Confluent Champion Amy on Driving Customer Success

Senior Solutions Architect Amy will tell you that successful customers drive successful companies.

And helping Confluent customers drive success is what keeps her motivated. In her current role, she works closely with customers to solve their unique business challenges and help them unlock business value across interesting use cases.

Let’s learn more about Amy, how she enables customer success, some of the cool customer use cases she gets to work on—and how Confluent helps her stay motivated.

How have you grown or changed since joining Confluent?

I remember reading the book I Heart Logs, written by our CEO and Co-founder Jay Kreps, when I joined Confluent. It completely changed the way I think about data. 

Today, enabling data in motion has become fundamental for businesses driving innovation in this digital-first world. In my role as a Senior Solutions Architect in the Professional Services organization, I work as a trusted technical advisor to our customers. This entails supporting them in designing and implementing streaming data architecture using Confluent solutions. 

I get to work on a variety of interesting use cases that our customers are powering using Confluent solutions—that’s one of the most exciting aspects of my role. For example, I was working with a fintech customer recently who is using Confluent Cloud as a backbone to build critical services in payments, loans, savings and risk and compliance. At the same time, I was supporting another customer in the music industry to modernize their data infrastructure, and to move from batch to real-time data processing. I really enjoy that.

What motivates you to excel in your role and how does Confluent support your ambitions?

Being able to make a positive impact and influence transformational digital changes in organizations is what motivates me to excel in my role. I also work with some of the smartest and yet most humble people at Confluent. They inspire me to not only continuously expand my knowledge and skills, but to also think outside the box and explore innovative ideas. 

Confluent also ensures that employees have the support and resources to pursue their professional goals and aspirations. For example, the enablement sessions and SME forums are incredibly valuable to facilitate cross-functional team collaboration and sharing of knowledge and best practices. You are also given the freedom to explore new roles or opportunities, acquire new skills, or take on new responsibilities to support your own growth.

What’s the best part about interacting with customers in your experience?

The best part is understanding customers' unique business challenges and being able to help unlock business values across interesting use cases using Confluent solutions. It’s very rewarding when you are able to offer customers a new perspective or way of thinking for solving problems. 

Working with customers directly also means we gain firsthand knowledge and insights into their challenges and emerging trends in different industries. This provides valuable insights into driving new features and improvements in our product offerings. We learn from our customers as much as they do from us.

What's unique about Confluent's company culture? What’s one question you would tell people to ask about the culture during their interview?

Confluent is a remote-first company and we have the freedom to choose where we work from, which is awesome! I was able to work remotely from Asia earlier this year and that has allowed me to spend much treasured time with my family, whom I usually get to see once a year. 

When interviewing at Confluent, I would encourage candidates to ask about our remote-first culture, and how the company facilitates team events to bring everyone together. It’s equally important to ask questions on values that a candidate deems important and how Confluent’s culture aligns with those values. 

How does your company encourage diversity, equity, and inclusion?

Confluent is very diverse with employees representing a wide range of different backgrounds and experiences. Confluent also hosts various Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) aimed at building communities around shared interests and identities. 

I’m part of the ACON and WIN groups representing Asians and women networks at Confluent. Different cultural events are also celebrated at Confluent which is always a fun way of bringing people together and promoting diversity and inclusion.