if I would like to work on an AppSec product and I immediately responded "Yes, sure!" because I know curiosity is a big driver for me.

Did you learn about GitGuardian and the problem of secrets sprawl at that moment?

Well, yes, when I started prepping for the interviews. I had already heard about this problem in my previous jobs, mostly from DevOps engineers. But it wasn't until I read the State of Secrets Sprawl that I fully realized the extent of the problem, especially on GitHub. From there I could understand the need for an enterprise-grade solution.

What was so exciting about GitGuardian?

What impressed me right away was the people's energy: at every step of the recruiting process, the interviews were giving me a great sentiment of moving forward energy. It was evident that everyone shared the same goal in the company, to simply make the best product possible.

The role for which I interviewed also had a crystal clear objective: improve the self-hosted experience of our customers. I knew I had the experience to support large accounts and/or a large number of individual users, so I was really excited to embark on this new journey with my know-how.

In the end, everything went so smoothly that the whole recruiting process didn't last for more than 15 days!

What is the most pleasant thing about working here?

For me it's the team dynamics: it's so enjoyable to work with open-minded people and with the right set of tools. Ultimately it creates a great atmosphere.

Another big point for me is that, compared to what I witnessed in other places, ambition at GitGuardian is not a synonym of late hours working. Mental health is more important than anything and the founders have been very clear on that.

What do you enjoy outside of work?

I get around most of the time on my rollerblades, and what I'd like to learn now is to dance on roller quads!

Other than that, I'd really like to volunteer in a non-profit promoting gender diversity in tech. I can think of many ways to improve on that: find role models actually close enough to inspire girls to ask for more, work on the gender pay gap, and, most important, combat preconceived notions on a daily basis!

Thank you very much for your time Julia!

Thanks!