About

My name is Laurent Desgrange. I’m a software engineer based in Paris, interested in agile methods (eXtreme Programming), loving FLOSS, adhering to the Software Engineering Code of Ethics and earning my life by writing software (started with Java, did a bit of PHP, some Erlang, Python and TypeScript).

Experience

(Paris) — Web Developer

• December 2021 — Now.

ABC Microfinance (Paris) — CTO

• July 2017 — November 2021, following the merger with MicroWorld.
• Development of crowdfunding websites to finance micro-entrepreneurs in developing countries in order to fight poverty.
• MicroWorld.org:
  • Development and maintenance.
  • Technical environment: Java, Spring, Jetty, JUnit, Mockito, Maven, Gradle, PHP, Drupal, MySQL, MariaDB, Subversion, Git, GNU/Linux, nginx, Varnish, Memcached
• Babyloan IMPACT:
  • Development and maintenance.
  • Technical environment: PHP, Symfony, Git, Composer, Yarn, PHPUnit, Panther, MySQL, nginx
• Babyloan:
  • Coordination with the web agency then ownership takeover and migration to our own servers, bug fixes and maintenance.
  • Technical environment: PHP, Git, MySQL, Apache, nginx

(Paris)

• October 2011 — July 2017: CTO (see ABC Microfinance).
• September 2010 — October 2011: Senior Developer.

(European Commission, Brussels) — Java Developer

• June 2009 — September 2010.
• In a team of four we developed the tools to support the organisation of scientific panels: desktop applications for the organisers, and a website collecting feedback from scientific experts, and providing results to participants.
• Technical environment:
  • Java, Swing, Maven, JPA, Tiles, ApacheDS, JUnit, Mockito, Selenium
  • BEA Weblogic, Oracle9i, Tomcat, Jetty, Eclipse, NetBeans, Subversion, Hudson, JIRA

(Brussels) — IT Consultant

• June 2009 — September 2010 (see ERC).

(Paris Area) — Erlang Developer

• March 2009 (see Esmertec).

(Paris Area) — Erlang Developer

• January 2008 — March 2009.
• In the Mobile Operator Solutions department, I worked in the R&D team (~12 people) on a soft real-time distributed USSD services platform.
• Technical environment:
  • Erlang, MySQL, Selenium, Hudson, Trac, GNU/Linux, Subversion, Emacs
  • eXtreme Programming

Cellicium (Paris Area) — Erlang Developer

• January 2008 — February 2008 (see Esmertec).

Equities & Derivatives (Paris) — Java Developer

• June 2007 — December 2007.
• Worked on an in-house project transcoding and routing data, used by the local EAI:
  • Improved the existing application (stability, performances, testability)
  • Replaced the home-made rule engine with a JRules one
• Technical environment:
  • Java, Spring, Hibernate, EJB, JUnit, JMeter, Maven, CVS, Subversion
  • BEA Weblogic, Oracle9i, Tangosol (Oracle Coherence), ILOG JRules, Eclipse, Bamboo, JIRA, Confluence

BFI (Paris) — Java Web Developer

• April 2006 — May 2007.
• As part of an eXtreme Programming team (~6 people) I developed a web application managing master agreements, including:
  • Tasks estimations
  • Unit and functional tests
  • Functionalities design and implementation
• Technical environment:
  • Java, Spring, Hibernate, Lucene, SiteMesh, Velocity, WebWork, JUnit, JMock, Fit, Jetty, Ant, Subversion
  • IBM Websphere, JIRA, IntelliJ IDEA, Oracle9i
  • eXtreme Programming

(Paris) — IT Consultant

• February 2006 — December 2007 (see BNP Paribas BFI and BNP Paribas EQD).

(Rouen Area) — Java Web Developer

• May 2004 — January 2006.
• Development and maintenance of Masternaut’s geolocation system. Involving Java web development, setting up network and web/db servers.
  • I replaced our CVS with Subversion in order to have a versioning system correctly handling binary files and versioning on directories. This allowed us to refactor the applications with fewer obstacles.
  • I installed a Continuous Integration system (CruiseControl) in order to have a unique build server and keep track of the statuses of applications.
  • I created a Single Sign On and Load Balancing system to allow communication between applications and provide better quality of service to the users.
  • As a team we configured MySQL (our database system) with master-slave replication in order to have real-time data backups and increase the fault-tolerance of the applications.

Djossou ltd. (Manchester) — Trainee

• August 2003 — September 2003.
• I was in charge of migrating data from a “homemade” customer’s resume database to the software provided by Djossou ltd.:
  • I used Microsoft Access (the legacy database) and SQL server to convert data.
  • C# to import and convert resume files in the new system.

(Rouen Area) — Trainee

• March 2003 — July 2003.
• I worked on “Nestor III”, a home automation system:
  • I used a Wago control system to manage inputs and outputs
  • Wago IO Pro to program the control system
  • VB6 to create a UI used by the customers to set up their preferences in the control system

Misc

• Hedgehogs And Roundabouts, Hoster from January 2019 to July 2020.
• Little Miss Zen, Hoster from September 2015 to July 2020.
• Nat Wellness, Hoster from November 2009 to April 2012.

Education

• September 2000 — July 2003.
• Engineer’s degree, Software Engineering.
• Activities and Societies: Club Informatique.

Lycée Jean Dautet

• September 1998 — July 2000.
• Classes Préparatoires aux Grandes Écoles, PSI.

Misc

• Personal Field Security Training (April 2022).