Interview series: Eric Normant, VP Engineering

Meet Plastiq’s own Eric Normant, VP, Engineering. A little over a year ago, Eric joined Plastiq, because of people he knew and trusted, new people he met who were equally awesome, and was confident it was a place where he knew he’d feel a connection with the Products. See why Eric thinks Plastiq has what engineers are looking for.

How long have you worked at Plastiq?

I’ve been at Plastiq for over a year.

What are some of the more notable projects you’ve worked on at Plastiq?

Building a new product and platform on a new tech stack. It’s rare that you get the opportunity where both leadership and the board support you to go all-in on a new product—especially when the current product lineup is already generating so much volume and revenue. Now that this is in production, we’re continuously building new feature sets and products.

Can you tell us about your team and how you organize people?

We have Security, Dev Ops, Core Services, Data Engineering, and multiple product engineering teams who are organized into pillars focused on direct acquisition, engagement, business development, Plastiq Accept, payments platform, and core operations.

Would you say that the team has autonomy in their projects?

I’m motivated by autonomy. I need to be in an environment where I feel trusted. I assume that others seek that same autonomy as well. We trust the team. And our different teams are always iterating on what’s their next play. Everyone has a voice at the table. We test, learn, and grow together.

What’s the culture like at Plastiq in your engineering groups?

It’s a high-performance culture built on diversity, inclusion, and mutual respect. Everyone is committed, gives it their all, and strives to find a balance that allows them to be healthy in both their personal and professional lives. No politics. All data.

Describe the ideal candidate for the next member of your team?

The ideal candidate needs to thrive in a fast paced environment where priorities can shift. We test and learn. We win some and we lose some. And we’re not afraid to take risks and fail. That’s innovation at its best. We know what our north star looks like. Our road map is clear. We have incredible ideas about what we can do, and we often do what people tell us we cannot.

Plastiq has a lot of women in leadership positions and lead roles in engineering development. Is that a byproduct of the culture or is that something the leadership team set out to do?

Our leadership, board, and investors simply value people for what they bring to the table. It makes no difference who you are. A culture of diversity, inclusion, and mutual respect stems from this. We have remarkable women who lead, manage, and code here at Plastiq. And we’re always looking for more. 

What’s your tech stack? 

Plastiq operates a CI/CD model and releases code to production frequently. We are building cloud-native micro-services with a component-based frontend written in React.js, and a Node.js backend, which sits in front of our Payments Processing Platform built in Java.

For our testing platforms we use Jest for API and unit backend tests, cypress.io for frontend testing, 
and Gitlab for our continuous integration and delivery.

Plastiq is powered by data. Our data pipeline continuously streams data to Snowflake via AWS Kinesis, so our Data Engineering and Analytics team can create machine-learning models that drive our business.

What is Plastiq to you? 

Family. It’s a home away from home. I’m surrounded by a remarkable set of diverse people who care and push each other to be better for the betterment of our customers.