software engineer

programmer analyst

senior software engineer

technical support engineer

unix administrator

NetApp

As an Inside Sales Representative in the NetApp's Sales function, you are responsible for supporting sales success by ensuring customers have the products, services, education and support to meet their technology and business needs. You will utilize your customer service and selling skills by building strong relationships with customers over the phone, selling solutions, and keeping them apprised of new product and service introductions. 

Essential Functions:
The essential responsibilities of the Sales Representatives are to work directly over the telephone with customers to capture sales. 
First point of contact within the sales organization for existing customers when they call NetApp with product questions.

Find opportunities to expand within existing accounts through proactive outbound calling.

When speaking with customers, identify the need for, and provide a quote to the customer for:

- Technology refresh
- Product upgrades
- Service Upgrades
- Renewal Options

Identify proper entitlements, uplifts and technical education needs.

Work with field sales on complex orders.
Prepare weekly activity and forecast reports.

Strong verbal and written communications skills.
Organized and able to follow department processes and work flow.
Ability to work collaboratively with employees within department and across functions.

Aptitude for understanding how technology products and solutions solve business problems. 

Ability to convey information clearly and analysis as needed to help customer make buying decisions. 

Responsibility and Interaction:
Responsibility: 
This individual will apply attained experiences and knowledge in solving routine problems using established policies and standard practices.

Interaction: 
This individual effectively works with internal personnel.
Regular and detailed direction is provided to them by their manager on regular work; as well as on-going review of activities and priorities.

Since I worked for Convergys while working for NetApp this review deals more with Convergys and not NetApp directly. I was a contract worked for NetApp, at a Convergys site. Convergys is a call-center oriented place which had a hard time making adjustments for the difference between what we were expected to do as a service center and their call center environment. We were on the phone with customers at times for more than an hour doing troubleshooting, or collecting information to be used for extensive troubleshooting of issues customers had encountered. The people were great and our management was very supportive. These were the best parts of this job. Expectations were high and we needed to do our jobs with diligence and care, keeping in mind the expectations of our customers. The hardest part of the job was establishing the broad base of experience needed to deal with the large variety of issues that we were confronted with by customers. This takes time and experience. The other hardest part was balancing existing work with new work constantly coming in over the phone and from our dispatch system, causing occasional frustrations. I was one of the trainers for many of the engineers who were still working at this site when our job ended. A typical day included a review of the issues assigned to you at the beginning of the day and quickly reviewing your email messages. Then you were expected to login to the telephone system for incoming calls and work on existing issues between incoming calls, and to make progress on each issue or "case" while taking new ones over the telephone. At times this was difficult due to call volume, but we managed it fairly well. This was overall a great experience based on the outcomes with our great customers, and the good people we were able to work with.

It' s a good  company to work for but connections and preferential treatment gets in the way of work.  People are targeted right off the bat when they get hired if they are setup to succeed or fail. In terms of training, mentorship, given visible and great projects to work on and opportunity they are given to get started with to have a good start. I have seen this to be not based on performance. this is by who the person is related to in NetApp executives, if someone is hired or refered through a vp or not.  right off the bat these candidates are set  up to succeed. they are welcomed into the click right away, they are given a break when they mess up and time to get up to speed. where as others will have to beg for training,  resources, contacts and projects to work on regadless of how qualified or not. This can be demoralizing.  The executive teams and leadership is excellent, they try really hard to motivate everyone, to be transparent and provide opportunity for NetApp employees.but that doesn't translate well when it  gets to management and individual level.

preferential treatment, contractors are treated as second class citizen, lack of employee training. Company tries to have great work life balance. but once again, its all based on preferential treatment, some do benefit from it, some are penelized over simplest things. Same as using the onsite gyms... some people get in trouble for using it... some people get away with spending 1:30 - 2 hours in the gym and get away with it with no problem. some people can't even take lunch break and are expected to eat at their desks.

SUMMARY:

A typical day at work:  
•	Manage daily changing demand.  
•	Monitored project managers progress applied advice where needed influence decisions and change with management through collaboration, leadership and customer-focused approach.
•	Provide functional subject matter expertise by anticipating customer’s needs.
•	Gathered and synthesizing details in the global business world requirements.
•	Assessed current and future business processes as-is and to-be.
•	Lead the brainstorming sessions to gather the requirements, applied analytical skills to rationalize changes.
•	Conducted weekly project meetings and communicated project status.

What I learned:
•	I learned that I need not ever allow anything to hold me back. This is saying to all I fear what is before me and cannot accomplish the task. And what is there really to fear but what we allow to overwhelm us.

My co-workers: 
•	Were a great team to have worked with I miss them all. We have continued our connection's through LinkedIn there is no breakage.

Hardest part of the job:  
•	Developed project justifications proposal, business cases, prepare executives briefings and project presentations. And obtain executive approval. 

The most enjoyable part of the job:
 •	What I enjoyed the most is the work I did with my customers. I enjoy providing my customers the best service they have ever had. I enjoyed working with my team co-workers they always gave me pleasure.

