Latest / The High-Performing Technical Leader / Ep.32- Why High-Performing SEs Leave: Building IC Careers That Stick, with Chris Clark

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Ep.32- Why High-Performing SEs Leave: Building IC Careers That Stick, with Chris Clark · The High-Performing Technical Leader

• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, everybody.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to the High Performing Technical Leader podcast.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Arvi Karkanji.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: And as a reminder, this podcast is intentionally live and unedited with all of our guests.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm actually super excited to dig in today.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: I'm joined by Chris Clark, who is a pre-sales career coach.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm honestly ready to dive in.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much, Chris, for joining me.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'd love to honestly just start off a little bit with how you even ended up in this wonderful world of pre-sales in general.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, thanks for having me on, RV.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And thanks anyone out there for listening or watching.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Probably like most of your audience, I didn't plan to get into pre-sales.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I actually started in marketing at a small systems integrator.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: We got acquired, so the marketing role wasn't relevant anymore.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I got the chance to move into a quota carrying role for a short time.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then the managing director pulled me to the side and said, Hey, it sounds like you're more interested in the product than making loads of money.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I agreed.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so I moved into pre-sales.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, again, like a lot of people, early stage career, right?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: They think that the default progression is management.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I pushed for.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I moved into a line management role and I enjoyed aspects of it, but actually wanted to hold my craft a bit more.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I moved back into an IC role, got the opportunity to do that at Slack here, first SE in the UK.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when I got to work with a career coach.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was sort of a pivotal moment for me in my career, helped me realize that actually managing people wasn't necessarily what excited me, but it was about scaling my impact.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so I spent a few years there in various overlay roles that I crafted for myself, which I love doing.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And now, as you mentioned, I'm full-time a pre-sales career coach helping individuals on a similar journey.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: So those that are keen to stay on the individual contributor path, but looking for new and interesting ways to do that.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love that.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: And honestly, I think we kind of underestimate sometimes how important coaches are in our life.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe the word coach is like thrown around too much nowadays to where, in a sense, sometimes loses its meaning.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: But being paired with like the right person, the right coach can really be can be really, really key to your just career in general or business if you own a business or whatever that looks like.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: And even on like relationship or just a life side, um, not just you know, career speaking.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: But um, first of all, I love that.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's so awesome that you even got a coach to care about your career and where you want it to go.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it seems like that really helped you.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you've been coaching now for almost full full year, uh almost at least.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: And you also just launched your podcast.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: First, tell us the name of your podcast.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: Anybody interested, can go check it out.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: And then I'd love to ask you a question after that.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: So the podcast is called Pre-Sales Pathways.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And as the name suggests, it's about highlighting successful pre-sales professionals, the different career paths that they've taken.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: I really had that sort of um persona in mind of someone who's maybe been in the role for a little while, but is keen to know what paths exist for them.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's about showcasing interesting roles, interesting transitions.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, please do check it out.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: And we're gonna dive into that a little bit more further down the line in terms of like what can I do if I'm I don't want to go through like a management position.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: But before we get to that, maybe if you can share with us what are some patterns that you're seeing across SCs that you're working with right now, maybe some biggest of some of their biggest frustrations that they're bringing up to you.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think three sort of buckets come to mind.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So the first is, I guess, similar to to me, but a few years back.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: So these are individuals who have decided that they want to stay on the IC path, but they're just not really sure what that looks like.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe their company doesn't have a really clearly defined path.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe they're sort of they've seen a title in another organization that sounded interesting and they want to explore that.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so the first group is, I would say, yeah, like mid-career professionals who want to stay as ICs but are not really sure what their options are.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also working with a group of people who are working at an established SaaS vendor, but they're really keen to get a bit more involved with generative AI.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: So they're sort of eyeing up maybe one of these AI native vendors, either one of the big labs or one of the applied AI companies.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is the profile those companies are looking for in terms of SE is quite different to maybe the traditional SaaS companies and sort of looking to sort of bridge that skills gap or positioning gap and land a role there.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then lastly, you know, increasingly I'm actually gonna individuals that are looking to break into solutions engineering or pre-sales from the first time from adjacent functions like software engineering or um or sales uh or even you know totally different career paths.