Michael Vachette - Nuxeo Pre Sales Engineer
Michael Vachette has been working with Nuxeo for a little over six months. As a Pre Sales Engineer in the Paris office, Michael enjoys working with prospects, finding the best solutions for them using the Nuxeo Platform.
Michael’s training is in computer engineering. He attended school in ENSEEIHT - Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Electrotechnique, d’Electronique, d’Informatique, d’Hydraulique et des Télécommunications, in France, and later attended graduate school at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US, obtaining his masters in engineering.
Even though he studied engineering and did most of his internships in that area (he spent six months with a wireless device maker programming in C), he wanted more customer interaction. So when he completed his studies, Michael joined a company doing systems integration and management consulting.
For about six years Michael worked in the SI field, but in the end he realized that he liked the technology the most. Michael decided he wanted to get back into technology by joining a company that created innovative software.
He was introduced to Nuxeo by a recruiter. As part of the job screening he was invited to attend Nuxeo World (Nuxeo’s yearly user conference). Meeting the team was really great, Michael was impressed by their ambition and he thought the technology was solid.
The key to understanding a prospect’s underlying business problems is often about listening carefully, and asking the right questions. As a Pre Sales Engineer, Michael works closely with prospects to clearly understand what they are trying to achieve. Once he’s able to articulate the business problems, he outlines potential solutions using the Nuxeo Platform. He also answers a lot of functional questions, from prospects and partners already working with the platform.
Michael also develops some small plugins for either demonstration purposes or internal use. One plugin he contributed to was a Pre Sales toolkit.
A typical day for Michael sees him scheduling a first meeting with a prospect which Sales has determined is a high potential lead. He then goes deeper into their requirements, completes demos, answers questions, etc. He also communicates with a lot of Nuxeo Partners on projects they are working on. Much of his work deals with prospects in France and other European countries including the UK, the Netherlands and Germany.
When I asked Michael what skills he needed for his job, he indicated that good technical skills help because they do produce some small projects. He also indicated that computer network knowledge is helpful as is a solid understand of web technologies (HTML, JavaScript). But, he points out you don’t need to be an expert developer; he has access to the development team for advanced content.
The other skills required for Pre Sales are similar to the things he did as a consultant: meeting prospects, discussing needs, attending design workshops, etc.. Michael said in consulting it was more about business processes, but there was always some level of IT as part of the discussion. He also noted that both deal with identifying issues of the moment, understanding what should be better and coming up with solutions.
What’s his favorite part of the Nuxeo Platform? Michael pointed to its modularity and customization of pretty much everything. He sees this as a key differentiator for Nuxeo, and he points to the all the different ways customers are using the platform as proof of its flexibility.
But he also loves working with the team. Michael said he’s worked for several companies and he has never seen the same spirit he sees at Nuxeo. Being surrounded with talented people and a great atmosphere are what brings him to work every day.
All that said, Michael is not all work. He runs half marathons and loves to travel. He has backpacked in Asia several times and has visited many different countries.