Employee Spotlight: Juan Bermudez

Employee Spotlight: Juan Bermudez | Peregrine

Our team at Peregrine is made up of dedicated individuals with deep law enforcement experience and technologists committed to supporting public safety. We will be periodically highlighting what makes Peregrine most special – the people. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Juan Bermudez is a Deployment Strategist at Peregrine, a role that blends technical acumen with hands-on, customer impact. Juan joined Peregrine in 2022 and has been integral in building our platform’s capabilities and forging long lasting relationships.

Nicole Epps, Crime Analyst with the Menifee Police Department told me “there are key, invaluable people you seldom run across in the workforce, regardless of your profession. However, when you do, it creates a dynamic goal-achieving environment and high-quality products. Juan is one of these irreplaceable people.” I couldn’t agree more. Read on for five questions with Juan.

Tell us about your professional background.

I studied Computer Science in undergrad (go DUKE!), equipping myself with a degree aimed at unraveling complex technical challenges into digestible chunks. After graduating, I was fortunate for the opportunity to apply this skill set across a wide range of complex customer problems at McKinsey & Company.

Some highlights from McKinsey include:

Improving operations for a ghost kitchens start-up
Expanding diversity, inclusion, and belonging at a biotechnology firm
Optimizing service operations at an oil and gas firm (sadly haven’t used my hardhat since)
Streamlining marketing and sales for my parents’ favorite Spanish-language TV network

The result was a professional toolkit blending direct customer experience across a broad set of industries with the aptitude and excitement for technology I gained in undergrad. That’s my sweet spot – a strong desire to understand customers’ experiences and needs while using my skills to deliver novel technical solutions to their problems.

What made you want to join Peregrine, and can you tell us more about what it means to be a Deployment Strategist?

Well, I wasn’t actively job hunting. I received a LinkedIn message where the subject line read, “the one startup you have to consider,” and naturally I felt I needed to find out which one it was! While the tagline initially drew me in, I was immediately impressed and excited to learn more after my first conversation with the recruiter. I knew I wanted to join a company whose customers could benefit from cutting-edge technology – where there is a potentially massive opportunity for impact. Bringing powerful software to these types of organizations means transformative improvements for how they operate, and I was energized by that prospect.

Furthermore, I started thinking about how I distinguished impactful versus meaningful work. For me, impact was necessary but not sufficient for meaning in my work. For me, meaningful work would come when the impact of my effort resulted in greater well-being for our communities. I knew that technology could be a tremendous force for good if built intentionally and used to support people who can improve our communities.

Peregrine fit that expectation perfectly. Peregrine’s product and mission were impressive, and the team – especially Aakash and Ed – really drew me in. Their domain expertise, from both a technical and public safety point of view, was illustrative as to the kind of talent Peregrine was and is assembling. Their service-oriented mindset – to our customers, to their communities, and to the broader Peregrine team – shined through the first time I met with them. That, in addition to the opportunity to help increase communities’ well-being and safety, sealed the deal.

As a Deployment Strategist, I have two core responsibilities. The first is more behind-the-scenes, focusing on data engineering and integration work. I write code, collaborate with engineers to produce high-quality technical products, and serve as the bridge between our customers and our product and engineering teams.

The second aspect of being a Deployment Strategist is hands-on work with our customers, beginning with the initial orchestration of a project plan, followed by implementation and ongoing project management. Our work starts with integrating data and identifying core customer needs, then delivering value while ensuring our customers are happy. Peregrine prides itself on our white-glove customer service, and I am part of the team interacting with our customers every day to help them get the most out of the platform and configure it to their unique needs. I get in the weeds with customers enough that the white gloves often need a wash.

I’ve found that these two responsibilities allow me to exercise and expand the full breadth of my professional skill set – from the things I learned during my CS degree to the consulting toolkit from McKinsey.

What’s an interesting technical challenge you’ve faced?

One fascinating project involved identifying illicit massage parlors that engage in human trafficking. Combining publicly available data on massage parlors with data from public safety agencies was both a conceptual challenge and a technical one. Conceptually, I had to develop an ontology, or a digital representation of all the objects – different data, like places, addresses, owners, and so on – and their relationships. On the technical side, I had to develop a way to transform the publicly available data for uniformity and ease-of-use.

Being able to play a small role in potentially dismantling human trafficking rings is a great example of the meaningful work I set out to do.

I’ve encountered other hurdles – some of our customers have complex database schema, which can produce messy data. Our customers need clean, accurate data they can use to make complex, vital decisions, so untangling data structures is a common challenge I’ve found enriching.

“Approximately a year ago Menifee Police Department decided to implement Peregrine to serve as an investigative and administrative tool. Juan from the start took the time, be it with in person meetings and trainings, virtual meetings, or phone calls to ensure we reached our goals and needs. Juan’s ability to dive into and make sense of complex datasets has offered us insights that were previously unavailable as our CAD/RMS system was unable to provide the information or it was so complex few could extract the information. His tenacity, expertise, professionalism, and innovative thinking has offered us far superior reports, dashboards, and analyses that drive decisions. Further, he continues to drive the direction of our deployment phases and keeping us on track of the goals we set for each phase.” -- Nicole Epps, Crime Analyst

I could not have solved these complicated and complex problems without the partnership of our brilliant engineering team. They have helped me grow my technical skill set, and I’ve had the chance to contribute directly to Peregrine’s codebase, thanks in large part to their coaching. Their off-sites seem like so much fun and I like to think that each commit I push to the codebase gets me closer to an invite. We’re really a team here, and we invest in each to help everyone grow.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to work at Peregrine?

Bring your full set of perspectives and experiences to the table. The most interesting and creative solutions arise from diverse experiences and thoughtfulness.

The public safety agencies we work with use Peregrine to catch murderers and solve burglaries, better engage with their communities to build trust, apply for grants that are critical to their department’s operations, and inform key resource allocation decisions like patrol schedules. The work that we do – and the skill set our team brings to bear with our customers – matters to communities across the country.

People who listen and act with empathy, who are interested in technical challenges, who are excited to learn and grow both their strengths and weaknesses, and who genuinely care about what they do will thrive at Peregrine.

What special skill or superpower do you bring to Peregrine?

I really love connecting with customers. Getting to know them deeply allows us to collaborate more effectively. Overall, I value each of the relationships I’ve been fortunate to forge and the richness of experience they’ve brought me.

This passion for meaningful connections extends beyond customers; I care a lot about my teammates at Peregrine as well. Whether it’s checking in with remote teammates I see less often or making a joke on Slack, I want to make sure everyone I come across leaves our interaction happier than they started it. Plus, it never hurts to get the instant gratification of people dropping laugh reacts on your message.

Nicole said best: “It is difficult to capture or describe how invaluable [Juan’s] willingness, knowledge and drive have been to our organization and me. Without a doubt, we have been spoiled and have benefitted from Juan’s partnership.”

Are you inspired by Juan's journey? If you’re a problem-solver with a passion for meaningful work, we’d love to hear from you. We’re actively hiring, so come join the team!