If Sean had arrived at his university’s careers fair a few minutes later, he might not be sitting where he is today. “The event was finishing up, and I must admit I didn’t even realise I was at the Siemens stand,” says Sean. “But I got talking to these guys who were my age. They told me about their jobs and all the opportunities they had been afforded, and now they were out recruiting the next wave of employees. I knew then and there that I wanted to be in the kind of environment that empowers people like that.”
Joining the company as part of a graduate scheme, Sean was soon recruited into a leadership development program that consisted of four rotations, each lasting six months. “I got to move around, do a lot of really cool things and try different jobs,” he says.
Sean is now based in Atlanta but continues to travel the world as a MindSphere Business Developer. “When I was at school I saw myself flying around and having this jetsetter lifestyle. It’s kind of funny that I’m actually doing it now.”
Part of a bigger picture
It’s four years since that University of Illinois careers fair, and Sean is now well and truly part of the Future Makers family. He says his recent experience at Hanover Messe — the world’s largest industrial trade fair — really brought the enormity of the organization home to him.
“I got to see the full weight of Siemens in its entirety in action, and not only experience it myself but to experience it alongside our customers,” he says. “Everyone understands what their company does on a general scale, but to be able to walk around and talk to different people and learn about what they do was awesome. It brought a smile to my face.”
Working closely with MindSphere, the Siemens cloud-based, open Internet of Things (IoT) operating system, Sean is only too aware of the importance of connectivity and collaboration, and sees his role as playing a key part in supporting conversations between customers and the company. “I like to think that it’s my job to be exactly what the team needs me to be. I work with salespeople, and it’s my responsibility to tee them up so that all they have to do is swing.”
Just as MindSphere connects smart products, plants, systems, and machines, enabling users to harness the wealth of data generated by the IoT with advanced analytics, Sean is all about establishing relationships. Whether that’s creating marketing content, compiling whitepapers, determining distribution strategy or demonstrating product functionality, it’s all about finding the path of least resistance to getting MindSphere into Siemens’ customer base.
“We bring in a bunch of customers and do a lunch and learn, where we support our sales guys by helping people really understand how the product works. We also listen to them, try to understand their requirements so that, if we don’t have an answer today, we can go away and find one — which might mean working with research development or finding a solution with a partner.”
Keeping start-ups in sight
This flexible approach to problem-solving is rooted in Sean’s entrepreneurial background. A keen technology start-up blogger, he attended Startup Weekend while in Sacramento with Siemens, where he pitched an idea, recruited a team, spent two days working on it, and was placed first. “It was a good opportunity to meet people who had the same passion. It made me realize that I need to be around this start-up culture, and I feel I’ve found that in my job today where I’ve had the chance to try my hand at a lot of things and be in charge of my own destiny.”
From the graduate scheme to the leadership program, he believes there is a huge culture of empowerment at Siemens. “Even as a young person who is just starting out, you are continually given the opportunity to get in front of someone who is pretty important and show them what you’ve got,” he says.
Also in keeping with the start-up mentality is MindSphere’s more left-of-centre applications, says Sean, who refers to a demo he presented at a manufacturing trade show in Chicago. “We had attendees kick a football and we tracked the speed, the parabolic arch, and the trajectory — then we were able visualize it on screen and create feedback based on what could have been done differently next time. Essentially, the software can help hone the skills of tomorrow’s football stars.”
As for Sean’s future, he’s happy to see where his work takes him. “Honestly I have no idea what the future holds, and that’s different for me because I was always huge planner. When you are in college you’re always talking about what you want to do and how fast you’re going to rise to the top. But I enjoy what I am doing so much right now I only really think about next week, or what to do at the weekend, and that’s kind of nice.”
Sean Barry is a MindSphere Business Developer at Siemens PLM Software, and currently lives in Atlanta, USA. He writes a technology start-up blog and studied at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Find out more about working at Siemens.
Photography: Fernando Decillis
Video: David Parker
