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EmployeeCan you tell us your journey to becoming an SDM? What did you do before it? What made you decide to pursue this role? What prior experience did you find to be the most useful?
emma_mickamgood question! can I tag on? :)
... If your career had a theme song, what would it be and why?- shaungouws
I'd like to say something profound but in my head there is a loop of the Benny Hill Theme Tune 🤪
- shaungouws
I'll actually go back a bit more than just the SDM journey. I was born and raised in South Africa, which is relevant because there was a severe lack of opportunity.
Back in 2007 I moved to the UK on a whim and found a job as a part-time contractor on the IT helpdesk in the UK, eventually to be made a full-time contractor in the role - mostly, setting up laptops, plugging in cables and just a general dog's body.
Through this I met some of the network engineers and found what they did fascinating (my first corporate job was with F5 btw), so I pursued a few mentors in this space, who helped me find the collateral I needed to hone my skills, and learn how to be a network engineer. 6 months later I passed an interview, was given the job. I said yes to everything, ended up helping some of the account teams onsite, which was an unusual thing to do as an NSE, but I had the goal of becoming an Sollution Engineer (SE) in mind, which I found success after about 4 years in the network support role in Chertsey, UK.
I applied for an SE role twice before I got it and for 4.5 years worked in the London office as a territory SE before leaving for Canada, which is where I am now. There were no open roles for SE's here and so I had to pursue a couple other companies for around 6 years before finding open roles here at F5 again. I had a mentor here, who happens to be an SE director, who recognised that my focus was customers and urged me to apply for the role to learn a bit more. I have never looked back since.
What drives me in this role, is that it's always dynamic. My favourite thing in business is building relationships and this is 100% what we do as SDMs, and the biggest part of why I love my job so much.
As to what experience was most useful? All of it really. As an NSE in support, you are required to learnt o troubleshoot and communicate thorough some difficult situations. As an SE, the skills you learn in handling meetings, prospects, building relationships, handling challenges and creating solutions are invaluable to the SDM role.
