Jp Valery is a Customer Success Engineer with over 7+ years of experience supporting customers, automating workflows, and enabling developers. He's most recently spent time at Customer.io building internal tooling for the support team, managing over $40M+ in ARR of accounts, and helped lead a team of 17.

He also recently got his Private Pilot License and is building hours towards getting his Commercial Pilot License. He even posts some of his flying metrics online.

More about JP

How did you get into software?

I did my first foray on the internet when I was about 8 to check out Pokémon's website. From there, I wanted to create my own little website and my dad dropped on my desk a couple of very thick HTML learning books and I got started that way.

These first websites weren't very good by any measure, but they got me hooked to building websites and connecting with people all around the world through them. From there I added more and more complexity, and by doing so learnt more and more skills.

One thing to know about me is that I really hate not knowing how to do something—so I end up learning various skills that way.

That technical appetence and know-how ended up coming handy in my early career and helped pave the way towards today

What does your desktop/home screen look like?

The same way I like to keep my mailbox to 0, I like to keep it pretty empty and uncluttered. Is Desktop Zero a thing?

Why are you at Resend?

I've been following the team at Resend since their first public launch and was always amazed by the quality of their work. As I found myself looking for a new chapter, Resend ticked absolutely all the boxes I was dreaming of: fairly technical product developed by a small team with a passion for shipping quality software, ideally around my areas of expertise in email and customer relationship.

I'm thrilled to be able to bring my decade of experience in email and in customer success to help Resend and our customers grow.

Where do you find #inspiration?

For multiple years I ran a webzine about aesthetics and inspiration, which shaped my daily browsing routine: a mix of blogs, social media, forums, and the good old group chats with like-minded individuals.

Having started my career in the video game industry, I'm always keen to see what I can learn from game and level designers. Especially when it comes to onboarding users and subtly guiding them.

If you weren't programming, what would you be doing?

Honestly I don't know! Computers have always been a part of my life, and getting them to do stuff for me has always been super satisfying.

Favorite tool?

I can't imagine living without CleanShot X. It builds on and drastically improve the native macOS screenshot utility. The scrolling capture is so neat, and the obfuscation and highlight tools come in handy at least once per hour.

Favorite hotkey?

Cmd + Shift + 4 + Ctrl to grab a screenshot to my clipboard. I use it literally dozens of time per day.

Favorite place to visit?

Very broadly: the skies!

I'm a licensed private pilot and my happy place is a few thousands feet in the air. I like the peacefulness of it, but also how it brings a completely new perspective to places you know. I'll never grow tired from the views from up there.

Advice for ambitious software engineers?

Developing curiosity and empathy to talk to people, listen to them, and understand their problems. At the end of the day, software engineering is all about providing creative solutions to people's problems.

The more you can hone these skills, the more effective you will be.