At FloodMapp, we love welcoming new staff to the team. Collectively, we are on a mission to create a safer world where flood events are able to be mapped in real time giving people more time to respond to emergencies. Our team is now expanding across Australia and North America and as we bring new members around our table, we love to take time to get to know more about what has led to this point.
Owen Lamont joined us recently as Senior Software Engineer, Software Development after spotting a tweet from existing team member Henry Walshaw (thanks Henry!)
“I’ve been interested in machine learning, computer graphics and computer programming since high school so I’ve always wanted to work in those areas,” says Owen.
“I finished my PhD in natural language processing just before data science became a really hot profession. I started my career as a software engineer for a serious games company making training simulators for mine site vehicles. Since then (and partly because of my timing in graduating computer science just as the dot com bubble burst) I’ve been slowly pivoting back towards a more data science/analytics role, but overall I think I’m a generalist somewhere in between software engineer and data scientist.
“While I’ve enjoyed other roles, what I love about coming to FloodMapp is the chance to work with other senior software engineers and data scientists. I love learning from my peers and improving my own technical skills just by working with others. That’s what really caught my eye in Henry’s tweet - the chance to become part of a team where we can work together,” says Owen.
Owen also has his eye on how the scale of issues brought about by climate change will make us adapt to a world with more floods, more fires, more violent winds and more destruction. He sees the coming decades as a time when humans will need to be properly prepared to the unprecedented.
One thing Owen sees as essential to any role, is to be alert and open to learning new things. Owen is a keen learner looking to podcasts and following developers on Twitter to look at what’s coming up next in his areas of interest.
“Being in technology is kind of like being the Red Queen's race in Alice in Wonderland - you have to run really fast just to stay still (you have to learn faster than your knowledge of technology becomes obsolete) - and learn even faster to actually accumulate still relevant knowledge.
“Michael Kennedy is one prolific podcaster I follow for topics related to my Python programming language. I really love the Python community in general as super friendly, diverse, and welcoming to practically everyone. Even the CEOs of relatively big companies in this space are active on social media, and more often than not happy to connect and chat with new users and students,” says Owen.
Owen is a Senior Software Engineer at FloodMapp. Connect via LinkedIn.