What makes 10+ years at a company worth it: A Solution Engineer on growth, impact, product evolution, and founders on a team

In this episode, I talk with Brian Chandler, a Principal Solution Engineer who’s been on Dynatrace's team for over 10 years. Brian shares a sneak peek into this role and what keeps him here (spoiler: one of the reasons is our founding team that has never left and kept innovating the product since 2005).

He also shares how he started fresh out of college through our Professional Development Program, why he once left the company, what made him come back, and what impact one can have on sales and customers in this role.

If you want to know what makes a great tech career at the crossroads of Engineering and Sales (and how to find one you actually enjoy), this episode might be for you. 

Where to find us:      

• Connect with Sue Quackenbush on LinkedIn  
• Connect with Brian Chandler on LinkedIn

Discover the opportunities at Dynatrace and take your career to the next level: careers.dynatrace.com

Transcript

Sue

Hi, this is Sue Quackenbush, chief people officer at Dynatrace. In this episode, I have Brian Chandler, who is our principal solution engineer, and I am very excited to really get to know Brian and talk to him about his journey at Dynatrace, which is very interesting. So welcome, Brian.

Brian

Hey, Sue, great to see you. Yeah, I'm happy to be here.

Sue

Well, I am excited to to speak with you. And I know that you, uh, are based in Florida, and, uh, so you are a remote employee, and which is fabulous. I am as well. I mean, you've been with Dynatrace for over 13 years, and I know that, um, you were with us, and then you went away, and then you came back. So you've had a very interesting journey, and I would love to get your thoughts on what convinced you to come back after you left.

Brian

Yeah. So, I mean, I guess just to kind of start from the, you know, in the, in the beginning, I graduated college in 2013 and, and those we were don't know. Uh, there's this program that Dynatrace has had for years, um, called PDP or Professional Development Program, and they, uh, hire basically fresh out of school college grads to do the full, you know, indoctrination into Dynatrace. It was probably the best thing that's ever happened to me in my career. And it was the first six months they really just invested. Well, Dynatrace really just invested in me and and the rest of my style in full product training, soft skills training, really preparing us for the professional world. Um, it honestly felt like grad school, right? If I had, uh, if I had to kind of give it something like that. And from there, that was sort of the feeder into our professional services, uh, division, uh, of the company, uh, at the time, they called them Guardians. Uh, so that might still ring a bell for a lot of, uh, customers out there. They're called Velocity Consultants. Now, it's essentially the Dynatrace experts that customers get to utilize on-site full time to be their expert consults, uh, make sure they're getting the most value out of the Dynatrace platform and products and services that we offer. I started, uh, at one of our big automotive customers, uh, in the Detroit area. Uh, that was an awesome time. Uh, I got to really get a ton of super valuable experience right out of the gate as a young, you know, early 20s person. Uh, I was involved in, you know, major, uh, website launches, uh, you know, helped in the, you know, stability of and, and delivery of their most important digital assets and applications. Uh, and then I decided, yes, I was like, hey, you know, maybe I'll see what it's like, uh, you know, working in the bank life. And, uh, so I did that. Got a lot of great experience with that as well. But then to your to your question, finally coming around to it here is, uh, we have an annual conference called perform where all our customers come together. And I was there to speak as a customer there. And then our now global, uh, leader of the solutions engineering organization kind of cornered me a little bit and was like, hey, uh, we think it'd be really great as a solutions engineer. I know you, you know, wanted to do that before you left. Why don't you come back? So, uh. Yeah. Dynatrace has always given me, you know, amazing opportunities. And like I said, I mean, I don't know what I would be doing today if I didn't get that initial, you know, PDP, you know, job, right, right out of college there. That's just really given me all sorts of great opportunities.

Sue

Well, and that's a great story. So thank you. And, um, sometimes when opportunities present itself, you have to take a hard look. And it sounds like you've had a number of opportunities both within Dynatrace and out, and you've decided to come back and stay and be with Dynatrace, which is fabulous. Um, you know, when you think about your role and as a solution engineer, you've kind of described this as like the best role ever. Can you help me understand, like what is the essence of the role? And you know how if someone doesn't know what the role is like, how would you describe that role?

