Author: Datajoy

Saeed Jahankhani

Role:  Principal Architect
Joined: September 2020
Home: North Vancouver

What were you doing before joining Datajoy?

I spent a decade at SAP building analytical tools while holding multiple roles, continuously learning and tackling the most challenging problems. Most recently, I led the design and engineering of the natural language search engine of SAP Analytics Cloud, where we translated natural language business questions to data queries, surfacing answers as visualizations. 

What attracted you to Datajoy?

One of my goals early on in life was to be an entrepreneur and build a company from the ground up. Once I spoke with both Ken and Jon, I quickly saw the stars aligning as Jon is a seasoned entrepreneur that I could learn a great deal from and Ken, whom I had acquaintance with from SAP, is one of the smartest people I have met in my professional career!

What does your typical day-to-day look like?

I enjoy early mornings and  I’m most productive when everyone is asleep-both at home and at work!  So I’m usually up around 4:30am coding/tackling problems that require the most focus. Between 7-8 I usually walk our dog, Lucy, and have a light breakfast. Rest of the day I try to stay in touch with the team, discussing designs, helping with anything I can and continuing to code!

What makes Datajoy special compared to other companies you worked at?

The amazing people on our team! Not only is everyone super talented, but also hard working, goal oriented and ambitious. Everyone cares deeply about each other and the success of the company!

Favorite thing to do outside of work?

Spending time outdoors exploring the beautiful trails of the north shore with my wife Ajand and our dog Lucy, traveling to new locations any chance we get, and recently, playing indoor soccer with friends. We are also about to welcome our first born daughter any day now!

What is your superpower?

Laser focus and my belief that every problem is solvable if you put your mind to it.

Ray Cypher

Role: Staff Software Engineer
Joined: April 2021
Home: Sherwood Park, Alberta Canada

What were you doing before joining Datajoy?

Prior to joining Datajoy I worked at SAP as a Senior Software Engineer on their Analytics Cloud product.  I worked on the back-end focusing on data transformation and grooming.

What attracted you to Datajoy?

There were two main things that attracted me to Datajoy.

The first was the chance to work in a small company again.  I started my career working in startups and smaller companies but for the last twenty years it has all been at large companies like SAP.  I wanted to work in an environment where everybody’s contribution is impactful and you all feel a real sense of ownership for the product.

The second thing was the people.  I’ve worked with several of my coworkers at previous companies.  In fact Ken was an intern on one of my teams a long time ago.

The chance to work with so many really good people was a big draw.

What does your typical day-to-day look like?

I almost always start my day with a cafe latte which I drink while checking out various tech websites online.  

At work I try to keep a balance between moving new features and infrastructure forward and also handling more immediate issues with onboarding new customers.

What makes Datajoy special compared to other companies you worked at?

There’s a wonderful sense of purpose and camaraderie as everyone works together to build a new product and company from the ground up.

Favorite thing to do outside of work?

When I’m not working my two favorite things are spending time with my family and doing woodworking in my shop.

My son and daughter will be graduating from university this year so I like to get in as much family time as possible before they head out on the next phase of their lives.

I’ve always enjoyed working with my hands and being able to use things that I’ve made so most weekends will find me spending at least some time in my garage workshop making everything from kitchen utensils to furniture.

What is your superpower?

I am a very creative person. I grew up on a small farm with my parents, brother, and two sisters. So whenever we needed something fixed, built or created, we learned to adapt with materials at hand. My parents were both teachers, my mother was a librarian so I was exposed to alot of books and at one point could read 700 plus words a minute.  When we had the twins, I had a lot of fun helping them with school projects: a 4 foot high trebuchet, a potato cannon, a hover craft (a leaf blower, plywood, and plastic tarp), a pipe drum, and mouse trap driven cars. I am proud that they both went into careers where they create and inspire.

Lisette Viola

Role: Principal Visual & Brand Designer
Joined: May 2021
Home: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

What were you doing before joining Datajoy?

I was a Visual Design Lead at Deloitte Digital, working with clients like TMX, TD, Sleep Country, Loblaw and OLG.

What attracted you to Datajoy?

Having spent the majority of my career on the agency side, I was attracted to the opportunity to be able to shape Datajoy’s brand both from a marketing standpoint as well as the overall look and feel of the product. I love being involved in every aspect of the brand and having a voice in every step of the design process. It’s great to have full autonomy and ownership of my projects.

