Our Team
- A professional achievement you’re particularly proud of?
- Founding Symetris, a company still going strong after 15 years in business
- Your web specialties are?
- Everything. I eat, sleep & drink web.
- Social media is all about…?
- « Creating engagement and interactivity. » But in real life, it’s to spy on your neighbours.
- Where were you 10 years ago?
- In China… or was it Spain? Or Japan? Or France? Or Thailand?... (I travel a lot!)
- What do you love about Symetris?
- Symetris allows me to grow as a person, face interesting challenges, share my professional life with stimulating colleagues and control my destiny.
Brad Muncs
CEO
- Your web specialties are?
- Mastery of Drupal (an online Content Management System).
- The future of the web?
- Infinity and beyond!
- What your colleagues say about you?
- Funny, sociable and motivated.
- What your colleagues really say about you?
- Funny.
- What do you love about Symetris?
- Symetris has always given to me, challenged me, and helped me to evolve as a person. I need these challenges to be happy while harmoniously reconciling my professional and personal life. Symetris is practically a life project for me as I've seen the company grow from 3 to 20+ employees and I want to participate and influence this voyage, an opportunity that doesn't come twice!
David Pinard
Vice-President, Production
- One thing that excites you about the future?
- Doing new activities with my kids.
- Your most useless skill?
- Knife juggling.
- What company would you like to be the CEO of?
- I don't know why but, a yogurt company.
- What's your favorite language that you can't speak?
- ASL, it's like having a super power.
- What song would you like to play when you walk into a room?
- "The Final Countdown".
Matthieu Gadrat
Vice-President, Strategy & Innovation
- A professional achievement you’re particularly proud of?
- 3 days and two nights for the Sainte-Justine Kids Foundation.
- The most useful thing on your desk?
- At this very moment? Balloons!
- The least useful thing on your desk?
- Probably balloons tomorrow.
- Your childhood dream?
- Riding through Canada on Roller Blades.
- What do you love about Symetris?
- Compared to other jobs, I found at Symetris a real desire to always get better, a focus on continuous improvement. It allows me to be creative and think "outside the box" and my ideas are always welcome. I have a long list of many other reasons - proof that I'll stay with the team for longer still!
Élisabeth Lafrance
Project Director
- The least useful thing on your desk?
- The Windows key.
- You would have liked to be the inventor of:
- The Nokia 3310.
- 20th century's biggest invention?
- Funk music
- Your childhood dream?
- Being a paleontologist living in an R.V.
- What you thought you would never see in your lifetime?
- A bear waiting for the bus with me.
Sébastien Lamy
Technical Director
- A professional achievement you’re particularly proud of?
- Finally having found a real job, I used to be a musician…
- At school, I was…?
- Good :/ and attentive.
- You can’t live without…?
- My daughter and my music.
- You never thought you would see in your lifetime?
- It wouldn’t be appropriate to say here…
- What do you love about Symetris?
- Two words: the people and the values.
David Arbour
Assistant Technical Director
- A professional achievement you’re particularly proud of?
- Organizing a parachute jump for all the students of my final school year (150 people)
- What your colleagues really say about you?
- That I can be annoyingly energetic at times!
- The least useful thing on your desk?
- Too late, it's not on my desk anymore...
- Your childhood dream?
- Become a secret agent (ideally 007)!
- What do you love about Symetris?
- The human side, the wellness I feel when I come to the office - that's so important in life! We spend so much time at work, so I chose a company where we feel positive and surrounded by great colleagues!
Julien Linares
Sales Representative
- Name / nickname?
- Shoe.
- The most useless thing on your desk?
- The landline phone.
- You can't live without...?
- My passport.
- At your retirement?
- I hope I won't still be paying rent.
- The shame of your life?
- Ordering a pineapple and feta pizza.
Shona Abtahi
Accounting & Administrative Technician
- What your colleagues say about you?
- Not to let my laid-back attitude fool you: I get a lot of things done without looking stressed out.
- At school, you were ...?
- Very good and often MIA.
- They say you look like ...?
- Strangely to Ryan Gosling (it's the beard I think).
- The most beautiful moment of your life?
- Barefoot marriage in an AirBnb in Cape Town.
- What do you love about Symetris?
- I wanted to open my horizons about all things digital and be part of a small business located in Montreal.
Kirill Solomonov
UX/UI Designer
- Your specific contribution to the Symetris team?
- Making meetings confusing when the other Matthieu is there.
- What your colleagues would really say about you?
- Has advanced (and mostly useless) knowledge on a wide variety of random subjects.
- Your biggest childhood dream?
- To have a room in my house with a library and one of those ladders on wheels.
- Early riser or late sleeper?
- Night owl - I go to bed so late that I sometimes see some of the early birds.
- The most useful thing on your desk?
- A box of Lindt chocolates which is currently help boost productivity
Mathieu Giroux-Fortin
Functional Analyst
- Your childhood dream?
- Becoming Batman and/or a gentle pirate.
- They say you look like ...?
- Neither Batman nor a pirate.
- What your colleagues really say about you?
- Friendly and Involved (Symetris is transparent)
- When I retire…
- I hope for the classic: Rocking chair, Golden retriever, piercing eyes towards the horizon
- The least useful thing on your desk?
- A pen I will lose in the next two business days
Hubert Carignan
Project Leader
- You would have liked to be the inventor of:
- The toaster, to go with my last name.
- What your colleagues would say about you?
- I'm too loud.
- What your colleagues really say about you?
- ...I'm really too loud
- What I bring to the team?
- The trademark energy and interpersonal skills of 'bleuets'.
- What do you love about Symetris?