Brian

Yeah, no, it's a really good question because it's sort of one of the best kept secrets are unknown sort of roles that you don't really hear about. You know, in college when you get a tech degree, you're like, oh, that just means I'm going to be a developer or something like that, right? But it's really a lot more than that. Um, when you're talking about what a solutions engineer is, or it also could be known as a sales engineer in a lot of places, because ultimately you are supporting the business development side, but your technical as well. You get to have your feet in both areas. Um, so for example, you know, we have this big rental car company, uh, down here in the southeast that have been customers for a long time with us, and they've always used Dynatrace as a technical troubleshooting monitoring solution. Uh, you know, understanding how their systems are working when they're broken, how can they fix it? They would. Of turn to Dynatrace. And that's that is our historically been our bread and butter. But we do so much more than that as a platform and as a product. And this was a super rewarding, uh, time I had this with customers because we really get to give them the, the aha light bulb moment of, hey, we, we have all this data, why don't we, you know, do more with it. And Dynatrace just collects all of this rich, rich technical data, um, that you can use to really help your business. So what's great is just being able to make your customer successful and realize things like that. So in this case, what happened was we basically started understanding in real time or help them understand in real time their their booking engine and how partners and everything would come in and book rental cars, what the behavior was, how they could optimize it. Uh, so one thing you might, uh, not realize too, and I and I didn't either, when, when I first learned about this is actually I thought for me, I was like, well, I probably I'm just going to go to their website. Most people probably just go to their website and, and book a car through that. That's not the case. Most bookings for, you know, a lot of travel in general in the travel industry go through partner applications. So think Priceline, kayak, uh, your airline app. Right. That's where most of the bookings are. So it's extremely critical that those connections are successful. So one of the new ones uh, that are out there are newer ones is the Uber app. Uh, Uber uh, in certain cities has started actually interfacing with rental car companies. And you can actually rent a car through that app now in certain cities. And that is an extremely critical technical integration that just needs to work all the time or it will impact business. Uh, and in their case, you know, they started noticing, you know, what the data we were providing them said, hey, you know, some weeks we're not seeing the amount of bookings come through this very critical partner that, that, that we have, uh, that we normally see why, you know, why is that. And being able to answer that why was like super rewarding and really put the light bulb up on them and how valuable Dynatrace is to their business, because we were able to help them understand that a lot of these partner applications and partner integrations, they do this to all rental car companies, not, you know, not just this one or all travel companies. I should say, um, if that connection is unstable and you're not getting those, those rates, uh, quickly enough to their app, they're going to cut you off and not give you the opportunity to to for that booking. They're going to give that opportunity to their competitors. Uh, because, you know, they Uber doesn't want you to slow their app down. Right. And as soon as that happens, uh, they'll just cut you off and then they'll give that opportunity for business to somebody else. Uh, and being able to solve that problem and really, like, understanding their business at a deeper level, uh, because those are like the little things, you know, if you're not, if you don't work or, you know, with, uh, certain companies and verticals, you don't really realize, uh, the business is actually way more complex than you think. So. And that applies to any vertical. I mean, that story I told you about the travel, uh, you know, industry, it really applies to any, any, any industry, any industry is going to have these, these, you know, little nuances that you didn't you didn't realize.

Sue

That's awesome. And I would think from listening to you explain this, it also sounds um, like it's really if you love to solve problems, it seems like you're working with a variety of customers in different industries. And if that's true, like how do you stay relevant? Because it's constantly changing.

Brian

That's a great point because basically it's a jack of all trades, sort of, um, because you do work with different clients and customers and, and just folks in general that have completely different tech stacks. And all of a sudden, uh, from one week to the other, you have to completely learn this completely new technology, like, I'll talk to a customer and they're like, well, we're running our new app on. Caucus or some weird technology that even I like. What's that? And you got to go learn that really quick. Um, one of my mentors, uh, you know, when I was talking to them about kind of moving into the sales engineering or solution engineering space kind of told me he was like, well, it's kind of a mile wide and deep, um, which I like personally. And that's another good facet to it because you get exposed to so many different things and you have, uh, you have the variety.

