I’m Gaëtan Grond, co-founder and CTO of Front Desk, a French SaaS for hospitality professionals. I live in Bordeaux.
Background
I spent seven years in hospitality before writing my first line of code, first at reception in the UK and in France, then behind the bar, then as a senior receptionist at Accor in Paris.
In 2019 I went back to studying alongside work, and graduated from OpenClassrooms in 2021 (application developer, Python track). I started Front Desk from the problems I ran into at the reception desk.
Since then I have also worked on Python/Django projects at CGI (for Airbus and Veolia), and I am currently a backend Python/Django engineer at Fieldbox, alongside Front Desk.
My full experience, skills and education are on the experience page.
Front Desk
Front Desk centralises communication and coordination for hotel teams: logbook, maintenance tickets, documents, inventory, multi-property management. Launched in 2021, it is used by hundreds of properties, including hotels from the Accor, Hilton and Best Western groups. Gyms, campsites and local councils also use it to pass information between their teams.
I handle everything technical: architecture, backend, frontend, mobile apps, AWS infrastructure, security (audits and penetration testing) and the product roadmap. My co-founder handles growth and customer relationships.
What I’m working on
I’m learning Godot 4, GDScript and Blender by building BEGINNING, a 3D city-builder that starts in the Natufian period, with the first villages of the Levant. I handle the design, the game loop, the 3D models and all of the code. AI acts as a mentor: it asks me questions, points me to the documentation when I’m stuck and reviews what I write.
The Front Desk rewrite
In 2026 I migrated Front Desk from Django to Rust (Axum) on the backend and Svelte/TypeScript on the frontend, with the infrastructure rebuilt on AWS Paris. The mobile apps stay on Flutter.
Since the new version went live, response times have dropped sharply and there are far fewer bugs in production.
I wrote about it in two articles, in French:
- Migrer un codebase Django de 7 ans vers Rust (1/2)
- Migrer Django vers Rust : les données, l’architecture et les agents (2/2)
On the product side, Front Desk now exposes a public API and an MCP server, so the platform can be connected to assistants like Claude.
What I write about
Backend development (Rust, Python, Django), application security, and what I learn building a SaaS. A few articles:
- Why I Chose HTMX Over React and VueJS, with a 2026 update on why I changed my mind.
- Django Best Practices: Lessons from 6 Years Building a Large-Scale SaaS
- Three Years of AI Assisted Programming
I also keep a list of books I recommend, updated since 2023.
My stack
- Backend. Rust (Axum), Python, Django, Django REST Framework, FastAPI.
- Frontend. Svelte, TypeScript, HTMX.
- Mobile. Flutter, for iOS and Android.
- Infrastructure. AWS, PostgreSQL, Redis, Celery, observability and monitoring, Linux servers.
- Security. Audits and penetration testing with OWASP ZAP and Burp Suite.
- Game development. Godot 4, GDScript, Blender, currently learning.
Availability
I’m not available for a new position or freelance work.
Get in touch
For a job offer, a partnership, a question about entrepreneurship or a typo, my email is [email protected].
I don’t use social media, apart from LinkedIn. My code is on GitHub, and articles are available via RSS.