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, on that note, I've seen a huge increase of people looking to get into sales engineering from either fully technical roles or more like sales roles and they like the SC side and they want to join.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: So there might be something interesting to talk about a little bit later as well.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but you have a pretty like unique vantage point.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: You obviously coach SEs about career progression, but you're also advising hiring managers on retention.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: Do you feel like there's a big disconnect between the two, or is there anything that leaders are getting wrong when it comes to the retention side?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think um I think the way to approach this one maybe is the ideal path from my perspective as a hiring manager or a team leader who's interested in growing their ICs is like start by exploring your team's motivations.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: The SE role, pre-sales role is so broad.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: As you said, people come in from sales, they come in from technical roles.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you could be like hands-on keyboard, you could be in front of customers, you could be on stage.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many different types of activities.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: So really get to know for the individuals on your team what is it that makes them tick?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: What do they enjoy?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: What do they want to do more of?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think the second thing is actually really clearly communicating what the priorities for the organization.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the bit where I see a lot of leaders fall down.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: They're either not clear on what the priorities are or they're not communicating them, or you know, if there are already ideas for like projects and initiatives within the organization, those aren't clearly cascaded to the team.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because in my experience, speaking to individual contributors beyond their deal work, they're really looking for ideas of like which are the projects I can pick up, what are the things I can work on?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's can sometimes feel like there's a lack of transparency there.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I would say understanding the motivations, what do your team want to work on, and then being really clear around these are the priorities for the organization, some of the projects that you think could move them forward is super important.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's fair.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's a fair assumption.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: And uh speaking on the IC side, when you mentioned that you coach people on how to craft roles that maybe don't exist yet, or even providing like their own career progression for the company, and that could be anything from like, you know, it's a company doesn't have a field CTO or FDEs or maybe evangelist roles as well.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: For a leader, like if I'm a leader in one of those companies and we don't have those, how do you create the space to for career progression?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I think um, you know, normally it doesn't start with an individual going from the sort of standard bread and butter SE role to overnight being in a field CTO role, typically.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I think looking at it more from you know the individual's perspective, as a baseline, you need to be performing in your role, right?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've just landed at a new organization, you need to prove that you can do the standard SE role, you need to earn the trust and credibility of like individuals within the organization before you start thinking about crafting one of these roles.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think it's a case of you know, yeah, getting a sense, and this is a joint activity, right?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Of like what are those things that you're excited about?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: What are the priorities of the organization?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then trying to find opportunities to start to do that work within your current role.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you mentioned something like field CTO.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: I would see one of the you know typical responsibilities of a field CTO would be like presenting at conferences or doing thought leadership.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: So already within your current SE role, you're supporting deals, you're doing all of that stuff, but like can you find time to do some conferences?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Can you find time to write a blog and get it up on the company's website?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so you start to do aspects of the role before it's formally carved out and exists.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And once you've done that and you've had some success in doing that, you can prove A, that you're able to do it and B, the value it delivers for the organization.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Then you can start to sort of more formally think about, you know, again, this is a joined up activity between the IC and the leadership team of actually building a case for that role and making that case for the relevant stakeholders.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: So typically whoever's leading solutions, who's ever whoever's leading revenue, you know, it might even be the CEO if it's a reasonably early stage company.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I guess the thing is, yeah, it's it's similar to how organizations often hire someone as a player coach where they're expected to do the SE role and sort of take aspects of leading and managing a team, I would say it see it in a similar way.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to be a field CTO, you start in the standard SE role, you start to do aspects of that work.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And over time you build the case to move into something like that, maybe maybe full-time.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I love that because, like you said, it's like maybe I am being hired for a sales engineering role, but unless the leader talks to me and really understands my motivation, where I want to go in the future, I might not necessarily want to be in just that SE role, but I do have an quote unquote obligation to prove to the company that I'm a good SE.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that when candidates um join companies, their intention is not to leave.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Most people leave their jobs for three reasons, really.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: Toxic culture, um, they don't see a career growth path within the company, or they're just not being paid uh fairly or compensated fairly.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: So those are always like the three biggest reasons when I talk to candidates about why they're potentially leaving their company to go to somewhere else.