Welcome to the Ohana!
“Have you ever thought about working at Salesforce?” #DreamJob
Welcome to the Ohana! Today I start as a Senior Solution Engineer with Salesforce!
After 5.5 years with my current employer, I really wanted to take my Salesforce skills to the next level; making Salesforce a more significant portion of my job. To do that, I had to make the difficult decision to look for opportunities outside of my employer.
It turns out, the Salesforce job market is pretty hot right now. Throwing resumes to the wind, I found a lot of interest, but I wasn’t finding just the right fit; salary, PTO or location usually being one of the hang ups.
Sharing my desire for growth with a Salesforce employee, he mentioned, “We have a Public-Sector Solution Engineer position open. I think you’d be good at it, want me to throw your name in the hat?” Why not, though I had no idea what it meant to be a Solution Engineer.
It didn’t take long to receive a call from the hiring manager, and things progressed quickly from there. The process consisted of three over the phone interviews, and an in-person demo/presentation to a panel of would-be-peers. I was a bit hesitant with the position. I mean, I was looking to go to the next level, but is this something I could do? Work directly for Salesforce? Also, the timing was difficult, as I was in the middle of studying for certifications and headed out to Destination Success. I almost cancelled my in-person interview. But here’s the lesson, a wise person once said, don’t turn away from an opportunity before it’s had a chance to fully develop. So I gave the presentation 100%, and flew out to Washington DC for the interview.
At the interview, I met my would-be team and manager. WOW! How great it was to collaborate and talk about solutions with these experts! And the hiring manager, such a passion for public sector, developing employees, and solving real-world problems. About 24-hours after my in-person panel review, I get a text from the hiring manager, “You did great! You should be hearing from me tomorrow.”
How exciting! Then I started to think about what this would mean. What about my Salesforce Customer Community? Give up User Group Leadership? Limit some of my participation in other Community events like Midwest Dreamin and Dreamforce? Tough decisions. And then I got an email from my soon to be boss: “I know this is a scary decision for you. My goal is that in the next 6 months, you tell me this is the best job you’ve ever had.” How can anyone turn down someone who’s made it his personal goal to make sure that you love your job?! THIS was exactly what I was looking for in my next position.
So I took the job! As an SE, I get to help your local government solve problems for every day people. How exciting is that!
What’s an SE do?
As an SE we work as the technical resource for Account Executives. We work to understand customer needs, help customers visualize their goals and plan a future-state for Salesforce, and then make it all come to life through demos and presentations.
Why Public Sector?
The public sector, it’s not glitzy or glamorous like the commercial space. But what goes on in state and local government affects every one of us. Government uses Salesforce for a wide variety of uses cases, from Licensing Portals to Citizen Engagement, from 311 Centers to Family Welfare. The work that’s done here, impacts so many people. Working with the public sector, there is a real purpose to the work we do.
