Hello there 👋🏻 I'm Antoine

Introduction

The story I'd like to tell you begins in 2009. This year, the new flagship of the Call of Duty license, Modern Warfare 2, was released. With this opus, a huge ecosystem of gamers and enthusiasts who create and share content online begans to grow, and if you were, like me, into this universe, you might remember trickshots, killfeeds and the Skype conversations with most than 200 peoples. If you weren't, let me introduce you to that time.

Call of Duty, or COD, is a FPS, First Person Shooter, where you play and control a little soldier who makes war. In this game, there is a particular mode that consists of competing online, solo or whith your teams, against players from around the world. And in 2009, that's all anyone is talking about. In the schoolyard, on the Internet, everyone wants to see or share their actions, explain how to be the best or show why their weapons and accessories combinations are the strongest. Peoples begins to create teams, records their achievements and compete against each other through fragmovies on YouTube.

I wanted to shine in that community and represent one of those big teams. But at the time, I wasn't particularly good at the game nor comfortable to talk in front of a camera. How should I do ? My strength was graphic production. Photoshop, After Effect, Cinema4D, it was my main hobby. Good, since there was a huge need for this kind of profile to create content published on social networks, it was my entry ticket.

If I tell you this story, it's because it's in 2009 that I discovered the entrepreneurial spirit in me. It was first a passion, then a driving force behind my professional career choices, and today, it is what allows me to pay my bills.

Who I am ?

I grew up in a small town in Seine-et-Marne, France, called Magny le Hongre, close to Disneyland Paris (the precision is important for the geographical situation, a matter of habit when you grow up in these areas). I studied in a public high school near the Val d'Europe shopping center before joining HETIC in 2014 after obtaining my scientific degree.

I followed the "Grande École" training, over 5 years, which delivers a level I master's degree, which I obtained in 2019.

After reading this post's introduction you may have trouble finding the connection with the title of my blog. In fact, when I joined HETIC, I was convinced that I was heading for a graphic design career. It's in my second year of school that I discovered web development with Bruno Simon as a teacher, and since then, it's been a great love story between code lines and me.

In late 2015, I opened my self-company to work on real projects. I found my main clients in the video game market and especially in e-sports. I had the opportunity to design and develop several applications, including marketing showcases or e-commerce websites, for companies like Omen by HP, Team Vitality the biggest French e-sport structure, or influencers like the most titled e-sport player in France, Gotaga.

Team Vitality website, vitality.gg, onligne from 2018 to late 2019

Following my studies, I turned this secondary activity into a full-time job and closed my self-company for an independent legal entity. Since 2019, I work with the biggest French-speaking influencers in the gambling market as Head of Tech and manager, leading them in all their online projects.

What I do

I'm mainly a front-end developer, which is the person who creates web experiences (from creating the user journey, to connecting applications with services, to integrating interfaces). But I also do a lot of devops, and some back-end stuff. On a daily basis, I juggle between ReactJS with NextJS under TypeScript for the front-end, GraphQL with Prisma and GraphQL Nexus for the back-end, Kubernetes for the devops and Nx workspace for my mono-repositories management. As a fan of reactive and functional paradigms, I also work a lot with RxJS. And all this is automated using GitLab CI/CD.

I told you I was a developer, but in reality, I do a little more than that. I'm also involved in product design, internal processes and management structure. I still do graphic production from time to time (which allows me to use the skills I learned in high school in my daily life). Today, I also manage developers with the work that's relates to: I create technical specifications, manage daily and weekly follow-up meetings, do some code feedback and manage roadmap follow-up.

In my spare time, I like playing video games, bother my frenchy (her names Nala) and I try to take more time for books reading.

Nala, my little frenchy

After reading these lines, I know what you are thinking and you are right. I do a lot of stuff. For me, it's mostly a manner of passion and a lot of energy, energy that I would like to share, as well as my discoveries, by writing on this blog, do live streams on my Twitch, and videos on my YouTube channel. Feel free to come and follow me on my numerous networks and add this website to your bookmarks. Moreover, If I managed to pique your curiosity and you would like to know more about me, or maybe to share a virtual coffee, I opened this tech oriented Discord server, you're warm welcome!