Aside from the work, what appeals to me most is the group of people I get to work with on a daily basis. I am surrounded by a talented team and leaders who understand and appreciate the importance of design. Not only am I learning from different folks from various backgrounds, but I feel challenged to grow in new and different ways.

What does your typical day-to-day look like?

On a typical day, you will find me juggling a few ongoing projects. I am usually working in Figma, Adobe CC, or Google suite. If I’m not expanding/improving our brand, I am designing or updating our website, creating social media graphics, tweaking the UI design of our product, updating our design system or creating assets for our sales team. With my background, I have discovered I have a love for marketing design as well as product design. It is such a treat to be able to do both roles at Datajoy and exercise those skills on a daily basis.

What makes Datajoy special compared to other companies you worked at?

In the past, I’ve always worked in medium to large sized companies but at Datajoy, being a small startup, there are many perks that come along with it. Not only are the benefits pretty generous for an early stage company, but I work in a place where the people come first. Our mental health and our physical well being is always considered, which results in a very good work/life balance.

Also, there is full transparency from the leadership team and I am aware of things happening in the background from a business perspective. It is a tight knit group and we share everything with one another like a family 🙂

Favorite thing to do outside of work?

If I’m not trying a new restaurant in the city, I’m looking for the next show/concert I could attend. In fact, I saw Chelsea Handler last weekend! One of my favourite things to do is spending quality time with my family and my besties. I’ve also caught the travel bug in recent years and was doing a lot of traveling just before the pandemic. The locations I choose are based on a few factors: culture, art and of course, the food. My favorite places are Japan, Spain and Portugal. I hope to visit Greece and Peru in the near future.

What is your superpower?

I’ve been told that I adapt easily in most environments. Because the realm of tech is constantly evolving, it’s important that designers are able to stay both optimistic and realistic during times of adjustment or transition. With any challenge, I like to confront it head-on by keeping an open mind. It is a key step to take in the pursuit to becoming a more adaptable designer, and in turn, a successful one.

Rhodes Denny

Role: Business Development Representative
Joined: April 6th, 2020
Home: Austin, Texas

What were you doing before joining Datajoy?

Before Datajoy I was working for Betts Recruiting, initially as a Recruiting Coordinator and then being promoted to a full cycle SaaS Sales Recruiter. My focus was on recruiting top Sales Reps and placing them at high growth SaaS companies ranging from Seed to late Series companies.

What attracted you to Datajoy?

I was attracted to Datajoy for two main reasons… One being the leadership. Jon, CEO and Co-Founder, has had an extremely successful career as an entrepreneur and CEO, and Ken, CPO and Co-Founder, has so much experience in analytics at some very well known companies such as Tableau, Microsoft, and SAP. Being able to learn from them was something I could not pass up.

The second reason was the ability for me to be part of something where I could see my value and impact on the company. It’s super rewarding!

What does your typical day-to-day look like?

My day to day has changed quite a bit during my time at Datajoy. For the first several months, my main responsibility was setting up ICP meetings with our co-founders in order to find potential customers’ biggest pain points. Then, I was responsible for helping recruit a large part of the Datajoy team!

Now, my typical day to day involves a lot of time in SalesForce, ZoomInfo, LinkedIn, G-Mail, Zoom and Spread-Sheets. I do a lot of sourcing and prospecting into companies on our target list and then come up with creative forms of outreach to prospective clients. It’s been very fun and rewarding working directly with our Head of Sales, Head of Marketing, and CEO to come up with our GTM strategy! 

What makes Datajoy special compared to other companies you worked at?

The talent across the full breadth of the company is pretty surreal. From the earliest days, I have been blown away I’m fairly new to the working world, but I think the obvious answer is this incredible team of smart, hard working, and trustworthy people. The speed and precision at which everything gets done at Datajoy is super special and honestly, very exciting. Everyone pushes each other to be the best version of themself possible.

Favorite thing to do outside of work?

I’m all about anything sports related! I enjoy playing basketball, tennis, spikeball and competing in a men’s softball league with friends. You can also find me watching and cheering on my favorite sports teams on a nightly basis. Go Braves, Hawks, and Falcons!

Aside from sports, I love checking out what Austin, Texas has to offer. I enjoy paddle boarding on the river, finding cool new bars, eating delicious BBQ, attending concerts, and searching for new swimming holes.

What is your superpower?