- Symetris is a place where I can grow, learn and be myself. We are committed to our colleagues and our clients - a real team spirit.
Steven Painchaud
Project Leader
- Your web specializations ?
- I know Google-Fu.
- You can't live without...?
- Water. Stay hydrated, folks.
- At your retirement?
- Good one! As if my generation could retire one day.
- A professional achievement that you are particularly proud of?
- Had the courage to take on a project even though it wasn't going well.
- Would you have liked to be the inventor of...?
- Time travel, but I'm 200 years early...
Xiao Gao
Project Leader
- Your specific contribution to the Symetris team, by joining us?
- A balance between my marketing experience and the Drupal code, all with a huge smile and the confidence that together we will build a digital world that listens to everyone's needs.
- What your colleagues would say about you?
- A guy who brings us a good mood from all around the world
- A professional achievement of which you are particularly proud?
- Founding the Drupal community in... Bolivia and organize the highest DrupalCamp in the world with more than 300 participants. Well, it's true that the capital, La Paz, is at 4000m, it's already easier.
- Early riser or night owl?
- Seeing the sunrise and hearing the birds sing is the most beautiful gift life offers us... every morning!
- When you retire?
- An orphanage for blind children in the heights of Puerto Vallarta with a view of the Pacific Ocean, next to my wife, my lifelong partner.
Karim Boudjema
Web Developer
- Pastel is…?
- A question for designers.
- You never thought you would see in your lifetime?
- The dissolution of the Soviet Union (Yes, I'm old, a cold war baby).
- What I bring to the team?
- White hair.
- When I retire…
- I'll take the essential role of being the old grumpy man.
- What do you love about Symetris?
- I've worked in a lot of varied companies, and while there were some places I've liked a lot, I found that I liked the Symetris environment, and its people, more. So yes, I have the intention of being here for a long time…
Enrique Diaz Carranza
Web Developer
- The internet of tomorrow will be?
- A history book for sentient robots.
- People say you look like...?
- Oscar Isaac in Ex Machina.
- Your childhood dream?
- To become rich and successful. In a Batman kind of way...
- You can’t live without…?
- Coffee. Let's face it, coffee is a programmer's gasoline.
- What do you love about Symetris?
- Symetris is a very special company. It is as much a team as a family. I can't imagine a better place to learn and grow as a professional.
Christopher Tomasso
Lead Developer
- What I bring to the team?
- My front-end expertise but most of all, my cheerfulness.
- What your colleagues really say about you?
- Lunatic sometimes... for example; hitting refresh continuously on a page and not understanding why I am not seeing my changes... Only to realize that I am refreshing the static version!
- You can’t live without…?
- Coffee. Without, I'm a bit grumpy.
- The most beautiful moment of your life?
- The purchase of our house. It's good to be home, where I'm the boss now!
- What do you love about Symetris?
- Symetris gave me the challenge I was looking for: to learn more about Drupal while delving into back-end to complement my front-end expertise. It was an offer I couldn't refuse!
Karine Paquette
Lead Developer
- Your specific contribution to the Symetris team, by joining us?
- Bringing ~8 years of full-stack Drupal development knowledge to the table: back-end, front-end, and a bit of dev-ops.
- What you never thought you'd see in your life?
- Snow. Now that I'm in Montréal, I assume I’ll see enough snow to suffice for multiple life times.
- You would have liked to be the inventor of...?
- One, easy-to-learn, scientific language for the entire Earth population which would easy communication and reduce differences in the long-term.
- Where were you on the same date 10 years ago?
- Shooting a music video with a fresh green-screen setup in my apartment in Kolkata.
- The most useless thing on your desk?
- Rubik's cubes – I have a 2x2x2, a 3x3x3, and a 4x4x4. I've never tried the 4x4x4 cube, but I still have it. On a positive note, at least I can solve the first two.
Jerry Radwick
Lead Developer
- Your specific contribution to the Symetris team?
- A mixed bag of Drupal, PHP and Web experience, but mainly a whole bunch of heart!
- A professional achievement of which you are particularly proud?
- Creation of a secured and anonymous API for the Build the Vote campaign, an initiative by Rock the Vote. This API allowed voting data to be recorded directly from a Minecraft server dedicated to the campaign.
- What your colleagues would say about you?
- That I can handle myself pretty well in Mario Kart 64.
- What your colleagues would really say about you?
- That I cheat at Mario Kart 64.
- Where were you on the same date 10 years ago?
- Preparing my portfolio that would earn me an internship at Symetris!
Nicolas Beaucage
Web Developer
- Your specific contribution to the Symetris team?
- 7 years of software development and programming experience, focused but not limited to Drupal, NodeJS, Typescript & more. And as an added bonus: A deep radio voice!
- A professional achievement you are particularly proud of?
- The creation of the Harmonize module, which facilitated and promoted a very efficient Drupal development workflow with advanced Front-End teams.
- The most useful thing on your desk?
- My plushy. Having a little friend does wonders for debugging!
- Social networks are useful for...?
- Networking! Socializing! Conquering boredom! Filling a deep, heartwrenching void found within yourself!...Too far?
- Your biggest childhood dream?
- To become a songwriter and producer, and I haven't given up just yet!
Kyle Serebour
Lead Developer
- What do you contribute to the Symetris team?
- To be able to bring a higher level of quality assurance and to have a real impact in the progress of the company.
- 3 things you can't work without?
- My presence of mind, my positive energy... and a computer.
- When I retire…
- Be the best elder video game player!
- What your colleagues really say about you?
- That I am a Meme Lord
- The most useful thing on your desk?
- My own two hands!
