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August 11, 2020

Meet The Brainbase Team: Matthew and Pooja

This month we are highlighting two very talented employees: Matthew Jenks, VP of Sales, and Pooja Pawara, QA Engineer. We’ll dive deep into what makes them passionate about their work as well as their favorite office memories. Most of all, you’ll get to know what working at Brainbase means to them and future endeavors we have in store!

Give a brief history of your previous experience and what made you decide to be a part of Brainbase.

Matthew: I decided to choose Brainbase because it is a product driven company with a clear vision, great people, and ambitious goals. I have a background in startups and international business. I’ve lived in Westchester, Belgium, North Carolina, Florence Italy, New York City, and am thrilled to have finally landed in Los Angeles!

Pooja: I previously worked at a startup for 4 years that created Saas platforms for the Nonprofit peer-to-peer fundraising industry. It felt great contributing to a great cause and helping these nonprofits. I was looking for a new challenge in my career when I came across Brainbase. Brainbase had the right technological focus I was looking for.

Any upcoming projects you’re excited about?

Matthew: Taking over the licensing industry. Seriously. It is also great working with Ted on building out a sales team here at Brainbase with infectiously positive energy.

Pooja: As we get more automated testing setup, I’m excited to see our focus shift on creating bigger and better products. This will help us ship faster and reliable products.

How do you think Brainbase is changing the licensing industry?

Matthew: By moving this arcane industry online and consolidating exorbitant workflows. This industry is stuck in the mud and Brainbase is building a technological highway infrastructure!

Pooja: Brainbase is trying to solve a problem that is two-fold. We are building products to modernize legacy licensing business practices and reporting but also making sure to encapsulate all different requirements across all company types.

What motivates you?

Matthew: Working toward a common goal with a team I am proud to be a part of – nothing brings me more pride than contributing to a team.

Pooja: Innovation. In this day and age, we should always look forward to solving problems and making business easy to conduct. Technology drives this boat.

How do you measure success (with Brainbase or yourself)?

Matthew: Revenue and culture. Neither is ever enough without the other and neither will flourish without the other flourishing. Growing the numbers, while empowering us to grow as workers and people. Easier said than done, but that’s how I measure success.

Pooja: The impact my contribution makes not only in our company but also on our client base.

Where do you want the company to be at in 3 years?

Matthew: Worth billions.

Pooja: I want Brainbase to provide a top-tier product that is easy to use, highly liked, and widely used.

What makes you passionate about Brainbase?

Matthew: The upside of the company feels endless, which makes it easy to feel optimistic and passionate. I also think the intelligence and kindness of the team members makes it easy to feel at home very quickly.

Pooja: The team. Everyone is passionate about their work and very knowledgeable in their fields. It’s been great working alongside them.

What does a typical workday look like for you?

Matthew: This is a moving target and will be for a few months, but at a high level my goal entering the company is to learn the product and industry fluently first. From there, the target is to build a scalable infrastructure for Brainbase sales to achieve long term growth and success. This can’t be done without a wall to wall understanding of how our CS team operates, our product functions (and roadmap), and a tenacious winning attitude.

Pooja: It starts with some tea and our daily developer standup meeting. Then I work on my tasks for the sprint and occasionally have one on one with other developers to help each other out solving complicated issues. It doesn’t sound too exciting but it’s pretty rewarding.

Favorite go-to restaurant in LA (or anywhere you’re from 😀)?

Matthew: I typically order soup. This will likely sound sad but it genuinely makes me happy.

Pooja: I think it’s a tie between Doughroom and Kotoya Ramen. Doughroom has awesome potato pizzas and craft beers. Kotoya Ramen is a small, hole in the wall restaurant but has the best spicy ramen.

Do you have any after-work hobbies/activities?

Matthew: I prefer pre-work hobbies, typically yoga and beach jogs. As a New Yorker, I’ll never get over running under the beach sunrise everyday.

Pooja: Playing video games and Dnd, reading sci-fi/fantasy novels, painting acrylics, and building tiny paper models.

Any favorite office/work-interaction memories?

Matthew: Day 1 I hopped the fence (which Alex probably has security footage of) because the door was locked and I didn’t want to be late. Day 2 I set off the alarms (less my fault but still happened). Those were a couple early blooper moments. I also thoroughly appreciate the consistency in Todd’s placement, posture, and execution throughout all zoom meetings. It is uncanny.

Pooja: Taking a small stroll to the beach with co-workers has always been fun.

 

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