Sue

So the variety, I mean, I would have to think that you're you need to be curious. Uh, you need to be open to learning. Um, the communication skills are key. And, um, you know, to have and be able to, to stay relevant with, with your role and switching subject. So 13 years is a long time with a company. 

Brian

I really like this place, uh, a lot, because it's unique in, um. And this is just one of the reasons why. I mean, there's all sorts of. But one of the main reasons, if you had asked me, was that our founders are still hanging around here from its beginning days. And so our core product, people like the core engineering and product people that build our product, have rebuilt our product, have reimagined it, um, are still here since, like, I don't know, was it 2006 or something like that, 2005? Um, in the software industry, that's that's kind of unheard of a little bit. I mean, doesn't happen a lot. Usually when you go, you know, through, you know, any kind of, you know, business cycle from growth to IPO to, you know, billion dollar company. You know, usually you start seeing founders and stuff kind of sailing off with their five boats and, and, uh, you know, having a great time. But uh, our, our, our core product people, you know, don't do that. They're, they're here. And and that just gives me so much, you know, confidence, uh, and always re-energize me that, that, you know, instead of just letting our product kind of die on the vine and get stale like so many other software companies do, you know, out there, uh, and or just get, you know, acquired, you know, something like that? Uh, we have rebuilt our product from the ground up multiple times and, like, leapfrog the market. So just having that kind of knowing that they're there and they're always thinking about new ways to, you know, help it innovate, you know, the market like that. Um, I just love that. And that really does uh, it's a big reason why I've stuck around, uh, like like I have.

Sue

Well, it’s wonderful to hear. And you're right, our founder is still and he's our CTO, and he is extremely, um, focused and driven, is truly a visionary. But it also speaks to our culture, right, which is really underpinned by our values and our first one, innovate with passion. Um, when you think about our culture is being very curious and open and authentic, you know, it's all ties together and it's really coming from the founder as well as those, you're right, the key engineers who've been here since the beginning and, you know, um, and that is that's a wonderful thing. Right. And so when you think about, um, you know, someone considering a solution engineer role at Dynatrace, because we are hiring, we're growing. We're always looking for individuals. Um, what should they know before they apply?

Brian

You know, if I'm if I'm talking to a new solutions engineer, and I don't want to say this is like a hard and fast rule, this is what's worked for me and what I see a lot of successful solutions engineers out there is your personality is your best asset. Um, you know, even if you're an introvert and you're not the most extroverted person, you still had a personality down there. And, uh, they're people love to see that authenticity. Um, so when I say that, it's just, you know, you wear your personality on your chest, um, you know, as a solutions engineer. And that's such a big thing, especially in technology, when you interface with customers and these technology teams. Uh, just being authentic is really, uh, important, uh, in that space and, and being empathetic. Um, you're going to get a lot of, uh, you know, what we call in the, in the sales cycle challenges. You know, we're going to be going in there, you know, telling, you know, customers and, you know, prospects. Hey, this is what our product does. You know, we understand this is you know, what you're looking for. This is how we're going to solve it. Um, and, you know, you got to be ready to, to handle some challenges. You know, some folks, they might they might not really believe you. You know, when you first when you first tell them, you know, what we can do and what our product does and things that we can do. But, you know, you got to be okay with that. You got to be patient. You got to be empathetic and understand, uh, you know, what they're asking. And really that's that's kind of the fun part. Once you start gaining kind of that, that trusted, uh, advisor status is really what you're gunning for. Um, and eventually what the end goal is, is, uh, your customers will start coming to you and, you know, looking to you as their technical, trusted advisor.

Sue

Well, I think that's fantastic advice. And. Well, Brian, this was fabulous. Thank you so much for sharing your journey and your thoughts, um, on your role in how someone could get into that role. Um, I really loved our conversation and I want to thank you for joining me.

Brian

Oh. Thank you. Yeah, it was awesome. Happy to be here.

Sue

Thank you, everyone, for tuning into today's podcast. If you'd like to follow us, please do so on Apple and. Spotify.