We recently caught up with Marty Bell, Principal Software Architect at Rakuten Blockchain Lab, to hear how the Belfast office is front and centre in Rakuten’s future plans.
About myself – I’ve been in IT for more years than I care to remember. I started in Musgrave Park Hospital before joining Vision Consulting after which I worked for HBOS/Lloyds Banking Group, CyberSource/Visa, before moving to Bitnet, a start-up building a payment processing platform for bitcoin. Rakuten were an investor in Bitnet which led to the creation of the lab here in Belfast.
So, you were ahead of the game, in terms of Cryptocurrency?
I don’t know if I’d say ahead of the game, but yeah, certainly we’ve been exposed to Crypto since around 2014.
How does your day normally start?
Depends on the day. The nice thing about working with Japan is that they are nine hours ahead so all the calls are in the morning. When you work with a US firm, you tend to have to do a lot of evening calls, we don’t have that problem.
We have 10 o’clock stand-ups every day, so the whole team know what everyone is working at, where they are, any problems, and what we are doing for the day. We have a guy who works in Barcelona, we have him on the large video conference screens, so he gets to sync up as well.
What motivates you to go to work every day?
I really enjoy what I do, I’m a technologist more than anything else, so I enjoy the tech. The things that interest me are the technology, the culture, and the people. I think we have got a great team. It’s small but we’re good. The stuff we do is quite complicated, but we have a good time doing it. We have a bit of a laugh as well, it’s not too serious.
If you feel like you’re moving forward professionally, or you are learning, or delivering something. That sense of satisfaction, of achievement, you need to have that, or there’s no motivation.
How does your work fit in to the company strategy?
Rakuten have a huge interest in blockchain. We are a blockchain lab so obviously, we are at the forefront of that in terms of the innovation that Rakuten want to pursue. The proposals are really varied and interesting and it’s brilliant to see Rakuten pushing so hard to develop systems based on blockchain. We fit in very well with that strategy and have a lot of engagements with the various business units about blockchain.
What would and ideal day be like for you?
Most of my days are ideal, that’s a bit corny I know. Sometimes you have those days where you think “I’m not even sure what I did yesterday”, so maybe a day where I can say with absolute certainty what I did the day before!
To be honest, I find this a really great place to work so every day is pretty much an ideal day. The work is good, the people are good, there’s nothing really to complain about.
If you could change one part of your daily routine what would it be, and why?
I don’t know if I would, I have a lot of flexibility and I’m pretty bad at routine truth be told. If I have calls in the morning, I can do them at home, get the kids to school and then get to the office. Some days I leave early if I need to pick them up, it just depends. I’m really struggling with what I would change. Perhaps a better coffee machine.
How do you cope when the pressure is on?
I am fairly relaxed so I don’t tend to get too out of shape. To be honest I’ve worked in more pressurized environments, especially when I did consultancy, that was a lot of “managing your mood” and being in the mire (euphemistically speaking), so maybe that has now become natural for me.
We’re also a good team so there’s no nasty surprises. We have some tight deadlines at times, but that’s a positive pressure in that you don’t want to be in a situation whereby “if I don’t do this today it doesn’t matter”, that’s pointless. As a team, I don’t think pressure is something that we get stressed out about. We manage it and we deal with it.
Do you use any tech or apps to help plan your day and stay on top of your workflow?
We’re an Agile shop, so the planning for the day is based on a Kanban board which manages the objectives for the week. Other than that, it’s a notebook. You know, your to-do list of ‘what I really need to get done today’ because there is always other stuff going on that’s not on the board. It’s the usual combination of Outlook, the board, and paper, anything else just seems to create work.
What gives you a sense of accomplishment?
We are very delivery focused and we like to build things, a lot of the people we have here are like that. So, the accomplishment is delivering applications or services, something that you know adds value. I suspect that’s more the sense of achievement than, I dunno, financial reward, or anything like that.
It sounds like you’re living the dream!
I am a bit; our team is like having a start-up inside a corporate. I get the best of both worlds, so that’s why I really enjoy the environment. We don’t have a lot of corporate overhead and governance to deal with, yet we work for a very, very large Japanese company. I am very happy how I have landed, after taking the risk of leaving Visa to get involved with a start-up. It’s not how we ever seen it playing out, but it has worked out really well.
What do you do for downtime?
I’m generally just a taxi service for my kids, so they account for most of it. We have three in three different schools so there’s always somebody going somewhere.
I also joined a running club last year, and that’s a good distraction, because I do find it hard to switch off. You go home and you’re still gnawing over things that you did that day, or I jump back onto a laptop. Going out running is good at taking you out of “work mode” for a while, I can focus purely on how much I’m hurting!
What sites or podcasts do you regularly use or listen to?
I tried to listen to podcasts, but I found I don’t really have the time or concentration for them. In terms of sites there’s nothing specific but I do get a pile of emails from subscriptions I’ve signed up for. I use Pocket a lot. It lets you curate content and store it offline, so anything that looks half interesting from my subscriptions, or something I’ve stumbled across, I stick it into Pocket and I can pick it up later when I have time. It’s a saviour in that sense.
Any advice for your former self?
Don’t give away the bitcoin! We used to do a demo and a part of it was to generate an address and send a bit of bitcoin to it. We then published the private key so that the first person who figured out how to move it somewhere else got to keep it. I used my own bitcoin for that! It was a lot cheaper then, but at today’s prices those guys should be quite pleased with that. So yeah, buy a lot more bitcoin and keep it!
What are your thoughts on the current cryptocurrency boom?
I’m not giving investment advice! If you look at the trends, other than Bitcoin which has been on a gradual up curve for the year, everything else just exploded in December, and if you watch it now, most are coming down again. So maybe January is a corrective month. Cryptocurrencies are an investment or gambling, so pick your poison. We buy a small amount every month more for a bit of fun, nothing serious. The cliché applies, if you’re not prepared to lose it, don’t do it.
Do you find any language or cultural barrier between yourselves and Japan?
The good thing for us is that Rakuten’s corporate language is English. You get sidebars happening in Japanese but that’s understandable given it’s their second language.
Japan is fascinating, there’s a lot of formality even in everyday interactions. For example, getting a Starbucks in Tokyo involves a fair amount of ceremony, as in there’s a pause to say hello and exchange pleasantries, presenting your card with two hands, everything is very formal.
I was reading a book last year and an observation stuck with me, “we are always so busy that it’s like we are skim reading our way through your life”. The point is, that as we are doing something, we are thinking about the next thing, and the thing after that. We don’t tend to spend any time in the moment. In Japan, just going to Starbucks forces you into the moment because there’s a level of Human interaction that, if I was here I wouldn’t really be paying that much attention to. The added formality causes you to interact on a more personal level than we would here.
Tokyo was like nowhere I have ever been, it’s a fantastic place.
