Meet Saul, CTO at Noon
Saul is a former academic and offensive security professional turned software architect and technical lead
About
From Childhood’s Passion to Entrepreneurship
I remember distinctly my days as a high school student, seeking out empty classrooms with PCs that I could use to write little bits of HTML and JavaScript to build websites. And from the age of 14 until the end of my Computer Science undergrad degree, taking on freelance software and web development work has been a constant aspect of my life. During my degree, I worked first as a PHP developer intern, and then as a junior web developer. I took my interest in software security and reliability one step further as I began the PhD programme, alongside my job as a lecturer at Teesside University.
My first full-time job outside the academic world was at BreachLock, an Amsterdam-based offensive security company, where I started in a penetration testing role and then eventually advanced further to Head of Software Engineering.
For me, there are two aspects to working in software development that get me out of bed each morning. First, I love building things and working with the tools necessary to do so. There’s something enormously rewarding about picking up the latest tech and using it to make things happen.
Secondly, and most importantly for me, there’s the human aspect. I find that working in the tech space brings a wealth of opportunities to surround yourself with inspiring professionals: from marketing folks with their finger on the pulse of the market to leaders dedicated to the interests of the business and their team, right through to interns and other junior professionals with the energy and drive to get the most out of them. Being in the same room as folks like this daily is what sells me on working in tech.
It was also the deciding factor that connected me with Builders straight after I met the team in person for the first time after the screening interviews. Here is a place where I could work on building something new that people need, while supported by professionals and advised by seasoned entrepreneurs, which was what I lack in my past freelance working experience. What’s not to love about that? Additionally, one of the chief perks of joining up with Builders as a technical co-founder is that, by the time you join, the initial market research and idea validation have already been taken care of and you can focus on what you do best—-building things!
The Spark of Inspiration
The 2020s have put the onus on employers to redefine what work means. A job that might mean 9-5 in an office in 2015 can now be 100% remote, hybrid, flexible, or any combination. A well-being check-in was traditionally a 1-on-1 in-person meeting with your line manager (or a lengthy once-per-quarter survey). As the remote work revolution gains momentum, organisation structures shift to accommodate it. Team leads now need to check in at scale, and team members need to connect with and reflect on insights into their well-being, wherever they are. With Noon, we want to build a product that disrupts the traditional, survey-driven approach to employee well-being. The essence is about creating a safe space for team members to open up about their well-being at work while empowering them to share with their team lead or fellow team members as they see fit. All these insights are actionable, with proactive interventions available for boosting employee well-being across different areas of work life.
Technical Approach to Evolutionary Changes
My approach to software architecture and development is evolutionary, not an ivory-tower exercise—get your product built, secured, and out there in the real world as soon as possible. If you miss the mark in any way, your customers will tell you. Better to hear it from them after 3 months of pre-launch development work than 3 years.
To me, a well-researched idea that endorses a realistic expectation of the value it might bring is of the utmost importance. A venture that reflects my personality is dedicated to being the best version of itself, compromises only where it’s sensible and ethical to do so, and takes its integrity and responsibility to its people seriously. The experience of my product from the perspective of an end-user is always my priority. And as the person with the most control over the actual software they pay for, I take my craft and responsibility earnestly.
On Perseverance
Across each chapter of my career so far, I’ve faced different challenges, from finding myself isolated and unstimulated to missing real hands-on projects. Above all, it was an eventful journey of experiencing a variety of professional roles and finding the next best fit that could accommodate my passion. After joining Builders, I get to focus on what I love - translating high-level product vision into high-quality, tangible software systems.
I credit my career so far, both inside and outside academia, and even my software engineering skills themselves to my relentless appetite for failing until I succeed. I wrote many lousy software on my journey to be able to write good software, had several papers rejected before becoming published, and gave a lot of mediocre lectures before I learned what keeps learners engaged. At no point do I let that fact discourage me. I’m notoriously bad at knowing when to give up on things I’m excited about. And so long as I’m careful to apply that facet of my character in a productive direction, I tend to keep running at a problem until I overcome it.
At the end of the day, I long to make a real difference in how people experience their jobs. I want to give them the tools to dig deep into what about their work makes them happy, and what is draining their energy, and help create an environment where they can put those tools to use. It’s been a dream of mine to not only build the product but also the company itself. And I think it would be disingenuous to pretend that I’m not also excited by the personal challenges and learning opportunities launching a new venture will bring.
Influentials
A comprehensive marketplace platform that connects some of the biggest brands in Benelux with content creators or ‘influencers’ who collaboratively create authentic social media campaigns.
Areas of expertise
Publications
Contact details
If you're all about bringing ideas to life through software, or you just love cybersecurity, data science and tech in general, Saul loves to connect! Feel free to get in touch with him!
Obeyo
Obeyo makes residential communities come to life by enabling residents to build genuine connections, streamlining all communications, making shared services accessible, and connecting them to smart building features.