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: So if you as a company have the or leader, sometimes just a leadership, or like if you're just uh not the CEO, but if you're a leader and you know that these are always your three most important reasons why people leave, I would proactively work on how to squash those objections, just like in sales, and how to create space for each person, ideally.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I understand sometimes it doesn't always work out, but I would ideally work on how to create space for that person based on when they're looking to go.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think 100%.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the other part of it that I think sucks for what not a ton of companies do is that they don't fully understand that when you give promotions, like if somebody's really motivated by money, they don't care about anything else, but they're like, how do I make more?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: Usually I've seen that companies are not giving the same amount of increase or uh promotion in terms of the compensation side as if they were to hire somebody new that matches the market rate.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: We tend to kind of get what is the right word, um, not spoiled, but comfortable with the people that are in our company.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: And we forget that they can leave and they can go somewhere better.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I mean, I agree with a lot of what you're saying.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my kind of belief is that typically even uh I'm gonna hire somebody, the goal is to understand what it is that they want, where they're looking to go.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: And before I even go, for example, hire a field CTO, maybe somebody from the team is actually wanting to be there.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: So ask them first and see if there's a path to get there.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: But I yeah.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you mentioned that point around, you know, three of the reasons, and one of them being growth.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely feel, you know, the phrase that I hear um regularly from SEs is like, I feel like it's groundhog day.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like I've I've been doing the role for so long, I sort of know the motion, right?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Particularly if you're the the same company, right?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: I like I know the product, I know the sales motion, I'm not getting growth in the standard SE role.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the trap is, like you said, companies get complacent.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's often their top performers, they think, well, you know, I really know that RV can perform.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I want I I'm nervous about pulling her away from deals.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: I know she can close the deal, she's really consistent.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: But the trick is if you you know, the problem is if you if you do that and you don't give them stretch opportunities or ways to do something new, exactly as you said, they're gonna leave right.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it might not, you know, they might actually be happy with the two other factors.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: The culture might be fine, the compensation might be fine, but it might just feel like they're not having an opportunity to stretch themselves, to learn new things, to scale their impact.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, that's pretty fair.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: I totally agree with you.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: On that note, is there anything that you've seen that great leaders do around like I see career development versus maybe the ones that don't?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think you know, beyond that, exploring motivations and communicating objectives, I think one of the other things is being really clear on roles and responsibilities.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like a very common trap I've have seen leaders fall into and ICs fall into is like, okay, let's say there is a strategic project or initiative, like three or four people all get put onto it.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And everyone's looking at each other like, who owns this thing?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Who's accountable for it?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if no individual feels accountable, if everyone's sort of doing it, it's like, you know, they say a camel's a horse designed by committee.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's that sort of situation where like no one's really driving it and taking ownership.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I think being clear on roles and responsibilities and giving people things they can actually own individually is super important.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, this work is going to eat into bandwidth as well.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's gonna take time to work to work on these projects and initiatives.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, people can do it evenings and weekends, but that's not sustainable long term.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, people can do that in birth, but not sustainably.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's also down to like a strong leader to protect their individuals' time, their team's time.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: We get so many requests from different parts of the organization.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: So when things come in that really aren't a priority or that maybe someone else can handle, actually deflecting that so that your team can work on some of this stretch work, additional stuff outside of deals is super important.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then the final thing I would say is like once that work's been done and these projects and initiatives are implemented, highlighting that success, like making sure the organization knows this is what RV did.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, have you seen what RV's done for our POC process now?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's so much more efficient.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, look what our win rates are like now, especially sales leadership needs to know that because a big part of selling one of these roles internally is making sure everyone knows this is what RV is excited about, this is what she's good at, and here's the evidence.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I think those are some additional things that really separate a sort of strong, strong leader from one that's not so mindful of these IC career paths.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love that you said that.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: And one thing I will highlight is I think sometimes leaders underestimate how much it impacts whether that's on a C or A, whatever that looks like in the organization, highlighting what they did.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like a simple fact of just name dropping, whether it's in the Slack channel or giving one of the team members some kudos, or maybe the entire team, because there's like a whole team involved in whatever the project was.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's not always about the compensation or you know, that is sometimes just about highlighting their name and feeling seen within the organization.