About me

Who am I?

Hi! I’m Romain. I’m a PhD in Computer Science, a software engineer, and a tech leader with over 13 years of experience gained at companies like happn, BackMarket, and Swan.

Oh, and I’m French 🇫🇷

My background in theoretical computer science and my years as a PhD student have left a deep mark on my professional DNA. Those years of fundamental research shaped the way I work today: I don’t just do tasks; I dive into them. When I tackle a subject, I get genuinely passionate, sometimes bordering on obsession. I need to understand the why and the how right down to the root.

But this intensity isn’t solitary. My goal is to make this passion contagious. I care deeply about transmitting knowledge to my team.

On a human level, for those familiar with the DISC assessment, I sit firmly in the Green quadrant (Steady), with a slight lean towards Yellow. This translates into a “Servant Leadership” mindset. I don’t see myself as being above the group, but as an integral part of it. My North Star is the well-being and success of my team. I am devoted to their growth, often placing their fulfillment and team harmony before my own.

What I Look For in a Project

My career choices aren’t just about a job title; they are guided by three central pillars that keep me engaged and motivated.

1. Purpose & Impact. I need to work on a product that makes sense. Something that brings real value to society. Ideally, I want to be a user of the product myself. There is nothing more powerful than “dogfooding” to provide sincere feedback and reinject one’s own user experience into product improvement.

2. True Tech-Product Symbiosis. I believe the best products are born when Tech and Product walk hand in hand. I look for environments where we co-construct the roadmap together, sharing a common goal: building a product that solves user needs while maintaining the high quality standards those users deserve. No silos, just collaboration.

3. Two-Way Growth. Finally, I look for a balance where I can serve. I want to leverage the experience and know-how I’ve gathered over the years to help the company grow, while being in a place that challenges me. I want to mentor, but I also want to continue learning every day.

My journey: from PhD to present

From First Steps to the Doctorate

I found my true path in Mathematics and Computer Science. I was immediately fascinated by algorithmics, graph theory (modeling the world with vertices and edges), and computational complexity.

This interest led me to the LIFO (University of Orléans), where I spent three years completing my PhD. My thesis focused on exact and exponential algorithms for solving graph problems (available here). It was a period rich in research and publications (see here), but also in teaching. I taught complexity and web development to undergraduate and master’s students.

Although passionate about the subject, I realized that the traditional academic lecture format created a disconnect. I wanted to transmit my passion to students, but I often felt I lacked the time and resources to make the modules as engaging as they deserved to be.

From Doctorate to Private Sector

Upon becoming a Doctor of Computer Science, I stood at a crossroads: pursue the goal of tenure (post-docs, moving from city to city, uncertain funding) or pivot to the private sector. I chose the latter for three reasons:

Stability: I wanted to build a life with my partner without moving every two years.
Impact: My thesis supervisor used to say that a concrete application of our work might appear in 30 years. I wanted to build things people would use now.
Teaching vs. “Publish or Perish”: Transmission is a passion, but I realized the academic model prioritizes research to secure funding. I refused to treat teaching as a mere adjustment variable or sacrifice pedagogical quality due to a lack of time.

Early Days & A Reality Check

My transition wasn’t without setbacks. I joined a Parisian startup as an R&D Engineer. The reality check was harsh: I went from graph theory to maintaining VBA scripts and batch executions. Three months later, I learned the hard way about startup volatility when financial issues led to a layoff plan.

Back-end Engineer to Manager @ happn (5 years)

I joined happn, a dating app, during a pivotal moment of hyper-growth. I didn’t just witness the company’s transformation; I helped build it.

On the tech side, I arrived right at the start of a massive migration. We moved from legacy physical servers to a cloud-native architecture on GCP, while simultaneously strangling the PHP monolith into a distributed system in Java/Spring and Cassandra.

But the biggest change was organizational, and I took an active role in driving it. As the team grew, we needed to break silos. I participated in restructuring the tech department, moving from Component teams (where back-end and mobile devs worked separately) to cross-functional Feature Teams.

After two years contributing to this ecosystem, I stepped up as Lead Back-end Engineer, and finally as Engineering Manager. It was in this environment that I discovered my affection for facilitation—unblocking my team, refining our processes, and bridging the gap between Tech, Product, and Data.

Engineering Manager @ Back Market (2 years)

In 2021, I joined BackMarket, a mission-driven unicorn dedicated to refurbished tech. I managed a team responsible for the core user journey (Navigation, Listings and product pages, Buyback experience).

It wasn’t just about managing people, but also about structuring our working methodologies. I onboarded the team in building and committing to a roadmap, aligned with our capacity to deliver and the company’s objectives.

I introduced a Kanban-based approach and instituted refinement sessions to foster co-construction. My focus was empowering the team to build the roadmap with the Product Manager, ensuring we delivered value without burning out.

I also took on transverse technical leadership, such as implementing AB-testing solutions using Cloudflare workers. It was an intense, high-growth environment where I learned how to balance delivery pressure with team health.

Family Break (10 months)

In early 2023, my partner and I welcomed a happy event. I decided to leave BackMarket to become a full-time stay-at-home dad.

I won’t say much about this period, other than I savored every moment. I changed more diapers than I can count, but being fully present for my daughter was a privilege. I also used nap times to start writing the blog posts you can read here!

My daughter and I :)

Engineering Manager @ Swan (2 years)

From September 2023 to September 2025, I served as an EM leading the team responsible for Merchant features (Card Acquiring, SEPA, Checks, and POS payments).

My primary mission was to consolidate the team and ensure we could deliver complex payment features with high quality standards. I focused heavily on providing a structure for growth:

People: I designed a Career Ladder for engineers and introduced Squad Health Checks to monitor tech team well-being.
Process: I led the shift to a Kanban model, establishing clear Definitions of Ready (DoR) and Done (DoD), and facilitating retrospectives to instill a culture of continuous improvement.
Knowledge: At the company level, I spearheaded the Knowledge Management initiative, architecting the documentation structure and migrating the tech knowledge base to ensure long-term maintainability.

A Confirming Experience. This experience was pivotal in clarifying and validating what drives me. Although we achieved technical successes, I realized the product lacked the societal impact I crave. Furthermore, the team structure (purely Back-end) and the difficulty in establishing strong Tech/Product rituals highlighted just how much I value cross-functional autonomy and true Tech-Product symbiosis.

In September 2025, I left Swan to welcome my second child, taking another break to focus on what matters most: family.

Side Projects & Private Life

The Home Lab. This is my “rabbit hole” and main hobby. I devote an unreasonable amount of time to self-hosting and maintaining my own infrastructure. It’s a sandbox I use to keep my technical skills sharp. My setup involves a cluster of servers and Raspberry Pis hosting dozens of services behind Traefik (analytics, monitoring, media, cooking blog, etc.). I also experiment with distributed storage solutions like Garage and complex backup strategies. It’s an endless project that I happily get lost in.

Reading. My professional bookshelf features classics like Accelerate, An Elegant Puzzle, The Effective Manager, or Clean Code, as well as specialized books on my current passions or demons (typically, on knowledge management, the need for focus, or optimizing my efficiency).

Family Life. I am currently mastering the art of managing two kids without losing my mind (or too much sleep). It is my most demanding and rewarding role to date.

Writings / Publications. As you can see on this blog, I use writing to process my thoughts and share my experiences. It is my way of persisting my knowledge to free up mental bandwidth. Once a subject is dug into and the solution documented, I can serenely move on to the next thing.

My resume is available here.