Open-minded Culture and Flexibility: The transfer from a big company to a start-up and what’s found there

This interview aims to provide insights into what motivated Thomas Roux to choose Susten and how they contribute to his job satisfaction. We discussed his thoughts on the company culture, colleagues, and overall development within the organization. He also suggested what kind of people would fit the Sustenculture.

Let’s delve into how a global talent describes Susten and explore the thoughts to find what Susten is.

Thomas Roux
After working as a freelance software engineer and photographer in France, manager at Calsonic Kansei (Marelli), and manager at Ubiqube, he has been working as an engineer at Susten Capital Management Inc. since 2021.

The background

ーWhat are your career and background? Before joining Susten, did you have any experience working in the financial field?

My background is not linear. I've worked first in the IT field in France, not in the finance realm, for different types of industries. Then I've been working in photography, in the automotive industry, and later back to the IT field again but more as a salesperson. But then finance, I thought, would be an interesting industry to work in.

Recently, we have seen significant changes in the world of finance, FinTech and the use of machine learning is bringing fresh air, some kind of renewal to this industry.

So I think it's really interesting to be there when things are happening—when the change is happening—be there to make it better. I did not have any experience in finance, but I didn't feel that it would be a big problem, because working in IT means being flexible and adapting to any industry. Even without experience in a specific field, if you can code correctly, then you can still build useful tools. And you can also learn a lot from the other people in the company who have expertise.

ーDid you have any experience in investment at a personal level ?

As for traditional finance, no. I have some experience with cryptocurrencies, but it's a completely different world. The rules are completely different and so are the expectations and the risks. So I guess it's not really possible to compare or to consider this as an experience fully relevant to this kind of job or working with Susten. Nevertheless, there are some similarities.

ーSo you already had a little knowledge in the financial field, how money works.

A little, yes. But not much, we can say I was interested. I didn't have any experience, but I was thinking of starting to invest for a few years already. I was planning to create an account in some service to trade like oil and gas or dollars or some very basic things that everybody trades.

in the end, I did not make any investment. Working for Susten provided me the opportunity to actually step in and start being part of the finance world.

Why Susten?

ー Let's start with a basic question. Why did you join Susten?

I found the job offer on Stack Overflow. I was looking for a company in Japan that would be very progressive, looking towards the future and also foreigner-friendly, because I don't speak Japanese really well. Susten seemed to be a company that matched my expectations.

I had interviews with Yamaguchi-san and talking with him, I understood that he was exactly the kind of person I wanted to work with: Someone obviously open-minded and trying to always go forward, with a very international mindset. That's basically why I applied for the position at Susten.

ーDid you have some concerns about being a minority in a Japanese company?

No, not at all. As a foreigner in a Japanese company, most likely, I would be a minority. It is not a bad thing to be a minority. I liked the mindset of each person I talked with during the recruiting process. I found that they were really open. So I was confident that there would be no problem for me being a minority, being a foreigner in Susten.

ーAre there other factors like working environment or culture, what helped you decide to join Susten?

From the interviews, before joining, it's very difficult to realize how the actual, everyday work is, in a company.

One has to already be working in a company to experience it, and therefore it's really the mindset of the people I had interviews with that made me feel like joining this company: They are progressive. They're always using the latest technologies, they want to go forward, not wait for someone to tell them what to do or not wait for a long time before trying something new.

They just build and get results and explore new possibilities, and it's what I really liked. Based on this, I thought, okay, this company must be a place where the environment is nice, and that's where I want to go.

How does a day and week go in Susten?

ーWhat is your typical day at Susten? Please tell us about your work schedule, tasks, and meetings.

About the working days in Susten, one of the things I really like is there are not so many meetings. And so we, as engineers, can spend more time and focus on infrastructure and software design, development, and also supporting our business team.

On a usual day, first, I check that all the systems are running properly and make sure that there is no problem that would impact the business team so that they can start their days without any issue. Then I would most likely continue work on my current project, or find my next task and start coding, designing or debugging.

And during the day, I will discuss with my colleagues, make some choices, exchange opinions on our design or implementation, and talk with the business team about their expectations or issues. And we will decide together what to do and then implement the solutions, followed by making them available to the team.

ーWhat do you usually discuss or talk about during the weekly meetings? And how is it applied to your daily tasks?

