We are kicking off March with another team member introduction!
Our team members are the foundation of who we are and how we do what we do at Zensurance. They are the masterminds behind our work. That’s why we would like to introduce you to Baran Karasahin.
Baran is currently one of our Junior Software Developers.
What do you do at Zensurance?
My Zensurance career started 4 years ago (on the sales team). Two years into that, I started playing around with the coding side of things we do at Zensurance and realized how much I enjoyed programming. As of February 2020, I started as a full-time of the Engineering team as a Junior Software Developer on Core team, which focuses on addressing Insurance Analytics requests for document generation, pricing engine and question changes in general.
What led you to this career?
I have always been interested in computers and technology. As a kid, I was super into the hardware side of things but my career path took me into sales. After some time, the work I did on a daily basis did not excite me anymore and I started to realize that I really loved building things with code. I started to take a multiple courses on Udemy, FreeCodeCamp and Youtube while building things just for fun and learning. The free online resources to learn how to code are incredible and I was amazed at how much you could learn if you just wanted to.
I spent a lot of time after work on trying to consume as much information as I possibly could. I remember the first "App" I built with any sort of JS functionality was a tip-percentage calculator and I still remember how exciting that was despite how basic it now seems. At the time I was on the Sales team at Zensurance and eventually expressed interest in potentially switching careers while having a chat with some of our engineers. They were super excited that I had already started to learn on my own and we got to talking, that’s where the ball really started rolling. I was already obsessed with coding and it gave me the confidence to throw myself at it even more. After talking with management on both sides everyone was onboard with my plan to transition and even devised a plan.
The plan was to slowly but surely transition roles over a few months, so gradually lighten my workload on the Sales side while increasing on the Engineering. I was ecstatic! Up until that point I had put in so much time and hard work into learning how to code, it felt so good knowing that Zen was onboard. "The process” started on Friday after-noon’s at first. After handling my Sales tasks I would work on very basic tickets often while pair-programming with an engineer as needed. I am sure I bugged them a lot with some pretty silly questions but everyone was always super willing to help me and I mean that. At first the small tickets I got would take me a few hours of work to complete. This was important because I was slowly but surely getting exposed to the actual codebase and learned where I should be focusing my own study time.
I still remember feeling slightly overwhelmed when I found out that I needed to learn MongoDB and had previously never used it.. But just getting a tiny bit of exposure at work gave me motivation to go in and do my own self-learning and quickly became proficient with it (I now love MongoDB :)). Eventually those tickets that I was handling got more and more complicated and my workload on the Sales team lightened. At first I was spending about 90% of my time at Zen working on the Sales team and 10% with Engineering . Over the next six months or so the transition began, I progressively getting more work from Engineering and less work from the Sales team up until in January of 2020 I was doing about 80% Engineering work and 20% Sales team work… The next month I was officially a Junior Software Developer!
How do you prefer to start your day?
Normally I like waking up well before work starts. Definitely coffee is the first priority! Once that is sorted out I’ll usually just sit on the couch and check up on current events/news, check my emails to see if there’s anything urgent that I need to attend to but mostly its just about getting up and slowly starting my day before I get on the computer and start to work. I definitely need my coffee consumed before standup starts.
What is the coolest thing you’re working on right now outside of work?
Recently I have become obsessed with cryptocurrencies & NFT’s. I have an NFT project that I am working on (computer generated pixelated art). I know it sounds terrible from the outside and it might be but its super exciting to me. I look forward to finishing the project this year.
What is one thing that surprised you about working at Zensurance?
For me, it would be the people. From the top-down I feel like we have an amazing team and I have made many great friendships at Zen. Our culture is a direct reflection of the people here and I really think we have one of the greatest teams we could have… It really makes me feel proud to work at Zensurance.
Best thing about being part of the Core Team?
The work we do is super interesting and important (all the teams work on important aspects of our codebase…) I love how connected with are with the Insurance Analytics team and the work we do directly impacts changes pretty much instantaneously.
When you are not working, what are you doing?
I have quite a few hobbies! To list a few of my favourites in no particular order: I love playing sports including basketball, hockey, rock climbing, cycling. Video games are amazing and I don't know how I would have gone through the last two years without them. Call of Duty is probably my favourite game currently. I love the outdoors, camping, canoe trips, hiking etc... I try and get outside as much as I can during the summer! And I am obsessed with Algonquin park.
Here are some memories of my indoor/outdoor activities. Camping in Algonquin Park (left), Rock Climbing (right)
What’s in your coffee? ☕
Almond milk. Sometimes Oat milk. No Sugar.
What is the last book you read?
Born A Crime by Trevor Noah - it's an amazing read will most likely make you cry and laugh!
Who would you most like to swap places with for the day?
Elon Musk, probably the same answer as a lot of people.. Would be fascinating to see how he handles his day to day tasks.
What are your thoughts about working at Zensurance?
Overall, I love it! I wouldn't trade it for anything really. I love my job and we’re doing really important work in the insurance space. It’s important that our small-to-medium sized businesses in Canada are properly insured and I don't trust anyone more than our team to make sure that is happening!