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's also really huge.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, it in uh in organizations as they get a bit larger, like so.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm based here in in the UK.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: So in AMIA, I've been at companies where at times maybe the workload or the demand, customer demand isn't quite as high here.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Or I think yeah, even in any territory, the nature of customer demand and our workload is it's up and down.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so there are times where you, as an SE don't feel like the master of your own destiny.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have a lot of deals to work on, you don't have those really big logos, right?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're not in your territory or your AEs aren't working on them.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: That can feel really demotivating, particularly if you're an SE in like a new market where you're trying to get those first wins, Lighthouse customers.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: So actually being able to say, okay, maybe RV hasn't closed the biggest deal this quarter, but look at this amazing thing that she's worked on that isn't in her control that's made the the rest of the team more efficient so they can work on uh more deals or increase close rate, like highlighting that work outside of deal work is a really good way to actually sort of bump up morale in those regions or segments where the work isn't there at that point in time.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that is actually such a good point because I think sometimes we get caught up in always celebrating like the top performance that closed the biggest deals or brought the biggest ARR and you know, they get the president clubs and they get and as they should because they I know they work their ass off.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: But there are times where, like you mentioned, it's out of your control.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: And just because I didn't get that, you know, top deal doesn't mean that I didn't do my job or try to go above and beyond.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I do think it's important for leaders to also recognize those people because, like you said, it's just sometimes out of their control.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: So um I love that you mentioned that.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and SEs are very used to the situation where there'll be some deals where they execute flawlessly, put all their blood, sweat, and tears in, and it doesn't close.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then there are other deals where they barely do anything, it's a massive close, and suddenly the company, you know, your name's up in lights.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so there is not always a clear correlation between effort or execution and outcomes.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's super important to be mindful of that and find other ways to celebrate beyond just ACV attach.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I think we talked a little bit about this, but um, a question is, you know, what separates a company that successfully retains senior ICs from the ones that burn out or end up leaving?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think um I think ultimately part of this is gonna depend on stage, right?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're a really early stage organization, you're not necessarily gonna have the opportunity to craft like a field CTO role before you've even got any SEs in C.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's fine and realistic.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: But what you can do is from quite early on, articulate to the organization, this is my vision, like this is how I would like to scale the organization.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is what I've seen in previous roles.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you've worked at other organizations that have a slightly larger or more specialized organization, uh, this is what I've seen in other companies.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: These are individuals that I know.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was actually at um an SE off site once at Slack.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: And one slide that really stuck with me, our VP of Solutions was presenting it, was it was this slide that had, I think it was three or four individuals that he had worked with in various um orgs that he led in the past.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it sort of showed their career path and how it zigzagged between things like sales and product and SE.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the idea was, I think the tagline was jungle gym and not ladder.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so even if you don't have those specialist roles or uh roles at that point in time, you can still give something to individuals to be excited about, right?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And show your direction of travel.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's so good.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: And one thing that you and I were mentioning a little bit on backstage was how things are changing, obviously, with SEs.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think everybody knows this.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: And AI native companies sometimes are hiring differently in like a from a traditional SE.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: One example you gave was how a company, and I don't know if you want me to mention their name so I can leave that out, but they're a legal tech company and they have legal engineers that are actually lawyers, and they have the solution architect side who only do like the technical and the security work.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: On that note, if I think a little bit is you know the company dependent, but for SEs that are watching the shift happen right now, is there anything that they should be thinking about their own like role revolution or evolution and maybe some skills that they need to make sure that they're always working on, or how do we stay relevant for leaders?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, the happy to mention the company um that we were talking about is Harvey.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: They've got these job descriptions out there, so people are welcome to read them.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I found that super interesting when I first read it.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: I actually know someone who's the solution architect, they're attracted to them because that's like all the stuff that the legal engineers do.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's like discovery, solution design, it's demos and presentation.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's all the stuff I love.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's no longer part of the SE role.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: So and I think they're probably an extreme example, right?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're vertical SaaS, they're selling just into one vertical, which is to legal, and it's a highly regulated industry.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: So they sort of want the people that are doing that that discovery and the solution design to really know it inside out, and hence it makes sense to get practitioners from that field.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: But it is worth thinking about because they're a really fast-growing company, right?
