Mathieu Hellegouarch is Product Owner for MIKE+, part of the MIKE Powered by DHI software suite, which focuses on pipe networks, river and flood modelling. Based in France, he has contributed significantly to MIKE+’s development over the years, working with an international team and collaborating closely with DHI's clients. We caught up with Mathieu to hear about his experiences with software development and a bit about life outside work.

Hi Mathieu, can you tell us a little about yourself and your role at DHI?

Hi, I’m 44 and a hydraulic engineer. Since graduating, I’ve been working with DHI. I joined in 2004 as an intern, initially working on advisory projects in the marine and coastal field. When the DHI France office expanded into river flooding activities, I was hired after my internship to work on river modelling, which I did for many years.

Besides advisory work, I quickly developed interest in promoting our software products to clients, so I got involved more and more in selling them, training clients and providing technical assistance. Assisting clients with challenging applications allowed me to collaborate closely with software developers and gave me a deeper understanding of the software, which I really enjoyed.

Around 10 years ago, when DHI was looking for someone to work full time designing river products, I felt that this was exactly what I wanted. So I stopped working on advisory projects and started to help develop river modelling software, such as MIKE HYDRO River, which is now MIKE+ Rivers.

I’m now Product Owner for the user interface and tools for MIKE+, our latest product for modelling rivers, pipe networks and flooding. I have now been in this role for around 6 years, although my responsibilities have evolved slightly. In this role, I act as the interface between users and developers: I collect feedback and needs from users and provide their perspective to help developers prioritise their effort, and also assist users with product insights.

What first sparked your interest in software development?

In the beginning, I was interested in improving workflows in the software to make advisory work more efficient. I identified limitations from both my advisory work and feedback from clients, and being in software development allowed me to apply the improvements and share them with other users when a new release was out.

Today, I would say that I like the idea of owning a product and continuously making it better. MIKE+ is a professional and advanced scientific product, and I especially love trying to make complex things simple, i.e. get the software to perform advanced operations while making it simple and seamless for the user.
 

As Product Owner of MIKE+, what’s been the highlight of your work so far?

I became Product Owner when MIKE+ was released for the first time, back in 2019. I haven’t taken part in designing its overarching concepts, but instead my goal was to take a brand-new product that came with some limitations (e.g. with a few missing features compared to its predecessors) and turn it into a complete, mature and efficient product that users will appreciate.

So I’d say that my work has helped simplify workflows and improve the user experience for MIKE+ users, while enhancing the product’s quality and reliability.

If you could explain your role in one sentence to someone outside the industry, what would you say?

We naturally don’t get much feedback from a product usage when everything works nicely, and instead get some when there is room for improvement. My role is to gather all the criticism and suggestions we can get to make the product better and more efficient.

What’s something most colleagues might be surprised to learn about you?

People are usually surprised when I say that when I was a student, my roommates and I had an inflatable swimming pool in our flat during a very warm summer. In hindsight, it wasn't really ‘safety first’, but it was a good hands-on exercise to find solutions to fill in and then drain a pool from a dining room.