A typical day at work, I wouldn't even consider it being called "work". I like to think of NetApp is like another home to me. Increasing knowledge is a daily bonus at NetApp. I've learned so much from configuring a storage array system, to various different internet protocols, and scripting along with knowing how to triage defects in specific software. We have NetApp culture that everyone embraces. Managers, directors, were all people in NetApp. One big great family.The hardest part of the job, is adapting to change quickly and implementing new features to test and incorporate in the software. The most enjoyable part of the job is being able to walk around freely, and taking a break when ever you choose to. Playing pool, ping pong , along with all the other Company festivities going on. Another thing I like is the VTO (volunteer time off) where we go and offer services to the Kanas Food Bank or other charitable organizations. Right now I am a software engineer contractor until I receive my Bachelors Degree. Once I receive my degree, I will apply as an engineer for the department I've been growing in. I need a second job only for Saturday's and Sunday's to help with some bills.

Thank you,
Waleed

NetApp has a forward plan that is communicates to it's employees. And it's actually taking the steps openly to make these changes. The new management team from the CEO down are very competent and honest about what is needed to be done and what is at stake if we are not successful in this transition. Expectations are clearly laid out for staff on what they need change and focus on for all of us to all be successful.
I feel like the changes the company has made and the future bets they are making are appropriate and will lead NetApp to still being relevant in 5 to 10 years if executed properly.
The company has a different feel and some of the long timers are not supper keen on changing but in this space you now need to change or slowly die off. I think it's inspiring to see what NetApp can become in the future and the value it will deliver not only to it's customer and shareholders, but also ultimately it's employees is retains.
below is a list of all the Pro's to working here.
-Great people
-Very good culture
-Above avg compensation
-Excellent work life balance
-Great legacy products
-Real products that work in the cloud today
-Product pipeline that will keep us relevant in this changing market place
-Great customers
-excellent benefits
-everyone has a voice

Worked at NetApp in Wichita for 4 years.  Attrition is highest I've ever seen it, turnover is rampant in cities where there are other options (20-30% annual in Sunnyvale, etc).  I see people walking around as shells of their former selves when we had hopes of getting raises or promotions.  I was told by my manager that even though my performance was above average and that of the level above me, I could not be promoted because I didn't make enough money (seriously).  An engineer has to make within 85% of the next pay grade in order to even be considered for a promotion and since there is a raise and hiring freeze, you can count on being completely stuck where you are.  Management pretends for years (3 managers for me, all 3 did this) that they're going to give you a raise or promoted to the next level because of stellar performance only to let you down with the "hiring and raise freezes" because you know that the company is going down the drain.  The managers blow so much smoke up your behind that eventually you become dead inside to the accolades because it ultimately makes zero impact on your wallet.  Walking zombies making money for the megacorp hoping you won't get fired in the next layoffs.  What a great place to work /sarcasm

I loved working there because there was no dress code, the managers were mostly hands off, and as long as I got my job done everyone was happy.

I am not a huge fan of micromanagement and I want my manager to realize I am going to deliver after we get to know each other.

I can wear a suit and tie, and deal with micromanagement, but those are the two things I least liked from previous jobs.

Another thing I really loved was volunteer time off.  We were granted 5 days a year to take off work (with pay) and go help the community.  I was able to help build over 5 houses for Habitat for Humanity.

The hardest part of the job was communicating with third party vendors, because they frequently didn't care if they helped resolve the issue or not. We were required to hound dog them to get fixes to their code implement.  It worked but it took way longer than I it should.


My favorite part of the job was resolving bugs, getting issue fixes, and our bi-weekly "Beer Friday" where we stopped working at 3:30 pm and met in the cafeteria to drink beer and talk about work with co-workers.

NetApp has a lot of very smart engineers.  It also has middle management that is so risk-averse that the company, as a whole, cannot innovate.  This aversion to risk also leads to incredibly burdensome engineering processes, and a consensus based decision making style that results in it being very hard to get anything done.  Anything innovative or new is most likely impossible to do. 

They have had a layoff every year for the past few years.  They seem to also have a strategy to increase attrition, and they are getting it.  With a lot of smart people, huge impediments to innovation (or even just getting work done), low bonuses, and no annual increases, it is not surprising that so many are leaving.  Soon they will reach a point where the people required to do the badly needed innovations will no longer be there.  

Most of the middle managers won't really understand that, though.  There is a generalized belief that one engineering "resource" is the same as another one.  This can be seen in the heavy reliance on H1B visa engineers in the US and a large number of engineers in India.  Some of these are good and some bad, but the management just counts resources.

I was in the sales organization (which at NetApp is redundant because they'll let you know everyone is in sales) as a Technical Account Manager. I was told on my first day onsite that I had get along with your sales person or I'd be gone. It turns out that 95% of the entire Sales Engineering management team's function is relaying what the Sales team wants. If I were the NetApp CEO the first thing I'd do is fold the entire SE org into the sales org and trim a huge number of managers that are not adding any value to the bottom line.  The primary job of an SE isn't to make the customer's problems go away, it's to help the sales team make their numbers - and a lot of times that means pushing product that has no relevance to the problem at hand. Very frustrating and in conflict with the goal of being a "trusted advisor." The other thing I learned is that the sales people will trust instinct long before they trust data or experience. This means that often times strategy is set more by chicken bones and chants than by taking time to understand what the customers needs are now and in the future. Future needs were often kneecapped by quarter end (and new product introduction) goals.

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