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people are excited by the logo, by the uh the valuation, right?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: The company growth and say, Oh, I really want to work at that company.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, it might be a really cool company and it might be red hot and lots of customer demand.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: But do you know what the shape of the org looks like there?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what the SE role looks like there?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it's definitely being worth sort of doing your research on these companies and the shape of the org and the roles.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the things that's interesting about the evolution of the role is I actually don't think every company is moving in the same direction.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you see different things.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like I see some companies incorporating more post sales into the SE role, particularly these AI native companies.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're mostly consumption-based pricing.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: So the vendors are incentivized to make sure that people are using the product after it's sold.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the SE's are sort of having to stay on to be accountable.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: You see, companies like Notion recently, you know, made a lot of waves merging the AE and the SE role.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: So there you've got a single person accountable for both commercial and technical.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so these companies are sort of experimenting with different things, going in different directions.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: And to back to your question around what does that mean for SEs?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think all of it comes back to, particularly if you've been in the role for a little while, exploring those motivations, exploring which are the aspects of the role that you want, that you enjoy and you want to lean into, and where can you find a company that has a role that's that shape or that you could build that.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: And some of it comes Down to compromise.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: As I said, a lot of people are these established SaaS companies that really want to work for an AI native company.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you really want to, that might mean doing a bit more post-sales.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: So start with those motivations, sort of research the market and get comfortable with where you would be willing to compromise.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's actually a really good point that you brought up because one thing that I mentioned recently in a post, and it didn't land well with everybody, which I totally understand, because I don't think it's everything, but I work mainly with startup companies or companies that obviously are C through series B or C.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: And one thing that I constantly come across is as we're doing our discovery calls, and we're like, okay, what are you looking for in this candidate to come in?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: One of the first things almost always is domain expertise.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: And that's, I feel like, become hard and hard.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, it didn't land well with a lot of people because everybody was like, well, you should look more than just that.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's so many skill set that is transferable.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I completely agree.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: However, what you mentioned right now, I think is very important because you said that every company is kind of doing their own direction and they're exploring different things.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like, okay, maybe like notion, can we um put A's and a C's under one role and or maybe put them post-sale?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: So one thing that I've been mentioning to a lot of candidates lately is try to pick a domain and become an expert in that.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: By domain expertise, it could be like, you know, being an identity expert.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: So staying within identity companies or Martech companies or HR tech or, you know, legal tech, like we talked about.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because the more specialized you are within that vertical, the more requested you're going to be from those type of companies and the more willing they're honestly going to be to pay you a higher dollar amount because your entire career has been based on legal tech or has been based on more tech.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: What is your opinion of that?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if you've encountered something differently because I know we spoke, you also said that you work with bigger organizations too.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: So do you see a difference in that?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, or is the domain expertise mainly like a startup thing?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely see it.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think um, you know, Harvey is almost the extreme example of that, right?
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: The legal check because they're saying we don't want an SE who can sort of learn a bit like what lawyers do.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: I want a lawyer.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like I want someone that's trained and lived and breathed and knows that already.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's all about sort of ramp time and credibility with the customer.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I do see that, and I see it in large organizations.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Salesforce, where I was at for a little while, was really specialized in terms of vertical.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um so individuals knew a particular industry, and so they could walk the walk, they could understand the macro trends, and like you said, they could um sort of hit the ground running with these companies.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I see it as being consistent.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's different ways to do it.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, you can specialize in a particular category, a particular industry, also company stage.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, someone who's done a founding SE role before and is really used to ambiguity and building a team, maybe that player-coach type dynamic and working in a quite unstructured manner and forming structure out of that.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's a totally different skill set, right?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: To someone who's good at operating like a company like Salesforce, where there's so many resources and it's really about navigating them and finding them and pulling them together.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there's different ways to specialize.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of my podcast guests brought this up recently.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, a couple have have brought this up.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's like a recurring theme is yeah, I think part of this is also, you know, people then ask, okay, well, how should I specialize?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: When should I specialise?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think probably part of it's to do with stage of your career.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like you don't want to box yourself in really early, because it could be that the first technology you work with actually isn't the one that excites you the most, or actually you prefer a different industry.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe earlier in your career is a good time to try different technologies, try different verticals, try different size companies, see what, see what sticks.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: But then at a certain point, exactly as you said, it makes sense to to specialize.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can layer multiple specializations on, so you say, hey, I'm really good at this tech, at this companies this sort of size, you know, selling into this vertical, then then you're gonna be really competitive in the market.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And and I actually think that specialization is a prerequisite for some of the roles, particularly someone like field CTO.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah you know, if you don't know the domain pretty well, the technology domain that your company's working in, you're probably not gonna be the best person peer match to a CTO on the customer's side.