I started my first and only full time job in 2015 right after I’ve finished my army.
Looking at my diploma cert, an IT firm would be something that I will be able to relate well and perform the jobs that was required. REL Systems has been established for more than 30 years of experience in Queue Management systems.
I started off right from the bottom where I was an IT Technician. Learnt all the ropes about how to setup the system that is catered towards the customer requirements. There was involvement between hardware and software, therefore I do provide on-site field support, troubleshooting and installation. Till I was more familiar with the system, I then started to assist users on UAT, Go-Live and training.
After 2 years, I was promoted to Senior IT Technician. I was then tasked to provide training to junior staff and started to take on a different role where I do not go on-site to support, troubleshooting for newer or smaller scale clients. However, should there be any troubleshooting work that can’t be resolved by the junior staff, I will then have to step in to assist in those.
More of my main role was that I work directly to assist the regional sales manager in gathering requirements and providing solutions where I sometimes am required to prepare POC. At this point, I was exposed to bigger clients in the Banks, hospitals, government agencies.
About a year later, the company expanded our solutions and created one unit where we developed custom appointment management solutions. This was where I had an opportunity to take the lead of this division where I was promoted to lead all engagements and have developers and technicians to help me run this successfully.
It was an interesting role that I had because there weren’t many guidelines on running this team and a lot of work was needed to be research/done. From liaising with the clients to understand their requirements. I did the sourcing for developers which had a team of 5 Indian developers. I drafted out the contract and also decided how much should I be quoting as it’s a new team and solution, we have no idea what is the market rate and how much of a profit we should charge. How should the implementation be done.
During the whole implementing phase, I started to be more hands-on on managing the different environments making sure that I maintain the version control accurately. Whatever changes that were made by the developers have to be checked and eventually push into UAT environment.
There was a more of a cruical factor, where we needed to ensure the security of the system. As the client is a semi government firm, NRIC information was also obtained. Therefore we will need to ensure that no comprises of security, else we will be in big trouble.
So I started my journey feeling back like a Uni student by going in to the office everyday as and start studying for my certificates. We were required to get our basic 5 certificates by 6 months and I manage to accomplish that.
As soon as it reaches near to the 4th month, I was called to work on a projects shadowing one of my bosses to have some hands on experience.
Up till now, with 3 years of working experience, I’ve dealt with 16 projects with 2 ongoing ones. One of the key challenging projects which I would like to share was that I am the only employee who had a chance to implement an integration with SAP. Of course, I wasn’t the one whom handled the technical side of things, I had 3 colleagues to help me where I lead an end-to-end implementation with a huge group of about 15 Users.
The objective of this project is to provide a CRM platform with integration to SAP for the sales team to better manage their customer, sales process and quotation management. The total project value is about 200k.
It was pretty tough at first as they were in the Engineering Equipment industry which I have no knowledge about. In most cases for projects that I’m clueless about, the way I am able to confidently deliver their requirements/expectations is to understand the business domain. After which, I also had to understand how SAP works mainly in terms of their data schema (Customer Master, Material Master, Pricing and Quotation to Sales Order). The main segment that took me awhile would me their sales order. It’s honestly super different as compared with Salesforce. It was a steep learning curve to me. After a good 7 months, I came out proud to say that I manage to clear this challenge with added knowledge as a return!
So my role revolves in designing and delivering and sometimes pre-sales. Apart from the first two projects which I was shadowing my boss, I always lead an end to end implementation starting from design workshop, solutioning design, review, Deployment, UAT and documentation. Also depending on the scope of the project, I work with developers and take the role of an overall solution architect.
Apart from Sales Cloud, I am also the go to person for Pardot implementation. As for now, since I’m taking on bigger projects, I’m task to guiding my consultants in order to pass the baton to them as Pardot scope are generally smaller in size.
