Life at a Fast-Growing Tech Startup, Automation Hero

Having been with Automation Hero for more than 10 months, I can say: life in a startup is never boring! 

First, let's go right back to the beginning. I was one of the first employees in the UK, alongside Irina Berdisa, and as such, remote interviewing was always expected - not just because of other disruptions to travel. This was a great experience. I was introduced to both colleagues within my team as well as the key leadership side, including Stefan Groschupf, our CEO and Founder. This gave me a great idea of what the year ahead was going to look like, as well as giving me the confidence that I'd be joining a fantastic group of extremely smart and likeable people.

So jump forward a couple of months, the UK side is set up and I've just completed our onboarding training. This was also a sign of what was in store. The training included brilliant content, but Maggie Orion, our Head of Education, was really keen to know what could be improved and truly listened, with additions being made soon after I'd completed it. This was something I hadn't experienced before. I was interested to see if this would continue.

Shortly following this I headed to our San Francisco headquarters to meet the wider Sales, Product, Marketing and Leadership “Heroes”. This is key, since after onboarding, you learn quickly that everyone is a Hero in their own right.

If we ask Google, it says "a person who is admired for their courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities." I also personally like the definition by Christopher Reeve - "a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles."

San Francisco is simply an awesome city. I had some great learning with lots of time to get to know my new Hero colleagues. Just as with onboarding, a good amount of the time was spent getting feedback and sharing knowledge. We all come from different backgrounds, with different technologies, different industries and many, many different stories to learn from. 

Now this really kicks off the journey for me on the Hero rocket ship we are building. (I forgot to note earlier: I actually did a customer pitch event to 20 execs on my 4th day!). As a Senior Solution Engineer on the Customer Success Team, I immediately jumped into environment setups, demo building, customer project scoping, use case write ups and really supporting our Sales team as they need, including pitching our platform. This is the exciting bit for me, trying to get to the core of the strengths of our product and our market fit. But wait, what is our market fit? We have a fast-moving rocket. To be sure, it's agile, it's developing, and we are solving problem after problem. More than anything, it seems to be about filling the gaps that other automation tools are leaving.

Roll on another couple of months, and after a great pitch event series in the UK, we already have a couple of local partners onboard and customer activity moving forwards. My team is also in Germany and the US and I have the privilege of them all speaking great English, which definitely makes my life a lot easier. And already by this point, not a day goes by that I am not having a video call with another country, either with one of my fellow Heroes or a partner or a customer. 

Now, a bit more on what I do as part of the Customer Success team. As I mentioned, demos and helping the Sales team is the key thing, but then we get to also work directly with Product Management, Data Science, Engineering, Education, Documentation, Partnerships and Marketing, so essentially we are in the middle of Automation Hero, adding value wherever we can.

A few months in, we got a short break to catch up with the team in our Berlin office: some great sessions with the Engineering team, and again, loads of knowledge shared. Just simply an awesome week and a lot covered.

Then 2020 kind of went to a stop when Covid-19 hit and panic set in worldwide. Financial markets started to collapse, oil prices dropped to negative figures and no one knew what would happen next. But for me, I have to say a big thank you to our leadership team. At the end of February, the decision was made to close all our offices and put a complete travel ban on all Heroes - which is aimed at protecting us all and our families. I mean, it seems so logical when you think about it, we're a startup in the automation space. If we cannot work remotely, then we have an issue.

This year was not the year that was planned. Some projects have had delayed starts, while others have actually gotten accelerated. So again, we work agile, we do what needs to be done and we get through the hard times together. Support is there whenever and however you need it, and we don't waste an opportunity. The product development over these past few months has been incredible, we've had a couple of major new product releases, along with some amazing new features and have ended the first half of the year strong.

As for the next 10 months.... I'll let you know in early 2021, as I have found my home and it is amongst Heroes. 

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