Meet The Team Behind Decubate — Jay Maree, CTO

In the second installment of our Meet The Team interview series, we sat down with Jay Maree, Chief Technology Officer of Decubate.

When he’s not cooking up a storm or racing around on his new bike, Jay oversees Decubate’s technology team. With his extensive software engineering and management experience, Jay has the right ingredients to create best-in-class teams and products.

In this interview you’ll discover what Jay is currently working on, his background as a software engineer and his perspective on the crypto industry.

What is your role at Decubate? What do you do on a daily basis?

As Chief Technology Officer, I utilize technology in the most capital efficient manner to further our business goals. I’m also responsible for growing and leading our tech team. For all my talent, ability, and drive I know Decubate could never reach its goals without a great team of engineers to achieve them.

Day to day, I speak with tech team members to discuss milestone progress, discuss new features with stakeholders and define strategies to improve our development process. This is just a small portion of what I do, but I think they are the most important tasks to help us reach our goals.

What are you currently working on?

I’m currently working on a number of projects, but the Decubate platform is what I’m most excited about. The platform, which will be our first MVP, has been in my mind for a very long time. It’s nice to witness the team converting those ideas into a tangible product.

You have a ton of experience in software engineering, how did you get started?

It starts with curiosity. I’m a person who is always looking for new methodologies, technologies and principles to increase my knowledge and experience in engineering software. That mindset has helped me to get me where I am today.

Before Decubate, I worked for a few software focused companies where I learned many things: how to architect systems, how to build scalable applications, how to write secure code, how to automate development processes, how to manage projects and how to build a strong technology team. I’m grateful for the knowledge and experience I gained at these companies, which I’m now using to build great products for Decubate.

You’ve also been working in the blockchain space for a number of years, how has the industry matured?

I started to explore cryptocurrencies and blockchain in 2014. Back then, it was pretty hard to buy cryptocurrencies in a safe and easy way. Many of the projects that launched a token during that time turned out to be a scam. A lot has changed since then. Countries have been implementing frameworks, laws and regulations to increase the legitimacy of projects. Even so, most projects will not succeed. The problem does not lie with blockchain itself, there is simply a lack of killer use cases, functional products and actual revenue.

I strongly believe there will be a token clean up in the next 1–2 years. Exchanges will likely be forced to delist projects that don’t comply with regulations, and there will be many of them. New tokens coming to the market will be fewer and more mature. This is something that we believe in and why we’re building Decubate.

What do you like to do when you have free time?

I really like to challenge myself by playing sports, reading books or developing solutions that make my life easier. I find Howard Schultz’s quote “Always challenge the old ways” quite inspirational. For example, I like to break old habits and ways by exploring new sports. A couple of months ago I became the owner of a new racing bike. Since then, I have not jogged outside which was a big part of my lifestyle but replaced it with a couple of bike rides every week. Exploring new things, that is what I do with my free time.

Rumor has it that you’re quite the chef, what was the last meal you cooked?

Haha thanks, I consider that as a compliment. The last meal I cooked was a very simple one actually. I’m not sure if it’s an official dish, but it was a combination of broccoli, potato wedges and grilled chicken. I think this is a perfect dish if you need to finish work and don’t have a lot of time.

What excites you the most about Decubate?

The opportunity and the people if I’m allowed to choose two. The opportunity to be part of such a great vision, building a fair decentralized crowdfunding platform to accelerate the adoption of digital assets AND the people because we have such a talented team.

About Decubate

Decubate is a community-powered investment platform that is bringing the $3 trillion global startup economy on-chain. Decubate pairs traditional web2 startups with the financial and promotional capital of community members to fuel their web3 success. Learn more at www.decubate.com