Weekly Update #9: New Hire, YouTube Q&A, Mainnet Release

Hello everyone. As most of you already know, we are posting the blog a day early this week. But the earlier, the better! This week’s blog is a little bit different, because we wanted to take the time to discuss our hiring strategy and really emphasize the importance of hiring the right team. There are some updates as well. This is what’s being covered today:

Hiring the right team
New team member! Meet Bob, our blockchain developer
YouTube Q&A with Alan and Annika
Telegram
Mainnet Release
Hiring the right team
We have put a lot of thought into hiring the best people for Aventus and have had a lot of success with our model, which will become apparent once we publicise our full team. The first thing we do is have an informal meeting with a potential candidate (once we have sorted based on CV), this is typically in the form of a coffee or beer. This gives us a chance to figure out if we feel we get on with the candidate and could work with them effectively. If we are happy we give the candidate a task to research and make and try their hand at implementing. Once they have finished to a satisfactory level, we invite them in to the office and start off by running through the task and diving in to the technical details required for the position. Straight after that we have a discussion around working process and go though past, present and future for the candidate and the why to the various career choices along with any other details we feel need further clarification. After that we introduce the candidate to the existing team and make sure there are no conflicts in personality or approach.

Our approach is very much about who people are and their attitudes before considering individual skill sets. We would rather have a humble, eager to learn candidate than a superstar who is particularly arrogant in their field, since we feel this will lead to a better team atmosphere where everyone can improve much faster, ultimately resulting in a better product. Don’t get us wrong, a superstar in their field with a great attitude is the ideal candidate and we have been told by such candidates that our process is what set us aside from their other offers and ultimately made them join us. As always we are looking to improve and refine our model so please do give us your thoughts on the process.

New team member! Meet Bob, our Blockchain Backend Developer

Babashola King, our newest blockchain engineer.
Can you first introduce yourself please; tell us a bit about you? Maybe a fun fact we wouldn’t expect?

I am Babashola King but friends call me Bob. I have been in the IT industry for many years now in some development capacity. I am always looking for a new challenge to keep me enthuse. I am obsessed with Latin Dancing (mainly Salsa/Kizomba).

What is it that you do at Aventus? How did you hear about the company and what made you apply for your role?

Joined Aventus to help build/progress the fantastic effort already invested in the blockchain backend development.

You have years of experience in the industry. Tell us a bit about your background?

I have mainly worked within the fintech industry. Spent 10 years with a hedge fund (Leo Fund Managers) building proprietary Portfolio management systems. My skillset has evolved over the years depending on the set tasks, but I predominantly worked in Java development.

When did you first hear and start learning about blockchain? What is the most interesting thing about it to you?

I was busy seeking another venture to get into and then I was offered the opportunity to get involved at the root level at Aventus. I jumped at the chance to learn with these clever colleagues. Blockchain/Ethereum just seems to be a HUGE innovation at the moment and a chance to get involve with it was too huge to pass on.

What do you hope to achieve at Aventus? What are you particularly excited to work on?

I sincerely hope to become very critical and contribute where possible as quickly as possible. I am so excited to gain the necessary Ethereum blockchain development knowledge to be progressive at Aventus and to contribute to the community where possible.

How can the community get more involved with what you are doing at Aventus?

Ultimately with increased knowledge of the blockchain, I will be able to create components that can better improve the standards and approach adopted in the community.

Why do you think Aventus is relevant for society, and specifically for ticketing?

Aventus group as a whole is paying attention to the advancement of the generic open source availability and progression. The thought process is centered around improvement and simplification of the available standards around Ethereum blockchain. Their knowledge around the ticketing process seems so vast and continuously reviewed with view to improvement and security.

What are your hobbies?

Salsa / Kizomba Dancing

YouTube Q&A with Alan and Annika
Last week we posted on our Facebook page requesting our community to ask us any questions, which we would answer in a YouTube Q&A. There were some great questions and Alan and Annika really enjoyed hearing what you guys were interested in. Below is the teaser video that was released on Monday. The entire Q&A will be up on Thursday on our YouTube page, plus we’ll post it across our social channels.

Telegram
We have been on Telegram a week now and are missing some of you! Don’t forget to join the group via THIS invite link and join the conversation. Our Head of Communications, Robyn, is always online and can answer any questions you may have. The rest of the team, including Alan and Annika, pop in and out through the day. Come and say hi!

Mainnet Release
We announced in last week’s update that we would be releasing our voting module on the Rinkeby Ethereum Testnet. It is now up and multiple iterations of the contracts have been deployed and tested on Rinkeby.

Regarding the mainnet release, it will also be going up this week as promised. We expect it to go up Thursday, however please do not take that as final confirmation. There is a good chance we will take an extra day to run the testing suite before publicising it. The voting UI has been tested for the past 10 days in private beta and will be released at the same time on https://vote.aventus.io.

To stay up to date with Aventus, please join our mailing list, the discussion on Telegram, or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.