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I would say that um, yeah, definitely people need to choose at some stage.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's just working out when is the right point in your career to do that.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll give you an example of this too.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm actually literally doing this with a client right now.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I'm we're hiring for an AE, not an S E in this in this uh particular example, but they're asking for domain expertise, right?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then they've given us a range, like, hey, we're willing to go from this range to this range, and they are willing to be flexible for somebody that has been a domain expert for seven plus years, right?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like if they've dedicated their career to that, but they're not willing to be flexible for somebody that's only done the domain or their own vertical within the last two to three years, and that's all their relevant experience.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: So that's also something else where it's a good example to understand when our company's flexible versus not.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you hit 100% of their non-negotiables and they're nice to have, chances are they're gonna want to be flexible.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: But if you hit maybe four or five and like a one or two of the nice haves, then chances are they're not gonna be as flexible in terms of at least offering good comp or going above what they have listed as well.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you know, I mentioned at the beginning when you said trends that I'm seeing in the types of people I'm working with, a whole group of people looking to break into pre-sales.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: I would say that is really your edge.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't have experience in pre-sales or solutions engineering, but you know a category really well, like you've managed that software or you've implemented that software, yeah, or you've been in a particular industry, maybe you've been in healthcare for a long time and you understand the industry and the jargon and everything really well.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Go after those companies.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Go after companies where your domain expertise will help you stand out, um, perhaps even above and beyond people that do have significant SE experience.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, let's talk about that a little bit because I think that a lot of people looking to break into the SE world, I think they have a little bit of like a scarcity mindset.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: So they just open a wide cast of uh roles that they're trying to go after and they keep getting rejected and rejected.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, it's demoralizing because you're not getting the answers you want.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I kind of think of job hunting the same way as if you're selling.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you sell to everybody, you're selling to no one.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the same way with job hunting.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: If you're going after all companies, you're really not specializing in going after the right one.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: What do you see with SCs that are looking to break into, or not SCs, but people that are looking to break into sales engineering or pre-sales in general?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: Any tips on things that they can do, or maybe things you've seen them done wrong and how to not do that?
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I I definitely agree with your point in terms of don't go just mass blanket everything, right?
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Focus on which are the companies where you're likely to land, like you're most likely to land.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think probably domain expertise is gonna be your biggest edge there.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, another example would be, you know, we talked about vertical, but also role specific.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, as an example, like a lot of people want to move from software engineering into solutions engineering.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you apply for a company that is selling developer tools to developers, well, you're gonna be really credible, right?
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because you can say, I've been in your seat, I live and breathe it, you know, I know the pains.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: So focus on the companies where you're likely to have the most chance.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's probably based on some form of domain expertise.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then um, you know, part of it is around how you position skills that you've already got.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, think of what are the competencies that are required in the SE role and find examples of where you've done that sort of thing.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let I'll be very specific, right?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a lot of people would say, Well, I haven't done like a demo or a presentation to a customer before.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, have you worked on an internal project?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, in software engineering, often the teams have to do a demo at the end of a sprint.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, great.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: Did you ever have to do that to an executive?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Can you explain how you thought through that?
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how did you do that demo different to your team?
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly they realize actually they've they've got a lot of the skills and they've demonstrated them just in a different context.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say the third thing is similar to when you're trying to craft a role that doesn't exist yet, create opportunities for yourself to do the work before you apply for the role.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: So if you know you've got the luxury of working in a maybe you're in a tech company, but you work in support, you could actually say to the SE team, like, hey, can I shadow some of your calls?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Would you mind if I get involved?
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um even if you don't work in a tech company, are there, like I said, like internal projects that you could get involved in that would give you the opportunity to do requirements gathering, to do presentation and demos and that sort of thing.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I think, yeah, you know, look at your domain expertise where you're likely to have success, focus on those companies, highlight where you've already done some of the work just in different contexts, and then create opportunities within your current role to actually do that work.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll add a little bit more to go in depth.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: Make sure that, for example, if you are joining SE calls or you know, a customer-facing call, make sure to list that on your responsibilities, whether that's um, you know, LinkedIn or your own resume.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: Because if I'm a recruiter and I'm looking to hire somebody with really high, maybe like a software background, like they really need to be in-depth, but they still need to have good business acumen and be in front of companies and you know, be good communicators.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: If I don't see that, I might skip you and maybe go to somebody that has listed that or in their LinkedIn, or maybe made a post about it, whatever that looks like.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: And last but not least, I will say take like a communication, I wouldn't say maybe course, but even on YouTube.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's so many videos to teach you how to communicate properly to maybe CEO or CTO or a CMO, whoever the ICPs that you're going after, because that obviously showcase that you're being proactive and you're learning.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: And even when we're hiring, and there's companies that say yes, we'll hire an SC because we're big on the e-side, the engineering part or the technical aspect, and they might have less sales experience, they still need them to be good communicators.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: So be proactive in that end as well.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, 100%.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: Couldn't agree more.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think on the inverse, right?
