Oguz Akgungor, Lead Software Engineer — and the first internal engineer to join the company. At Joyn, he will be instrumental in laying the technical foundation for the business and building out a scalable engineering practice that will work closely with product managers, designers, and other engineers, ensuring that Joyn’s leading technology and data platform meets the company’s needs.
Oguz has more than two decades of experience and an extensive background in leading the design and development of software applications across a wide range of operating system platforms and programming frameworks. Over the course of his career, he has worked on a wide array of engagements for multiple startups, led remote engineering teams, and spent time within the insurance industry.
Oguz was raised in Turkey and studied Mathematics and Actuarial at Bogazici University before receiving his Master of Education Science at Yildiz Technical University.
What do you do at Joyn and how do you contribute to making Joyn successful?
Since one of Joyn’s key value propositions is integrating insurance and technology to create a better way of providing insurance and a better experience for clients and customers, I have a pretty important role to play as Lead Software Engineer. Joyn’s technology and data platform is critical to delivering a faster, more accurate, and more transparent user experience to brokers and trading partners and saving them time, costs, and frustration. My job is now to ensure those goals continue to be met and we are always improving the experience that we offer.
One of the things I bring to Joyn that will help drive its success is my background in the insurance industry. I was one of the team leads for a similar product at AIG, spending more than five years there. Also, over the course of my career I’ve worked in almost every step of a technology-enabled business like Joyn—business, development, testing, and deployment. Beyond that, all of the experience I’ve accumulated working for other startups will help Joyn make the right technical decisions and avoid some of the most common mistakes that many startups make.
What made you decide to come to Joyn?
I worked with many of Joyn’s employees during my time at AIG, so I know the caliber and quality of the team that they have put together. I know that this team has been hand selected and is highly capable of doing what they set out to do (transforming the insurance industry). Even though Joyn is a young company, it’s already primed to play in the insurance industry’s big leagues.
The other thing that I really think is an asset for the Joyn team is that it is smaller and more agile than you will find at other companies. That means that we can make decisions, change course, add products and capabilities, and react to industry problems much faster than other companies and legacy carriers. Playing a part in engineering the software to do all of these things in such a dynamic way was just too exciting to pass up.
Outside of insurance and software engineering, what do you enjoy doing?
I love being outdoors and almost any outdoor activity. My family and I love to hike, travel, go on road trips, and kayak, among other things.
