Interview with Thomas Dieulois, designer-developer

For International Developers' Day, we have chosen to give them a direct voice. Read the interview below with Thomas Dieulois, designer-developer within Digital Factory & Innovation.

How did you become a developer? What was your training?
Thomas: After the baccalaureate, I started a bachelor's degree in Life and Earth Sciences, which included IT courses aimed at raising our awareness of bioinformatics. I was immediately fascinated by this subject and decided to switch to a course entirely dedicated to IT. So I took an undergraduate technology diploma (DUT) in IT, then I went on to do a bachelor's degree in IT.

What advice would you give to a young student who wants to start a career in programming?
Thomas: To be curious, and to step outside the scope of his or her studies. Having a personal project can be a good way to learn and raise your profile with companies.

What do you think is the best programming language to start with? And which one do you hate?
Thomas: I don't know if there's a language you should give preference to; I think you should have a good teacher and like what you do. I don't hate any language, I'm open-minded 🙂

Do you have any tips for learning a language?
Thomas: First, you need good coffee and then you need to practise. Reading tutorials is good, but practice lets you make progress.

According to you, your experience… what characterises a "good" developer? (background, work habits, best practice, etc.)?
Thomas: In my opinion, background doesn't matter; a good developer will first of all be someone who is open-minded and is keen to improve, both in terms of working methods and coding.

How do you continue to improve and keep your knowledge up to date?
Thomas: Through the training courses that SPB provides, but also by monitoring technology – something that we do as part of our projects (articles, examples of implementations, etc.).

What annoys developers most?
Thomas: I hesitate between a GIT conflict and CSS 🙂

What clichés do you face?
Thomas: The eternal "shy geek who spends his day in front of the computer". But let's face it, sometimes it's true.

What is your position and what are your tasks within SPB?
Thomas: I am a designer-developer within Digital Factory.  My job is to develop and maintain web applications such as claims-reporting or subscription websites for policyholders.

What does your typical day look like?
Thomas: We always start the day with a 15-minute "daily stand-up" where everyone in the team briefly explains what they worked on the day before and what they plan to do that day.

After that, we work on the task that has been assigned to us, which can range from fixing a bug to adding a new functionality in pair programming.

In addition to this, we regularly take part in meetings with the project teams to clarify certain technical details and provide our views for projects.