# 2025-06-02 Galoy interview On 2025-06-02 I interview briefly with Nicolas Burtey (https://x.com/nicolasburtey), CEO of Galoy (https://www.galoy.io/), for this vacancy (https://web.archive.org/web/20250602172751/https://bitcoinerjobs.com/job/1741056-data-scientist-core-banking-bitcoin-platform-galoy) that I found on bitcoinerjobs.com. ## Prep notes ### About me My cover letter ``` Hi! I've seen your vacancy and it felt like it was written for me! I'll share a few bullets to go along with my CV hoping you find my profile was also made for this vacancy :) - I fell through the rabbit hole years ago. I can explain why there is no second best, why I only have one chair and how I came for the money and stayed for the revolution. For the past 3 years, I've been organizing my local Bitcoin meetup with a few fellow plebs. I've lost enough sats fiddling around with lightning to make me cry. I've used Blink to charge thousands of € in services provided to others. I have multiple copies of The Bitcoin Standard with the only goal of lending them out to eager minds. I daydream about the Sovereign Individual future playing out. In summary, I'm a Bitcoiner. - I've spent my whole career working in Data. I've worn multiple hats and I'm familiar with many tools, types of challenge, org settings. I've worked in large and boring (but professional) suit and tie corps. I've been in small, guerrilla startups. I think it's all relevant for what you look for in the vacancy. You can check more on my CV. - I like finance, I like accounting. I do my personal accounting with double-entry accounting since many years ago. I track and measure the performance of my investments properly. I'm excited about the way Bitcoin and a more modern financial industry can make finance great again for the common folk. I think that, thanks to Bitcoin, we have a shot at making finance a blooming, entrepreneurial and innovative industry like history has never seen, instead of bearing with the corrupt, parasitic oligarchies that have dragged us down for decades. - I've been tracking what you guys are doing for years time and I think it's great stuff. Blink has been a great wallet. Your open-source backends stimulate my daydreaming on a world with thousands of minibanks operating on ecash. I hope that piqued your interest. Looking forward to chatting with you. ``` My selling points: * Savvy with the domain (even though no professional banking exp) * I won't shy away from going down deep technical Bitcoin rabbitholes * Happy to lead myself and to lead others. Can work with goals, no need to be handheld * Have contributed to Open Source in the past (like Bisq) * Used to run lightning. * Familiar with ERPs. I can see corporate needs easily: + Bitcoin-native accounting + Permission management, approval chains + Order vs Settlement impedance, optimizing fees, timelyness + Special accounting needs (lost bitcoin, non-refunded funds, etc). * I get Lana. I'm currently looking into Firefish to avoid capital gains tax.**** * Tech: + Familiar with dbt + Familiar with Postgres + Like to fuck around with Javascript apps + Haven't worked with meltano but I'm well familiar with similar EL tools + Haven't worked with Bigquery but yes with redshift, generally i'm used to the DWH life What I want: * Full-time contractor? + Happy with that + If so, compensation somewhere around 80-100K USD. Would need to brush details. + Would want to discuss holidays, sick leave and stuff, but I would focus on whether we fit. I'm sure we can brush those details out. * I can start in two weeks, would be happy if we could make it four though. * I have an interest in El Salvador and multiple jurisdictions. I can't tell you I'm willing to relocate, but i'm very much eager to explore. * Timezone overlap ### My questions General: * You guys started with Blink, left that behind. Then Cala, Bria, now Lana. Stablesats along the way. Could you shed some light on what is a true priority right now? * Are you making money? How does your portfolio of customers and your sales pipeline look like? * Your attitude and values seem extremly cypherpunk, yet you're building something very corporate. Are you planning on also cattering black markets somehow, or have you decided to simply focus on the big banks for now. * Are you aware of any organization that has grabbed Cala/Bria/Lana and ran it without any support or guidance from you guys? * I really liked your article on preventing you being milked on Blink as a swap provider Funding: * You guys had a seed round ages ago. What do you live off right now? * What does the ownership of the company look like right now? * What part of your treasury you hold your treasury in Bitcoin? * What is your current runway? People: * It's you, Justin, Andrew. Anyone else in leadership? Chris Hunter? * You're an extremely distributed team, right? Where's everyone? Tech: Vacancy: * What's the story around it? What are the needs? * Replacing Sebastien or José? Or expanding the team? * Data Scientist vs Data Engineer? * What bits of my profile do you see fitting/not fitting. Things I've deduced: * You've scored Lana with one of the big banks in El Salvador (Agrícola, Cuscatlán, Credomatic, Davivienda, Hipotecario) and are now rushing to catter them? You're also integrating with the government supervisor (SSF). * You use Metlano and dbt in Lana to make reports based of the backend, which you hold in BigQuery. * You have a big focus on Lana right now. * You're very excited about regulatory changes in the US Crazy ideas from me: * lightning is very stocastic and will need a lot of data driven mgmt + Peer selection and channel mgmt + fee setting + participation in liquidity markets * million ecash banks * wallets as trust intermediaries, always looking for the right custodian * ecash exchanges, trust markets * automated mint discoverability ### Interview notes ... Thought Machine - Core Banking