In the weekly meetings, we discuss two different things. The first one is prioritization. Wereview new tickets and say, for example, okay, this one tcan wait, while for that one we need to start working on it as soon as possible. Then we assign tickets to engineers.

The second one is important or complex cases that require team-level decisions and cannot be quickly settled with messages. Sometimes, we need brainstorming or a deep technical discussion, a detailed explanation, and talking in a meeting is the best way to progress and reach conclusions. Overall, I think we have a very good use of the meeting time. We have meetings where we perform tasks that are really necessary, not meetings for the sake of meetings.

ーHow many meetings do you have in a week?

In a week, usually we have three meetings. Two of them are for deciding what we should work on—the priorities and assignment of tasks, plus some technical points. And the third one is with the full investment management team, talking with our users, understanding what the expectations and the coming projects are, not only seeing the purely technical side but having a broader view on what the company does and needs.

Does the difference in languages prevent communication？

ーSpeaking of the team, Susten is a Japanese company and the website is also in Japanese. But I heard your team is actually international and communicates in English exclusively. What's your impression of your team?

Yeah, my team is really international. Actually, in the team itself, Japanese people are a minority. And we are speaking English 100%. All our developments are made in English, our documentation, everything is in English. From the language and communication point of view, there is no impact on my work with the team due to Susten being a Japanese company. I'm very happy with the team now; we have good communication.I think, besides the language itself, the team is working really well.

ーDo most employees of Susten speak English?

Yes, at least our internal users and the persons whom my team or I have to interact with. They speak really good English. I never had any communication problems in Susten, due to the language or any other reason.

How the work is done in the team and organization

ーWhat's your role in your team?

We don't have assigned roles.The team is flexible and we’re really free to work at our own pace. Each member of the team works on what they are more efficient for or willing to improve on.

One of my top priorities is making sure that our systems work flawlessly for the users. So, I try to rapidly fix any issue that appears in production, and make sure the infrastructure behaves as expected.

I am also participating in the development of our investment management system, but I don't really have a specified role. I'm simply, like my colleagues, a team member.

ーHow is the development process done in your team? Task management, code review, etc.

We use GitHub mainly for managing the development and our code base. And we have two meetings in a week where we synchronize, we assign tasks, we discuss the issues we have, and so on. And we are reviewing each other's code. In the team, there are no specific assignments, on who reviews whose code or anything like that. It's really free.

When someone has time, they will review someone else's code, and it's working quite well. It's very flexible. As of now, this way of working has been very efficient. We never had any specific issue of a missing role in the team or some code that has not been reviewed for a long time. And that's really nice, because we don't have constraints on the way we work. We can work freely at our pace in our direction while working together, building the system for our users.

ーIf your team expands, do you think your teams should start having assigned roles?

It's a good question. Probably, if we become bigger—I don't know exactly how big a team is the trigger— then we could have more specific roles.

It would not be very strict but somehow, we would take roles so that team members can specialize; for example, we can have some team members that are more specialized in infrastructure or in the front end or the back end.

And then we could increase our efficiency as a team even more. s long as the team is small, we cannot really do this. If we are a small number of specialists, we are dependent on each other. In that case, for any reason, if one of the team members is not available, then the whole team could be facing roadblocks.

ーWhat are some of the things that you're hoping to develop or work on at Susten in the future?

Right now, we are still building the system that we use internally for all the trades that the company makes. This will always need some work, maintenance and improvement. It's never over. That being said, we’re gradually reaching a point where it needs less work, and I am considering spending more time on decision-making.

I mean, the decision-making system for trading. More on the machine learning side, working with the latest research findings and embracing innovation in this new field of FinTech.

How a day is like in Susten

ーThe workstyle in Susten is hybrid; you go to the office two days and work from home three days a week. What do you think about that?

Yeah, I think it's a nice approach. Given the possibility for office workers to work from home, especially in IT. It doesn't really make sense to force the employees to come to the office every day, because it's not necessary.

At the same time, if you are fully remote, the communication with colleagues, at the human level is much more challenging. Having a few days at home, and a few days in the office is a good balance. We don't spend too much time commuting. In my case, I like having lunch with my family.

So it's really nice. And also, joining the office meeting with the team members, our users and all the other employees is good, likely necessary for a company to run correctly in the long term. Today, I was supposed to be in the office, but my daughters are sick. So I'm staying home to help my wife manage the situation. There is this flexibility on top of the hybrid system, which really helps having a good work-life balance.