Timeline

• 2021

• ✅ I launched my blog

• ✅ I get new responsibilities, other developers join me and I become tech lead 🙌🏻

• ✅ I started to do live streams about tech and video games on Twitch

• 2020

• ✅ Following my work-study contract, I continued to work in a 3/5 weekly basis contract with PandaScore. At the same time, I grew up my freelance activity and I got contracts in the gambling market.

• ✅ In January, my little girl joins the family 🐶

• ✅ In February, friends of mine gave up their apartment and we got the keys back. So we moved to our current home, bigger (so more space for the dog), in a recent building with parking slot and elevator. And this, just before the first covid-19 crisis 🍀

• ✅ In July, and at the end of my contract, I leaved PandaScore to give a try to my entrepreneurial adventure in a full time way.

• ✅ In August, I put my self-company on hold and opened a bigger, and more suited structure.

• 2019

• ✅ I'm joining the company PandaScore as a front-end developer in a professionalizing contract. PandaScore is a Parisian startup and a major player in the aggregation of real-time data on electronic sports competitions matches. Data that allows them today to sell betting odds on e-sport markets. You are a bookmaker and you want to add e-sport markets to your offer? Go ask PandaScore about it!

• ✅ With Camille, we move into our first apartment 🚀

• ✅ I got diplomed at HETIC "Expert in digital communication engineering and management", Level 7 title (Master 2) registered in the Répertoire National des Certifications Professionnelles after 5 years of study.

• ✅ Zoom! Vroom ! I bought my first motorcycle, a Kawasaki Z650 🤯

• 2018

• ✅ Published the portfolio michaelzaccardi.com, developed for my school friend. Developed in WordPress with the Wordplate framework. The project received an honorable mention from Awwwards. And a French Design Index.

• ✅ Publication of the online store shop.vitality.gg. Project I developed as a freelancer under Shopify. The site remained online until 2019, replaced by the current version released following their fundraising and developed by an external agency.

• ✅ I'm joining BlueBoard as intern (acquired by the Channel Advisor group in 2020) as a ReactJS front-end developer. BlueBoard is a Paris-based startup that provides an e-commerce monitoring solution for brands and manufacturers that sell through online retailers. You sell online and you want to know in one place what is the state of your stock and what are the different customer feedbacks on your entire distribution network? BlueBoard is the right service for you!

• ✅ Publication of the online store store.gotaga.tv. Project that I developed as a freelancer under Shopify. The site has been online until 2019.

• 2017

• ✅ Released vitality.gg! My first major project with Team Vitality. Developed with WordPress (custom theme) and hosted on AWS using Docker. The site remained online until 2019, replaced by the current version released following their fundraising and developed by an external agency.

• ✅ Created LaPiscine, a private Discord group about crypto assets. Spent some time developing automated alerting tools and chatbots that serve as interfaces to simplify various alerts related to cryptocurrency market fluctuations.

• 2016

• ✅ Released my first freelance project: the Omen by HP Challenge (you can find a more or less functional demo version here. It's a small application I developed for the Team Vitality and which was used during the press evening for the new product line of Omen by HP. The plan: test the guests's cognitive and motor skills against professional e-sport players of Team Vitality. This application was bought by Omen by HP in 2017 for use in conventions like Paris Games Week or Japan Expo.

• 2015

• ✅ Too busy learning code to sleep 🧟♂️

• ✅ Starting my self-company, I can officially bill and put the skills I'm learning to good use.

• ✅ Meeting with Camille 👩🏼‍❤️‍👨🏼

• 2014

• ✅ Obtained my scientific degree with a "I spend more time on YouTube than revising my math classes" specialization (I still got a nice 13/20 thanks to Grandpa's remedial sessions).

• ✅ First year of graduate studies at HETIC, I discover the web development 👨🏻‍💻

• Somewhere between 2007 and 2009

• ✅ Discovered Photoshop, it seems to me that it was Photoshop CS3 at the time.

• 2006

• ✅ No more family computer under the stairs. I am digitally emancipated with my first computer as a gift for my 10th birthday. Planned: MSN with friends, Prizee, Skyblog, Habbo Hotel and World of Warcraft.

• 1996

• ✅ I poped on earth 👶🏻