Meet our co-owners: Sergio

This month marks Sergio’s 10-year anniversary at Zoonou, so I caught up with him to talk about the last decade, the projects that have stayed with him, and the people and values that have made him part of the journey for so long.

It’s your 10-year anniversary! What’s kept you here and part of our journey for so long?

A sense of belonging, purpose and friends. Zoonou was my first interview as well as the first job offer since moving to the UK, and I have learnt so much from all the projects I have been part of and the people I have worked with.

I have always felt valued, especially since being part of the technical services team. I have made lots of friends along the way who made me feel welcome at first, and part of their lives afterwards.

What does your day-to-day look like?

Performance testing is an ever-moving target because technologies change and improve constantly. I like the everyday challenges that it poses, and I enjoy implementing new ways of collaborating with our clients to deliver the service.

Never boring!

My day-to-day is usually split between planning and developing a script or executing a load test, as well as improving our internal systems to support the next project. I also look after some of the IT aspects of the company, so I always try to help where needed.

What piece of work or achievement are you especially proud of?

I especially enjoyed working with Tangent to deliver a highly sensitive project, generating seven million unique user sessions over one hour.

This pushed the boundaries of our infrastructure and required a few improvements in order to reach certain levels of traffic. That experience was incredibly formative, also because the team at Tangent were very collaborative and appreciative of the effort.

As an employee-owned B Corp, we talk a lot about responsibility and ownership - what does that mean to you?

It means making the work place a little bit better every day, doing this by making small improvements to our systems, offering help where needed, or simply having a chat about the latest games.

I'm also grateful that we keep an ethical approach in our business and organise charity events. When governments are failing us, we need to step up and do it ourselves.

You’re always someone people can rely on - where do you think that way of working comes from?

I think part of it is just personal attitude. I naturally like to think things through carefully and prepare for different scenarios, but I also believe staying positive and proactive is the best way to approach challenges.

I also come from a long experience working for a family business in Italy, where doing business is very hard. So, I understand how important it is that everyone does their part.

Outside of work, what’s been keeping you busy lately with family life and everything in between?

The little one is keeping us busy, so we try to get out as much as we can now that the weather is getting warmer.

I’m currently playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and I am loving it - it's so refreshingly quirky! I've also recently completed the entirety of Elden Ring and the DLC after four years from the original purchase.

My friends and I played every Souls game co-op once a week since Demon's Souls was first released. We run each area of the game three times, so we can all summon ourselves to continue to the next. That's our thing.

After 10 years at Zoonou, Sergio remains one of the people who quietly make the company what it is - thoughtful, dependable, endlessly curious, and always willing to help others solve difficult problems together.

Happy 10 years, Sergio!

About Zoonou

Zoonou is a UK-based software testing company. We’re a B Corp and 100% employee owned. We put people and purpose at the heart of everything we do - curious, creative, and collaborative. Want to join us? Check out our careers page.