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you're someone who's less technical and you're eyeing up a particular type of company, you know, don't just explain to them why you're excited about their product, like get their product.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Most of these companies have a freemium plan, like sign up for their product, play around with it, push the boundaries with it.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like that, the the companies want to know such a big part of the SE role is showing initiative, is doing things creatively, is being proactive, particularly if it's a founding SE role.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so actually show like you've you've done that work and come to the first call with an opinion on their product, what you like, what you didn't like, that sort of thing makes a huge difference.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, yep.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: Love that.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: All right, awesome.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_02: I want to switch over to our rapid fire questions.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, these are questions that are fast on my end, but you don't have to respond fast.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_02: Feel free to take your time to respond to them.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: But what is one tool that you can live without right now?
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: I I I feel like if I answered honestly, it would be Claude, but I feel like probably a lot of people say that.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's not the most interesting answer.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think maybe something a bit more interesting is I I use Claude a lot.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I use Riverside for my podcasts, and they've just released an MCP.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: So in theory, I should be able to start using Claude to do some of the editing of my podcast episodes.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I actually haven't played around with that yet.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's been on my um to-do list, but I think using those two pieces of software together, um, if it plays nicely, would would be amazing.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think it's become almost like a given now that most companies need to have an MCP for like their product to be able to connect to Cloud or Chat GPT.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's almost like a no-brainer nowadays.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's not even like, you know, a nice to have, but I I've seen a lot of companies implement those, and obviously it's nice.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um cool.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: What is the biggest growth lever for SaaS in 2026?
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: Or in this case, we can do SE.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um I actually think, you know, you mentioned around um MCP servers sort of being non-negotiable now.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think it's interesting, right?
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: I came from Salesforce, I know a lot of people there, and um, there's been this, I don't know, narrative in the market.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: They call the SAS pocalypse of uh, you know, everyone's gonna be vibe coding their own CRMs that all these established vendors are irrelevant.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think um that narrative's starting to change, right?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: People have realized that there's more to building software than just writing code.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um I've heard now the Renee SaaS Sonse or something along those lines is the new um buzzword for it.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that some of these established vendors are gonna be a bit more confident now.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like the share prices are bouncing back.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think that in turn is giving them the confidence to make some slightly bolder moves.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, like Salesforce, as an example, announced this headless Salesforce where they're gonna open up everything via API and you don't need to use the Salesforce UI anymore.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: You can do everything through Claude.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think there's gonna be a really interesting period now where these SaaS companies are a bit less defensive, they lean into it a bit more.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think we're gonna be seeing the sort of the best of both worlds uh as illustrated right by by Riverside now creating an MCP server.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd love to see more of that in SaaS.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: What is one belief that you have that most people would disagree with?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a re it's a really boring one.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's um I th I was thinking, is there anything really controversial?
