Micky Caritte's journey to be a Certified Atlassian Champion
This week is the first week we’re showcasing an Atlassian Champion. Say hello to Micky Caritte!
Micky is a French expat living in Montreal and has 5+ years of experience with Jira, Confluence, and Bitbucket. Discover more about his journey over the Atlantic Ocean and to become a certified Atlassian Champion in the Showcase interview below.
Reminder: As always, if you have a Showcase worthy story or would like to nominate a friend/colleague to be featured, please shoot me a note to bsauer@atlassian.com.
Bridget (B): How did you first become an Atlassian Champion? What do you like most about the program?
Micky (M): I knew the community before its new version but particularly liked the new update, found some answers here and there and when I had a talk with my colleagues about Community, one of them mentioned the Champions program which he heard of some days before. I've been curious and found the recognition interesting. I like to feel useful, as a Consultant I've seen many contexts and I felt like I could play my part here. I've started posting more and more right after getting my certification and after a few weeks, I've been on-boarded :) What I like most so far is the fact that, as a Champion, I have a direct line with other experts and can learn from their experience. The direct contact with Atlassian is also very interesting for very specific topics. I do feel we share a common passion and a common knowledge and its valuable to share it with us and with other Community users. The Champion status is also a "proof" that my answers might be valuable.
B: Tell us about your role and why Atlassian products work well for the banking/insurance industry
M: Since I graduated, I've always been working on Atlassian products (first as a long-term intern and then as a Consultant). Most of the time the missions are the same: help and coach customers in their daily usage of Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket... or even set it up for them. My current position is Senior Consultant for Atlassian products at National Bank of Canada, which is exactly an adviser/admin role. They needed my support to gather requirements and deploy a corporate implementation of SAFe.
My first contract was with a French Bank (Crédit Agricole), where I was surprised to discover that many banks in France were using Jira (it was early 2011) for a lot of different purposes. Most of the time the power of the workflow engine combined with Service Desk or simple issue forms can solve a lot of administrative tasks usually handled in Excel. The funniest banking project (and maybe the most critical one) I've had was to track the ATM migration for a bank (national scale) using automatically created tasks based on ATM specifications loaded from external DB. More than 200 people worked on that project filling in tasks in Jira from mobile command centers!
B: Congrats on passing the ACP100! Describe the road to getting certified, and how it has impacted your career
M: Certification as always been an interesting thing, especially in the Banking industry. Also, as a Consultant, it's important to prove that your knowledge is valuable and recognized based on standards. ACP exams are known to be tough and provide a real value to my CV. I used to work for a Platinum Partner (Valiantys) and that was enough recognition at the moment but as an independent Consultant I wanted to prove my efficiency and certification was one of the means I've found (recently published a plugin as well, Community Champion status...).
To get there, I've asked around how it was, I've read about it (hey Rachel), I also got a fresh Cloud instance (my recent contracts were mostly on Server) and read the documentation again and again. That's definitely hard to foresee what will be in the test but it's also very experience-based so I made it, yeehee!
(If you are interested in becoming an Atlassian Certified Professional, read more here.
B: What brought you from France -> Montreal? What's the biggest difference?
M: You know that already: I'm French. I've been lucky and traveled quite a lot as a child, loved the experience abroad and always been curious about other cultures. Recent French "mindset" also disappointed me and I did not feel like I belonged there anymore. I then tried and found an opportunity abroad, no real target at the beginning. Valiantys (which I worked with during my work and study program) offered me to be their second Consultant in Montreal as we knew each other and they were looking for French expats! That's how I moved from France to Canada, 4 years ago and I have no regrets. The culture here is far closer to my beliefs and goals, people are kind and welcoming. Montreal is a melting pot built on top of so many different communities and the labor market is very attractive and dynamic ("It's America, everything is possible there." as would say, my father).
B: What do you do for fun?
M: Apart from the Atlassian Ecosystem, I do have a personal life which I spend traveling as much as possible to meet new people and find new answers to questions I would not even think about before traveling :) I'm a diver, which is great combined with a globe-trotter. For years I've flown my plane simulator at home too, was a passion I dropped recently as I'm lacking time to fully dedicate on this. I also play some video games when my friends are up to, not a real gamer but hey, beers, controllers, and chips are basic ingredients for a good party.
Thanks, Micky for the incredible Showcase! We can’t wait to read your upcoming article about your experience working in the Banking/Insurance industry using Atlassian products for the 4-5 huge companies you’ve worked with so far ;).
Are you interested more in the Atlassian Champion Program? Learn more about becoming an Atlassian Champion or email championprogram@atlassian.com for more info.
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Bridget
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Community Managers are Atlassian Team members who specifically run and moderate Atlassian communities.
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