Damien was born and raised in Lyon, France, but life made him find his way to our Swiss team at PrimeIT. His Lyonnais roots shaped his love for sports, with skiing being one of his all-time favourite hobbies. In his free time, he’s an avid sports player and a nature passionate.

Technology was ingrained in his heart since it was time to choose his studies. With pit-stops in France and Canada, he decided to pursue his graduation as an Embedded IT Developer. He is now a Scrum Master at PrimeIT Switzerland, so let’s get to know him!

1. To start, tell us about your career path until you got to PrimeIT Switzerland. What led you to PrimeIT?

After my studies in Quebec, I returned to France and started a 3-year course in Paris to have a master’s degree and then I finally got back to Lyon to start my first job. I worked as an Embedded and Mobile Apps developer for 4 years, where I ended up discovering the job of Scrum Master – the one I have today.

Although I enjoyed working with my colleagues and clients, I wanted to improve my Scrum Master skills in a dedicated product team, so I joined another company for 5 years to get a new experience. After a quick passage in an insurance company, I returned to the world of IT after PrimeIT contacted me.

In the past, I had refused several offers to join a Swiss company, but PrimeIT was different. For many reasons, I decided to take a chance to work in Switzerland and here I am.

2. How did you discover your passion for technology?

I’ve always been attracted by technology and electronics. When I was a teenager, I loved to unmount and repair electronic tools to fully understand how they work. After my scientific bachelor, I had to make another choice regarding my studies path.  I hesitated between Construction Engineering and IT. Finally, I decided to pursue my studies in Embedded IT.

3. For someone who doesn’t know what a Scrum Master is, describe to us what you do on a daily basis.

Despite being a job position, being a Scrum Master is a mindset overall – an agile mindset. The Scrum Master is useful to promote agile in teams that need to change the way they work together. On a daily basis, a Scrum Master talks with people, ensures that everyone understands everything, and acts as a servant leader to help people and teams focus on achieving their goals.

4. What are the main functions and responsibilities of a Scrum Master?

The main functions and responsibilities of a Scrum Master are to keep the team focused, to ensure the process are clear, useful, and adopted by the team, to clear obstacles and protect the teams from distractions, to support change management, and to help people understand and adopt an agile mindset.

5. A Scrum Master is essential to ensure the best practices of agile methodology and the optimisation of the overall project. What are the key benefits of a Scrum Master for organisations?

Having a Scrum Master in a team is key to the success of your agile transformation. But it’s not the only one. As an Agile Coach, a Scrum Master is a key person to make your transition happen. He will help you to define a strategy, teach you digital skills and adopt a positive and agile mindset, ensure you stay focused on your goals, and support you when it’s necessary.

6. What are the most wanted skills for a Scrum Master?

Since being a Scrum Master is mostly a human adventure, it requires some good communication skills and the right posture to be capable to switch between being a leader, a mentor, and a coach. It’s also important to know how to listen and learn from other people.

Overall, I think a good Scrum Master should be empathic and should love working with people as a team player. It also takes excellent self-organisation skills because you will have to work on many different subjects with many people.

7. What can you tell us about your experience working with PrimeIT?

I’m working with PrimeIT for a few months now. So far, I love the feeling of being considered and valued in the company and I highly appreciate the autonomy given, which lets us be responsible and build a trustworthy relationship. I also enjoy the energy of the management that strives to make this company a better company every day.  These are some of the reasons why I chose to join PrimeIT.