Hello Community,
This is really a special occasion. For the first time ever, we want to give our Employee Member of the Month award to the person who received it already in the past. Contributions from @Joe H. are just amazing, and he helped our Community with over 1200 (!) answers to your questions. We really can’t thank him enough. Let's hear his story:
Can you tell a little bit about your professional life? Where do you work and what do you do in your job?
I’ve been working in the software business for 35+ years, the first half developing software systems, the last 20 years in APM market space, mostly on the sales Engineering side. I’ve been at Dynatrace for 13 years, having started when we were very small and just beginning to sell into the US marketplace. At Dynatrace I was hired to run the Support Organization but shifted to Sales Engineering as part of the first acquisition by Compuware. I still work in the Sales Engineering team supporting a variety of initiatives, including being responsible for a weekly internal Sales Engineering TechTalk. Participating in the Community is just a natural extension of this work.
What is your story with Dynatrace? Why did you start using the product and for what project?
I still support AppMon periodically for those customers who have not transitioned yet. But most of my time is focused on Dynatrace. Having the opportunity to use both products I get reminded of the incredible leap forward Dynatrace has taken from our early days and the continued focus we have on constant innovation and unending features being brought to our customers thru our flagship product Dynatrace. This makes a Sales Engineering job fun and exciting. What I like most about the product is how incredibly large quantities of complex data can be so easily digested down to what’s important.
Have you ever had any interesting use case for Dynatrace product that you found out to be particularly intriguing? Could you tell us about it?
I recall one large clothing retailer who gave us 5 days to prove out our solution. We installed on Monday, started some automated tests that night, collected data throughout Tuesday, Wednesday I put together a presentation on what we found, and presented our findings on Thursday. With really no configuration required, we found all kinds of problematic transactions particularly around adding items to their cart. Later on, we learned that another vendor spent all week trying to get their agent installed on their staged system, ultimately failing within the 5-day window. With Dynatrace the incredible ease of getting from the initial install to actionable value is often understated. Dynatrace just makes it easy.
What brought you to our Community? What is your best memory about it?
Sometimes their problem is too complex for a few community help postings and we can help them quickly realize that and help them engage the right resources to realize their goals.
And how about your life outside the IT – what is your biggest passion?
Outside Dynatrace I like to spend time on my road bike (Bicycle). I’ve had some recent great rides up McKenzie Pass in Oregon, along the Pacific coast in Newport, Oregon, Napa, CA, and in the Calif desert in Indio. My wife and I like to travel in our Motorcoach and meet a wide variety people, sometimes too much variety, but that’s part of the adventure of life.
It would also be great if you could share with us your favorite movie, song and/or a book. Let other Community members discover something new and interesting to watch/hear/read 🙂
One of my favorite movies is Airplane. The creative skills of the director and cast is continually entertaining even after 30+ years. A recent book I really learned a lot from is Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. I just started Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker, a positive twist on the state of the world. Whether it’s a bike ride or a funny movie with my wife, or a 6:30am pilates class, I like diversity and encountering new experiences. The Dynatrace Community brings new experiences to me as well. Perhaps that’s why I keep coming back for more.
Thank you for the interview and most importantly - for being with us. As we do say in Poland: “Szerokiej drogi!” (“Have a good trip!”) in all your bike adventures around the USA.
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