Behind-the-Scenes: Meet Simon Ahmet

Throughout Runecast Simon is known as an extremely cultivated, respectful and helpful person, a real knight. He's very passionate about what he does and always spends time improving his work. He pursues excellence in what he does and his technical knowledge already enlightens many people in the market.

What we are privileged to see is that you can chat for hours outside of work with Simon and he will have you laughing non-stop. Simon has an in-depth knowledge of many topics and he may surprise you with some of the things he knows about history and music, but right now his favorite is his garden and olive trees.

‍

Q&A with Simon

What is your role at Runecast?

My Role is a Pre Sales Engineer. The role essentially involves presenting our value proposition to our customers based upon both their technical and business requirements. It is both a commercial and technical role, and I bridge the gap between sales and technical. As sales engineers we also are responsible for conducting POCs (Proof of Concepts) where we help our prospects define their success criteria and guide them through understanding our product and resolving their issues.

‍

‍What does a typical day or week look like in this role?

It varies from day to day, each prospect I speak to has different requirements, and the personalities I talk to have different roles. One morning I could be speaking to a CIO, and in the afternoon I could be speaking to a systems engineer. From a multitude of different industries, each with their own needs and problems to solve. The language we use and the level of detail is important, so we have to be adaptable. Working with my sales colleagues is a major part of my role as well. Talking about our prospects and the way we approach them is important as there are cultural differences with the regions I cover in EMEA. Also, I am currently doing some online training around Kubernetes at the moment, as well as keeping up with our own product. It is a varied role, which makes it interesting.

‍What are some of the biggest rewards of your position?

Of course solving our customer problems. The sense of accomplishment you get when a prospect turns into a customer and we have solved a problem, and the kudos of my peers and our customers trusting my advice is very rewarding.

‍What is your favorite thing about Runecast?

First and foremost I am working with some very capable and intelligent people in a company that has a great product. We are a company that is agile and adaptable, so as a sales engineer I can feedback what our customers are looking for, and we get listened to. The work ethic is inclusive and relaxed which allows people to be creative. It really is a very nice place to work. 

“The work ethic is inclusive and relaxed which allows people to be creative.”‍

What do you do in your free time?

I am an avid vinyl record collector. I have a few thousand records, and love my music. I haven't DJ’d in a while but used to have a radio show when I lived in the UK, but I still do the occasional radio show recording. I am based in Cyprus and have recently got into gardening. I have a couple of olive trees I have cultivated and have taken an interest in preparing olives with different marinades.

‍What motivates you the most?

I am naturally motivated as a person.  Waking up in the morning and the area I live in with the mountains by the sea is one big motivating factor. Then my coffee kicks starts my day in a job I enjoy, solving problems, meeting new personalities and keeping abreast of technology.