Meet the Team: Jesús Prieto Colomina, Software Technology Lead

Our Meet the Team blog series highlights the amazing people behind Moixa. A huge thank you to Jesús, our Software Technology Lead, who sat down with us to talk about Moixa, his role and the energy industry.

Jesús Prieto Colomina, Software Technology Lead

Jesús Prieto Colomina joined Moixa as Senior Software Developer in 2017 and is now our Software Technology Lead, working on GridShare. He has a degree in Pure Physics from the University of Barcelona and over 9 years’ experience in software development.

Prior to joining Moixa, Jesús worked in various businesses in the UK and Spain including a web consultancy, a tech company developing business software and he also built an app.

What does being the Software Technology Lead mean?

It means that after our Chief Technology Officer, Chris Wright, I am responsible for the software dimension of the tech team. I work with our team of developers to determine the future of Moixa software development, as well as setting the priorities within the business and making sure the right people are involved to get the highest quality work.

How did you move from Physics into software development?

My Pure Physics degree specialised in Statistical Physics and we were taught some software development, but it was very science and research focused. After graduating, I looked to pursue Computational Physics, but it was very expensive. Instead, I learnt mainstream programming languages like Ruby and JavaScript and built an app with one of my friends to practice my skills.

What interested you about working for Moixa?

I wanted to be at a company where my work would make a big impact and so I was looking for a role at a start-up. I also wanted to further develop my skills in functional programming and Haskell. Moixa covered both those points and on top of that, the business works to solve extremely complex problems around energy, which I found very interesting.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

I’ve had great career development opportunities at Moixa, I’ve felt empowered and like my actions have had an impact since day one. The biggest motivator for me is watching the company grow and knowing that my work has directly contributed to that.

What are you most passionate about at Moixa?

I think it’s the problem we are trying to solve. The energy industry is a very interesting space, it has elements that are outdated, but also companies like Moixa looking to advance the market and expedite the future of energy.

At Moixa, we want to develop products like GridShare, to help the world live in a renewable energy powered future and have a positive impact on society. That is a pretty motivating challenge to be working on.

Walk us through your typical work day..

Every day is different. I do a lot of context switching between software development, reviewing business opportunities and managerial tasks. We are a rapidly expanding team so a large amount of my focus is spent on recruitment, as well as team health and dynamics. So in one afternoon, I might be looking at the technical needs of a potential project, then interviewing a potential new team member, followed by updating the software for an EV charger. Every day is varied.

If you had a magic wand, what is the one thing you would change in the energy industry?

I would ask for the introduction of a common standard to smartly control any device. Moixa and many of our contemporaries are trying to rapidly build intelligent energy technologies to take energy into the next era, but we aren’t all working from the same specifications. So for me, it would make it much easier to develop a smart home environment and the connected technologies that support it, if there was a common set of standards.

What’s been your highest point since joining Moixa?

When I started at Moixa the whole codebase was written in Haskell, which was exactly what I was interested in. Unfortunately, it proved very difficult to scale the codebase in its original state.

We then won business from ITOCHU and given deliverables which were extremely challenging based on the solution we had. I was given the task of re-designing the platform to make it scalable and we went from only supporting 400 devices, to have a platform that supported adding 500 devices a month. I’m very happy to have worked with the team to build a solution we can continue to use and enhance.

What defines a successful month at Moixa for you and your team?

Meeting our deliverables and objectives is the obvious success measure. But for me, I want everyone on the team to feel happy with their work and be able to see how our products have improved because of it. When the team is happy, I count that as a successful month.

Any parting comments?

Yes! We are always looking for new talent, so keep an eye on our careers page for the most up-to-date job roles.

You can connect with Jesús on LinkedIn here.

If you would like to learn more about Moixa, our Smart Battery or GridShare Software, visit our website or email enquiries@moixa.com.