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's quite boring, but um, I remember being taught at school that if you read something, you'll remember it for a short period of time.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: But if you write something down, you'll remember it a lot longer.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm still very big on writing.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I know you know we've got like meeting note takers now, and you can talk to your assistant using voice, but I'm still a firm believer that I think writing things down is it's it's helpful to remember them, but also it really helps me structure my thoughts.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like if it forces me to actually get clear on what am I trying to say here.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I maybe that's an unpopular belief, um, but I'm still a firm, firm believer in writing stuff down.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I actually will not disagree with you on this one because I'm the type of person that if I really need to remember something, I need to write it down and it'll actually like be engraved in my brain at that point.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um I will say though, and I'm more of like a physical book reader, but I have been more into audible lately because if I'm like traveling to even like go pick up my son from school or something, audible and podcasts.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I feel like I have to listen.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: I listen to music rarely, which I don't know, sometimes I feel like I should give my brain a break, but um, that's also been something that I'm thankful for in terms of technology, is like the the audio version of things.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I do exactly the same.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just driving my son the other day to a farm park whilst listening to uh Lenny's podcast.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, I think he actually woke up at one point, but it was sufficiently boring for him, he went back to sleep.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: Not an insult to the podcast, but obviously he's not the the demographic because every 18 months, so yeah, yeah, that's fair.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, actually, I mean, on the on the kids aspect, I I try to always listen to something valuable with him.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, my my son's four-year-old, four years old, but I feel like even if he's a listening and not necessarily fully understanding, like something must be, I don't know, working subconsciously for him.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I like to I like to think that way at least.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: My uh my wife's German, so she speaks German to our son and I love that.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of yeah, I'm very curious of like what's going on in his brain because um he doesn't speak much German, but if you say a word, he'll point to the right thing.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: So he definitely understands it.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, love that.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, similar with me and my uh my husband.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: I speak Albanian because I'm I'm originally from there and he speaks Dutch.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I will say he's not as good at speaking Dutch to him, but for me, my family speaks Albanian to him, so he understands a lot more.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: Now he didn't used to be able to speak it, now he'll say some words, but he still struggles with forming full sentences.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: But it is cool to see them like switch languages at such a young age.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's amazing.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: The brain is so much more uh malleable at that age, yeah.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: All right, before we bore everybody, I'd love to end with like a little bit on the hiring section.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you've obviously worked with higher managers on retention and IC development.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_02: When you're advising leaders, maybe who's their first or their second to see, is there anything that you look for or tell them in terms of mindset of approach, like what separates somebody who will bring us or will bring to the organization a strong IC culture or also build it while they're there versus somebody that's just going to try and hit the quota?
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean, I think it's a cliche, right?
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: But like definitely curiosity is the most important trait.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I ask people all the time on my podcast, you know, what's one thing they've made that's made them successful, and curiosity comes up.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I think if you're particularly if you're hiring for a founding SE, I think resourcefulness, I think someone being a self-starter and showing initiative is probably equally important, if if not more important.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you're not gonna have a ton of support, you're gonna have to work a lot of stuff out.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you're probably gonna need to be more technical as well, frankly.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: I see like some people interested in doing a founding SE role, but they're not that technical, and that can be tricky because you don't have anyone else in your team to support.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then I think your second hire can be something complementary.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was sort of shocked when I joined Slack because the only other hire in Europe was a guy in Dublin.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: He used to be a software engineer, and I met him in the process.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: I said, guys, I I don't know if you want me for this role.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm very different to that guy.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, Well, yeah, exactly.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we want you.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: So um, but I think the first role probably is someone a self-starter and probably quite technical.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love that because I typically say we don't hire for culture fit, and even to hiring managers when we talk about culture, I always say, like, you should strive for cultural ad because not everybody is gonna, you don't want like a copy paste of everybody in your organization.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: You want people to bring in certain different aspects, they still got to fit within the culture, right?
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like you can't hire complete opposites, but good complementary skill set is is very nice.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, couldn't agree more.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then you mentioned that obviously your clients span from everything to enterprise, sometimes early stage, and they all want slightly different things.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: If you had to identify like the number one thing a go to market leadership prioritize right now when it comes to either retaining SEs or building IC paths, is there like one thing of what you recommend to them?
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think I would probably at the risk of sounding repetitive, go back to the point I mentioned around communicating your vision for the IC path.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's all well and good, you know, to say we put them on equal footing and everything.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then actually, when they look at like compensation levels, there's only a few for IC, and then there's like way more for management.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I think like put your money where your mouth is, and even if you don't have these specialized roles from day one, like communicate a vision that's gonna inspire ICs within your team, they don't feel like they're just getting um, you know, they're being told that to stick around.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: They genuinely have something that they're excited about that they're gonna buy into.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's cool.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for sharing all of that, and thank you for being on, Chris.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_02: This has been really awesome.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, obviously, I had a lot of fun, so hopefully you had some fun too, and the audience got a lot of value from it.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: Where could people connect with you?
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, where should they find you so they can uh reach out to you if they want to?
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for having me on, and thanks everyone for for listening.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, LinkedIn is is a great place.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm uh dash Chris James Clark on LinkedIn.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you can hit me up on my my website, Chris JamesClark.co.uk, and then my podcast, so pre-sales pathways is is the name.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's on all the major platforms, so Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, whichever you choose.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna say definitely check out the podcast, if nothing else.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then I'm sure that they will organically feel attracted to you, start talking to you and actually reach out.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_02: So, but thank you again and thank you everybody for tuning in.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_02: This was awesome.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'm excited for this episode to come up.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: Bye bye.