I’d say understanding and empathy. It’d be awesome if it were flying, or teleporting, but I’ve always had a strong desire to understand both things and people, and over some period of time that’s turned into a strength. I love thought experiments, and running them to understand how systems or sets of people would work. I enjoy integrating new ideas, simplifying the complex, and thinking laterally across contexts. People are a source of marvellous complexity, and also a source for everything that gets done in thisI would say my superpower is positivity. I always try to look at the bright side of things and remain optimistic even when things aren’t going as planned.

Tommy Siedlaczek

Role: Principal Software Engineering Manager
Joined: November 9th, 2020
Home: Vancouver, BC, Canada

What were you doing before joining Datajoy?

Before Datajoy I spent almost a decade at Microsoft, initially as an engineer and then becoming a manager, leading teams to deliver new services and productivity tools for customers. I spent the majority of my time there working on Office Online, the web apps, which was a lot of fun with great people.

What attracted you to Datajoy?

The people, the opportunity to build a new business, and the chance to learn a lot while doing so. I believe entrepreneurship is critical to growing the pie for all, and that the world is not zero sum. It takes initiative and risk taking to create new value — and the proposition of joining Datajoy, a startup with amazing talent that was also well-funded, posed a great next step for me in my journey.

What does your typical day-to-day look like?

A strange coincidence of Datajoy is how many people on the team are new parents, and I’m part of that. So I generally start my mornings waking up early with our 6-month-old daughter before my wife takes over for the day. I look forward to it, it’s such a benefit of working from home that I spend quality time with her instead of commuting.

For most of the past year I was on the maker schedule of uninterrupted focused time as we built our product. Mornings would start with a daily sync followed by a ‘parking lot’ of optional deep dives topics to create clarity on immediate work, before transitioning back to focused time. The bonus of an experienced team forming the culture of the company is we’ve all had the chance to experience ways of working that we like and don’t — and we’re all pretty aligned on what that looks like! 

What makes Datajoy special compared to other companies you worked at?

The talent across the full breadth of the company is pretty surreal. From the earliest days, I have been blown away by the quality of each member of the team and how much order they create from the chaos that could otherwise be. Coming from a big company I was expecting to feel a lot of rough edges from working not just in a small company, but in a brand new one. But it’s been so well organized right from my earliest days. This is a company on a clear mission to grow and deliver huge value to customers, and each individual plays a valuable role in their area.

Favorite thing to do outside of work?

Being active while spending time with family and friends is my jam! Lately it’s been hockey and golf, but my regulars also include tennis, snowboarding, volleyball, and cycling. I’ve lived away from my friends and family due to my career in the past, and it was a conscious decision to move back and it’s something I don’t take for granted. Life’s just more enjoyable when spent with the people you love!

What is your superpower?

I’d say understanding and empathy. It’d be awesome if it were flying, or teleporting, but I’ve always had a strong desire to understand both things and people, and over some period of time that’s turned into a strength. I love thought experiments, and running them to understand how systems or sets of people would work. I enjoy integrating new ideas, simplifying the complex, and thinking laterally across contexts. People are a source of marvellous complexity, and also a source for everything that gets done in this world!

Archit Sood

Role: Senior Solutions Engineer
Joined: August, 2021
Home: Vancouver, BC, Canada

What were you doing before joining Datajoy?

I was working at a People Analytics company called Visier. I was there for 5 years, where I held many different job titles, such as, Software Developer, Data Management Engineer, and most recently, Business Intelligence Consultant. 

As a Business Intelligence Consultant, I lead the implementation of Visier’s workforce analytic solution for several different HR topics, such as, Demographics, Movement, Talent Acquisition, and Compensation for several Global 2000 companies. I designed and onboarded different clients’ problems by transforming large amounts of raw data into clean, thoughtfully analysed intel using Visier’s proprietary tool, that was used for making strategic HR decisions. 

What attracted you to Datajoy?

I have always wanted to work in a start-up environment (maybe I was influenced by the TV show, Silicon Valley!) When I interviewed with Ken, the Co-Founder, I felt the culture and values really aligned with my own – I could especially see the importance put on Innovation, Trust and Empathy. 

The vision that Ken shared with me about the organization and my role as Senior Solutions Engineer, was really exciting. In my most recent role as Business Intelligence Consultant, I had a lot of opportunities to work on my customer service skills, but not so much on technical skills, however, at Datajoy I realised I would be utilizing both in equal capacity. Also, getting the opportunity to be closely involved with shaping a product at its earlier stages was something I’ve always wanted to do.

