🎤 Inside Stuart: Paul Caillau — Solutions Engineer
Discover the backstages of working as a Solutions Engineer at Stuart. Paul tells us about his firsts steps in a booming startup and shares advices to become a better professional.
🏡 City: Amiens ➡️ Brussels ➡️ Lyon ➡️ Paris
💼 Job title: Solutions Engineer
🎓 Studies: Engineering studies at the National Institute of Applied Sciences of Lyon (INSA)
🔮 Languages: French 🇫🇷 English 🇬🇧 and I study German 🇩🇪 and Spanish 🇪🇸
👣 How do you commute at work? I ride my bike to work every day, covering 8km, which takes about 25 mins 🚴♂️
🧳 Travel dreams: I dream of living as a digital nomad someday, working from a paradise island for example with sunny weather and a beautiful beach.
🎬 Favorite film: “The Prestige” by Christopher Nolan, because it’s about magic and it’s pretty amazing.
📌 Can you introduce yourself and tell me how did you come across Stuart?
I am a 27 year old European citizen — I was born in Amiens, grew up in Brussels, studied in Lyon and I’m now living in Paris. I’ve always been interested in science, which is why I chose to pursue Engineering at university. I came across Stuart while I was living in Lyon — I kept seeing the blue riders popping up all over the city. Then I moved to Paris, and when Stuart contacted I started to research the company and its mission. In no time I was convinced and decided to join the blue rider movement from the inside.
📌 What made you choose to pursue a career as a Solutions Engineer?
After my studies, I did an internship as a Solutions Engineer at PubNative and what I enjoyed the most about the job was the fact that I realised that it sits at the crossroads of tech and communications. With my engineering background I’m naturally interested in the tech aspect of the job — I always want to learn new stuff, understand how things are built / how to build new things. On the other hand, as I’m a born people enthusiast, I really appreciate the communications skills required for this job. Representing the company, understanding clients’ problems and helping them to solve their issues is very fulfilling and rewarding. Overall, having chosen this path is a great opportunity for me to blend what I like and have a real impact on the business.
📌 What are the main projects you are working on?
Our team focuses on helping clients integrate Stuart’s API into their e-commerce channels — which can be both websites and/or mobile apps. If I had to simplify things, there are two different types of integration that we perform at Stuart: (1) standard integrations which are the most common ones for small and medium size clients with basic IT structures; and (2) specific integrations for enterprise clients with advanced IT and more complex environments — as experienced in the past with Just Eat, Carrefour and Monoprix for instance. We currently have many high priority integrations happening for some very exciting clients — be patient, we’ll communicate them externally soon enough 😄 — but also have to consistently align with existing clients’ demands and feedback. To better address our clients’ needs and deliver beyond their expectations we’re constantly communicating on a cross-department level, mostly with account and product managers. This enables sound decision making and quality project delivery.
📌 What is the usual process from start to delivery for a client integration ?
At the beginning of each cycle, sales people are on the frontline and rely on Solutions Engineers to advise clients / prospects with technical solutions — for example on how to best deal with the integration, whether to do it internally or with a trusted third-party partner. Basically, my job is to advise on all technical matters and help clients make the best choices. When the deal is signed, we start working with the client’s tech team and ignite a new development cycle, supporting them during the whole integration process. Our role goes beyond integration, as we’re always available to answer clients’ questions along the way, helping them creating new features, or advising them on further developments.
📌 What do you find to be most challenging about your job?
The main challenge is to combine technical expertise and the ability to build strong, long-lasting relationships with clients. Additionally, I need to keep myself well-informed on the latest developments on the market, consumer trends, client expectations and competitors’ offerings, in order to push the most relevant solutions. In order to overperform it’s crucial to challenge yourself on a daily basis on these three aspects — in the long run it’s what will help you remain relevant. As you understand, there is no single difficult task or process in Solutions Engineering, but various challenges that you need to address!
📌 What are the keys to become a successful Solutions Engineer?
To be a successful Solutions Engineer you will need both a technical background and field experience. Above all, if you want to grow the appetite for learning is a must-have. If you are curious enough you will learn new technical tweaks on each project and become a better professional. Another key behaviour is to show strong empathy and a desire to help, so you need to enjoy interacting with clients, and with coworkers. Your soft skills are key, but you also need to have strong problem solving abilities and have to pay careful attention to detail.
📌 What’s it like working at Stuart?
I like to work in Stuart’s startup atmosphere. I feel that even if we are growing fast and reaching a critical size, we still have the spirit and flexible structure of a startup. Everyone is optimistic regarding upcoming challenges, new projects and necessary changes in the way we work or collaborate. I think this is typical of the startup mindset, compared to corporate companies where the word change can be seen negatively. At Stuart, all employees are empowered and trusted for what they can bring — whatever their level of experience. I joined Stuart as a junior, and even as a junior I realized that I was given important responsibilities — I was at the heart of the action right away. At Stuart, no matter where you are in your career path, you are given responsibilities and are onboarded on impactful projects.
📌 What is the best advice someone has given you? And how that helped you achieve your goals?
My previous manager gave me the advice that I must learn how to say “no”. Personally speaking, I am an optimistic so I prefer to say “yes”. But I realised that it can be highly beneficial in certain circumstances to be comfortable saying “no” to requests. This lesson has been beneficial in my daily job, throughout my career, and even in my personal life. Notwithstanding, I will continue being an optimist and am willing to help as much as I can — so don’t worry I’m far from being a “no” guy! Try me if you can ;)
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