Employee Spotlight: Jason Canada

Here’s your chance to meet the people behind The PubNub Data Stream Network. We talk with Jason Canada, our Product Manager (and newest addition to the team).

1. Your last name is the same as our friendly neighbors up North. How’d that come about?

My mom loves genealogy and she has traced our family and name back for about two hundred years through our ancestors in North America. We haven’t been able to track it back further to Europe, so our best guess is that perhaps we immigrated through Canada and it was given to us then. We can’t be sure, though.

2. Product Manager? What’s that mean?

Product management means many different things to different people. For me, I think of a product manager as being a bridge between the customer and the internal engineering team. They help drive product vision and translate that vision in ways that both customers and engineers can understand.

3. Why should every app be real-time?

With the proliferation of connected mobile devices, people now expect to get the information they want as soon as possible. Whether it’s sports scores, news, or a video from a friend – people want to have that information as it’s happening.

4. What will you be doing at PubNub for the next couple months?

My goals for the first couple of months are to start building up our developer portal to make it easier for our customers to start using all of the great PubNub features we have to offer. From there, I’ll also be working with the engineering team to begin building a roadmap for the core PubNub service.

5. When you’re not at work, what are you doing?

I’m a big skier, so most winter weekends you’ll find me on a mountain somewhere in the Sierras. Otherwise, I love to travel and eat as much delicious food as possible along the way. I also love to cook, so try to bring as many recipes home with me as possible when traveling.

6. You just got back from traveling the world. How long were you abroad and what was your favorite place you visited?

I traveled for a little over a year and saw 24 countries on six continents. If I had to pick a favorite, it would be the Patagonia region at the southern tip of Argentina and Chile. I spent a month or so trekking around the area. The scenery down there is pretty spectacular.

7. Soundtrack of your life?

I grew up with parents who were music lovers so my soundtrack is pretty eclectic. I love the electronic music scene here in San Francisco so find myself on the dancefloor quite a bit. I also love seeing live shows. Some of my favorites right now are the new Daft Punk album, Haim, Poolside and Phosporecent.