What does your typical day-to-day look like?

Typically, I work with customers and talk about the product and gather information as to what their needs and requirements are. After this, I use awesome technologies such as Snowflake, SQL, Python and our in-house data-modelling tool to deliver analytics that meet their business needs. Going back to the previous section about what attracted me to Datajoy, this is a prime example of getting to utilize both customer service and technical skills.   

It is extremely rewarding to be able to work independently and be involved in the end-to-end delivery. In case of gaps, I get to work internally with our very talented engineering team, product team, and our very own co-founder.

What makes Datajoy special compared to other companies you worked at?

Apart from the amazing work I get to do, I would have to say the people. Everyone is extremely understanding and respectful of each other’s time. The flexibility of being 100% remote but still being so connected to the whole team is an amazing feat for a company to achieve, and Datajoy has delivered. We get to participate in really cool virtual events, such as wine and paint night and pumpkin carving and baking pumpkin pies. We also had the best off-site event that really solidified that bond as a team. 

Favorite thing to do outside of work?

Growing up, I wanted to be a professional tennis player. For 15-16 years of my life, I trained hard – even though I didn’t end up becoming a professional, I still play it regularly, and it’s my favourite thing to do to unwind from a hard day’s work. 

Summer is my favourite season, since I get to be outdoors a lot, and I get to go on long bike rides. Other than that, I love trying new restaurants, and enjoy a good beer, scotch or whiskey! 

What is your superpower?

I love math, and I have this ability to visualise a problem in a graph / chart that makes it much easier to understand. I have tutored many people in math, and they usually get much better grades after I explain my process of working through problems. 

Also, after being an athlete for so long, I have a knack for picking up most sports really quickly. Besides tennis, I’m pretty decent at table tennis, badminton, cricket and soccer. 

Eric Alas

Role: Staff Software Engineer
Joined: Jan. 4th, 2021
Home: Windsor, Ontario, Canada

What were you doing before joining Datajoy?

I was at SAP working on SAP Analytics Cloud for almost 5 years, where I designed and rewrote a new application component to migrate from SAPUI5. After completing that project, I ended up leading a team to apply that component into SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.

It was during my time at SAP where I first worked with our teammates André and Ray. I may’ve met Patrick for an interview, and Jacky on a cross-team project!

What attracted you to Datajoy?

The people! During my time at SAP, I worked with a lot of the early Datajoy engineers, and having the opportunity to work with them again was very intriguing. Then when I met with our co-founder Ken, the work-to-be-done he outlined was exciting — some of it was familiar and I knew I could contribute right away, but it was also new at the same time.

Another great thing about the company is being able to work remotely as a new Dad. The team here really does promote a healthy work life balance. I’m really grateful to be able to enjoy the special moments of my daughter during the day. I still remember the first time she started giggling intentionally – my partner called me upstairs, and when she would play with a stuffie in front of our daughter, she had this amazing smile and giggle.

What does your typical day-to-day look like?

I’ve got a 3 hour head start on most of the team, so I usually start my day by prioritizing the work I want to accomplish. From there I’ll jump right in before our standup at noon eastern.

Lately I’ve been working on feature enhancements and bug fixes for our customer HackerRank — adding support to compare data year over year, making more parts of our app configurable and flexible to support different customer use cases. It’s all about making our customers as happy as possible with Datajoy!

What makes Datajoy special compared to other companies you worked at?

As a small team, it’s very rewarding to be able to see the impact of your work. The trust that’s given to our team is amazing. When we talk about “innovation”, we live and breathe it everyday. Each one of us checks our egos at the door (albeit nobody’s got a crazy ego) and we’re all working on the same goal: to build the best software possible for customers.

Favorite thing to do outside of work?

So I used to play in a ska/punk band back in high school, and if I could find a few bandmates and the time, would 100% love to revive my career 😂. I do also enjoy playing rock and indie, bands like Elder Brother, Brand New, and Death Cab for Cutie.

Aside from music, I also love to play and watch basketball. Don’t tell my Canadian friends, but I’m a big Detroit Pistons fan. After all, I’m just across the river from Little Caesars arena vs 3.5 hours to Scotiabank arena in Toronto. And I’m starting to get into American Football because my partner Alyssa and her family are huge Lions fans.

What is your superpower?

I’ve got really good hearing, spookily good. After listening to a song a few times, I’m able to pick it up and play it decently well. And after a few more listens, pick up the small little “extras” in a song that make a song feel full.