ーAre there many opportunities where you can meet people outside of a team and then interact with them?

Yes. When you're working from home, of course, you don't meet that many people, but you can discuss online with anybody, anytime. And people are usually very responsive.

There is no real hierarchy in Susten. I mean, it exists, but it's not strict; we do not feel ii. So as an engineer, I can talk with anybody. I can talk to the CEO anytime. If I send him a message, he will reply the same way a colleague would. There is no limitation; there is no hurdle in communication with anyone. And of course, when I am in the office, then it's even easier. I can just go see anyone and start a discussion.

What is the strength of Susten

ーWhat do you think are Susten's strengths? On the other hand, what do you think can be improved?

The fact that anyone who can speak English, can work in Susten without any issue is a big strength, given the current job market; I think that companies need to be very open to foreigners, especially in Japan. Another strength is the full Susten team, and the employees' average age, which is, I think,very young. I don't know exactly how, but it's giving the company some kind of energy.

Another strength is the accessibility. The ease of communication with the CEO and the CIO. They are really communicative and easy to talk with. That's an important point. And then the mindset that is really going forward, not waiting for things to happen or not being afraid of trying new things. Changing and evolving are really the strengths of Susten.

ーAs for communication in the company, I heard that you often have a lunch or party with colleagues.

I love the culture. Susten moved from a small office to a less small office and now a little bigger office. In the previous office, we would very often have a parties after working hours. And it was really nice, we were deciding and having a party just like that. And now, in the new office, we are having more planned parties, and I like it too. We now have a ping pong table in the middle of the office. At one point in a party, people start playing ping pong,nd it's creating connections. There is this kind of relaxed, joyful spirit allowing anybody to talk or interact with anybody in the company, and that is really nice.

For example, when I joined Susten, I was introduced to one of the employees who can speak some French, is really interested in French culture, and has some interest in French education for their children. And so we've been discussing, speaking in French, talking about this kind of cultural interactions between the countries. It's really nice to be able to enjoy this kind of unexpected connection and discover common interests with colleagues.

ーYou have worked for Japanese companies and Western companies. What's the difference and which culture is closer to you? And how about those of Susten?

As for the mindset, Susten is clearly closer to Western companies. In traditional Japanese companies, there are much more constraints about everything and there's a ton of paperwork. There is a lot of time that is wasted in doing things that are not productive nor useful for the company. In Susten, it's much more a western style where we spend most of our time working on what we have to, what is useful for the company. And we try to spend as little time as possible on paperwork and meetings that are not necessary.

Start-up culture versus big company culture

ーWith Susten, candidates have an opportunity to talk with anyone, right?

Yes, candidates usually speak with at least two members of the team plus Yamaguchi-san (CIO) and Okano-san (CEO). So they can have a good idea of whom they are going to work with.

We don’t have a big HR department, and therefore our interviews with candidates are quite casual and natural talks. It's not following some specific recruitment process that was decided by recruitment specialists. It's a chance for candidates to understand our company, personnel, characters, and teamwork. The recruiting process, is mostly driven by the team, which the new candidate will work with.

ーWhat kind of engineer do you think will fit in your team?

Someone who likes to be independent, who is not afraid to try new things to learn and improve, who doesn't need to be directed too much, who doesn't want to have constraints when working. Someone who can manage their own time, who can integrate with a diverse team, and who wants to broaden their environment. That's the people who will most likely fit in our team. Someone who would be willing to work on any task that becomes necessary, even if it is about a technology or a type of problem that they have never faced before. And you know, someone who wants to learn by doing and become better. That is the mindset we are looking for.

There’s always a possibility to improve the systems we have developed and are working on, to make it better, more reliable, more efficient. Someone who is always interested in making small or big enhancements, understands the newest technologies and sees how they can be used for our systems would fit in our team.

Advice for someone interested in working for Susten

ーCould you give some advice to people who are interested in learning more about Susten or to the future candidates.

If you're interested in Susten, or in the FinTech industry, you can just reach out to us. Please don't hesitate to get in touch. People in Susten are really open. They're always happy to discuss any topic and we can spend time talking about what you expect, your next job or anything, and find out how much of a match exists. So, again, it's very easy to communicate even with the CEO and the important people in Susten.

撮影：小堀将生、編集：榮田佳織