Interview with Chris Makrygiannis

What is your job title and when did you join SPAN? Director of Technology… I joined SPAN at the start of 2016.

What piqued your interest about joining the SPAN team? It was a small company with interesting clients and projects but had big aspirations and opportunities. I had also worked with some of the team members before and that attracted me as they are great people.

Describe a typical workday – what do you do? Morning catch-up on emails and Slack messages, followed by morning stand-ups with my teams. I then have either leadership and strategy?meetings or "focus time" depending on the day, followed by client?meetings. My responsibilities include leading the software engineering aspects of SPAN’s services business and ensuring that we deliver with quality. This is a balancing act between managing customers, team capabilities, roadmaps and budgets to exceed our customers’ expectations.

What did you do prior to working at SPAN? I worked as a lead engineer for a company that developed and operated an online transactional vending system for purchasing pre-paid services.

What is the one personal or professional achievement at SPAN that makes you most proud? Helping grow individuals and the SPAN services side of the business to where it is today would be an achievement of which I am proud.

If you could have a superpower, what would it be? Read people's minds!

What has been your favorite vacation, book, music genre or movie – and why? Favorite vacation would be visiting?some of my family in Greece and Cyprus. Long summers, beautiful scenery, the blue ocean, and the feeling that there is no need to rush for anything is priceless for me.

Tell us something most people would be surprised to learn about you. I am a petrolhead.?

Complete this sentence: “I am proud to work for SPAN because…” I am proud to work for SPAN because SPAN employs smart, interesting people and creates a great,?supportive?environment for engineers to grow and thrive in. After almost six years here, I feel like I am still learning something new every day.