Meet The Originals: Francisco Braga

Our co-founders Matt Watson and Joao de Paula started Origin with one goal in mind: To help people reach financially healthy lives while creating a great place to work. In this series, get a behind-the-scenes look at life at Origin and hear first-hand from Originals about why they enjoy coming to work every day so much.Today, we’re highlighting Origin software engineer, Francisco Braga! Francisco is a remote employee working out of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He’s been with the company for 3 years, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to have him on our team. Fun fact: Most people don’t know that, before becoming an Original, Francisco was a professional poker player for 7 years.Check out our conversation with Francisco if you want to get a behind-the-scenes look into what it’s like to work at Origin.Q. What made you want to work at Origin? I wanted to work with founders like Matt and Joao, who had previous experience building a team, product, and company from the ground up. I was also excited for the opportunity to work for an American startup.Q. What does financial wellness mean to you?Financial wellness means having control over my spending and having clear goals as to what I want to save for.Q. Can you give us a behind-the-scenes look into a typical day at Origin? I usually start my day by catching up on messages—checking to see if I can contribute to any discussions or if anyone needs a pull request to be reviewed. Then we have our lever standup meeting. After that, I check the sprint board to see what I can take to refine, develop, or—if it makes sense—pair program with someone else.Q. What’s the best and most challenging part of your job? The best part is the flexibility. I enjoy having the autonomy to work on features that I believe will be impactful. Being a remote-first team also affords me a lot of freedom in my personal life. The most challenging part of my job is related to software infrastructure—we’re constantly thinking about how this needs to grow in tandem with our product.Q. Any final thoughts about working at Origin? It's been an incredible journey to watch the company grow from 3 people to 70 people over the past few years, and I'm excited to see us expand even more!Enjoyed our conversation with Francisco? If so, stay tuned to our “Meet The Original” series to get to know our other team members. Also, if you’re curious to learn more about what it’s like to work at Origin or want to check out our current job openings, visit our Careers page!