Team Q&A: Yuki De Pourbaix – R&D Engineer

Whether it’s in committing to zero waste to fight climate change, our R&D Engineer Yuki de Pourbaix is here to ensure your distributed energy resource (DER) & demand flexibility programs run smoothly and efficiently. Join us in welcoming Yuki to the Virtual Peaker team!

How did your previous life prepare you for Virtual Peaker?

I first studied Computer Science at Yale, before doing my ScM in Computer Science at Brown. In my courses, I’ve studied everything from object-oriented programming to cryptography, and love playing with puzzles. I’ve also learned to work in a team environment and solve technical problems in academic research roles, and communicate with others through my work as a teaching assistant.

In 2020, I co-founded a web design and development company in the UK and learned the ins and outs of building websites and SPAs. Working as the sole developer taught me how to leverage frameworks and best practices to employ when architecting a product. Moving from a duo to a whole team has been a great experience and Sarah and Greg have been wonderful mentors, introducing me to the Virtual Peaker team and codebase.

Tell us about your role at Virtual Peaker.

As an intern at Virtual Peaker, I was responsible for jumping into bug fixes and troubleshooting on request which gave me the chance to work across teams and learn a lot in the process. I now work in R&D assessing and developing new features for clients and internal use. Although it’s been quite a learning curve, I enjoy working closely with the Product team and look forward to the day my first feature rolls out!

Working across teams would be impossible without help from within each team to understand how their suite operates. Since I started 9 months ago, every question I’ve asked or posted has been answered, in detail, within the hour. Virtual Peaker fosters an incredibly supportive and collaborative environment that enables and encourages anyone to jump in and help as needed.

How do you personally engage in sustainability efforts?

I try to implement the Japanese approach to sustainability: zero waste! Japan even has a town called Kamikatsu where almost everything is composted, recycled, or reused. As I like to travel a lot, I try to take advantage of buying used items and avoid food waste (put fruits in the freezer for smoothies before they go bad!)

What can you tell us about yourself?

I’m from London and now live in Providence, Rhode Island with my partner. In my free time, I love to play tennis and badminton, host friends for potluck dinners, and play chess. My partner and I enjoy traveling together (my extended family lives in Japan) and we love to go as far afield as we can, trying new foods wherever we go! Most recently, we went to Alaska and enjoyed the best fish and chips we’ve ever had (ask me about my tip-top foods list), and hope to visit New Zealand soon.

About The Author

Bill is a serial entrepreneur with a PhD from UC Berkeley in Controls and Artificial Intelligence and 10 years of experience with high performance residential energy management and connected appliances. He was previously at GE as an Advanced Systems Engineer in the Connected Home Software Group, but left that role in May 2014 to pursue entrepreneurship full time.

Bill grew up in Louisville and returned with his family in 2010 after a long stint in the San Francisco Bay Area. He loves Louisville and is working to make it a better and more attractive city for high tech startups.

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