As you may have notice, REL Systems was my first and only company that I’ve worked with. During the 1st 4 years, I was given the opportunity to learn and grow by taking up more responsibilities and stepping out of my comfort zone to lead a new division of solution. However, about a year ago, there was some changes in the structure and my regional sales director has left the company. Since then, the position was taken up by a senior technician that has been working there for 20+ years. REL System is a family operated business and due to covid, there wasn’t many sales that are coming in. We are only relying on recurring servicing contracts. Without any new sales, I have not been able to be exposed to new business, new requirements.
That’s when Shann spoked to me about this opportunity of being able to step in to Salesforce industry. I’ve seen her telling me how much she enjoy being in this company and how much her career has grown to where she is today. That’s when I thought about, why not start a new path of my career where aodigy allows me to learn and grow at the same time. This is a rare opportunity that has landed on me and I really do wish to grab it and show that I will be able to do what it takes.
As you know, I’ve been in this company for about 6+ years. I’ve been given many opportunities to promote and thus it shows my ability in what I do. The fact that out of about 12 colleagues, I was given the trust to manage the new division of solution.
One of the strengths I have, which I don’t think might be able to be converted into numbers is that I can do configurations pretty quickly. But with that said, the configurations on a queue management system are pretty limited. As well as the requirements of the clients are usually around the few options.
Asides from that, I would be able to justify that certain requirements would take how long of an effort without having a developer to step in. Part of the reason is also that I do have basic knowledge of codes. With my exposure to several Coding languages such as HTML, ASP.net, CSS, MSSQL. I can still translate it well to the Users as to why would this requires a certain amount of effort and perhaps the difficulty level to it.
Confidence is one issue in me when I first started. Usually my confidence level is build up whenever a project is implemented successfully. That was what happened in my current employer. However, as time goes by, I got recognition by my fellow bosses and that is what boost my confidence level to where I’m today.
Knowledge is also one issue. In IT, you have to constantly learn to improve yourself and to be able to take conversations with clients. With 3 years of experience and perhaps also my age, I would say that my domain knowledge is still insufficient as I’m not exposure to as much as if you compare to someone with 10 years of experience. Also, experience comes when you are exposed to projects. By far my project scope of work can get super intense for example, integration with SAP. However, certain basic things like round robin, web to lead, pricebooks are something that I’ve never touched till date. But with that said, doesn’t mean that I can’t implement that if there is such requirements. Afterall, google is always available for me to do my research and have it implemented 😊
I’ve a dreamt of becoming a Team Lead and it’s something I am still trying to achieve. You know how seeing Females leading a Team of consultants where they will come to you for ideas, help and solutioning.
I sincerely love the role of helping people because it makes me feel that I’m valuable, You may think that everyone that has a chance to interview will surely say all the correct answers. For me, it comes from experience.
When I first started, I was not given much assistance. I am required to front most of things myself and learn from experience. Of course, I struggle for a start.
My learning style is more towards Visual/Kinesthetic. Which means I would want to see an example of a project or try implementing certain requirements instead of reading notes. Therefore, at the start where I was task to shadow a project, which I was just certified by reading notes, I wasn’t able to translate the knowledge into practical usage easily. It was only through hands on project which I begin to understand and learn more.
So, if I can help other colleagues which have been through my path, I would think with the struggles I had previously, I know how it is to guide them and this might help them grow quickly having the necessary knowledge that is required to get out that and be able to handle the project more confidently and at the same time knowing that someone would back them up to assist.
With this opportunity, I would say that it’s more towards Aodigy giving me a chance to learn and grow in my career. My current draw is estimate to be $3.4k. Therefore, if you would be able to match it, I would be more than happy.
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Honestly, because Shann has told me almost everything about the culture, workload, expectations in terms of certifications and the work attitude. I don’t have much questions as suppose to if I’m interviewing with other companies. But just one question that Shann may not have brought up about it, which i think it’s right because this would be more of a management look.
1)What’s do you expect from (me) employee.