Welcome to Behind the Flame, a series created to showcase our incidentios.
Meet James Sweeney, an Enterprise Sales Account Executive here at incident.io.
Q: What is your favorite incident.io memory?
This is easy: going to the south of France with the entire team and getting to spend three days relaxing, talking about where we're going as a company. But more than anything, just getting to know a lot of these folks that I typically only get to work with through Zoom and Slack. It just made me feel like I was part of a bigger team.
Q: What is the value that most resonates with you and why?
Make it magic. I've worked at a lot of different companies before and I've seen how a lot of different software can be deployed. What I think is magic about incident.io is how closely our entire company partners with organizations. Whether that's from product support, engineering, talent, it feels like when we come in to bring and welcome a new customer to our platform; everyone in the company is showing that excitement and leaning in to help. I think where we make it magic is just how we welcome new customers and make sure that they have the best experience possible in running their instance and becoming a partner with us.
Q: What is your favorite benefit?
That we provided world-class healthcare and incident.io covers that in its entirety. Being able to see a therapist regularly, I’ve been able to take advantage of being able to work on my mental health while also working on my job as well. I think it shows that the company saying that they care isn't just empty words, they really do care about us and I think that is a benefit that I've used a lot and it's a benefit that I value every day.
Q: What is your favorite Slack channel?
#random because there really are just the most random things that I've seen in there. You'll get something that's thrown in with zero context that maybe two folks in London were talking about and it just completely takes you by surprise. I'm waking up much later than the rest of the company, being on the West Coast, so I've had moments sometimes where I just see a really kooky video of something and I'm just like, “What? Why? Why is this being talked about?”.
Q: What is one piece of advice you would give yourself on your first day?
Do not make assumptions. I think I've often assumed we can't do something, based on previous experiences and environments. What I've learned is to always ask, because more often than not, people are going to–as our value says–find a way to figure out how to make it happen. I've had examples of that where I thought we weren't going to be able to deliver a product and I've communicated that to a customer and an engineer will pop in and say, “Hey, I actually already finished it for you”. So that's what I would advise any new joiner: ask for help often and never make assumptions, there are so many people here that are just willing to jump in and support you in whatever you need help with.
Q: What advice would you give to candidates interviewing?
Look at our values and make sure you're ready to Raise the pace! A lot of companies have values, but it's something that we all live by here. I often find myself saying, can I do this today or tomorrow? I’ll always focus on doing it today just because I want to keep raising the momentum and the pace that we operate with. My advice is to think of examples of times where you have raised the pace. Ask yourself truthfully: are you a person who would rather do it today versus waiting till tomorrow or waiting till after the weekend? And then whether you're going to thrive here. If not, reach out to me and let’s figure out if you're going to be a good fit here.
Q: How would you describe the culture in three words?
The three words that I associate with incident are kind, fun, and supportive.
Q: What employee would you want to be stuck in a lift with?
I would 100% want to be stuck in a lift with [Enterprise AE] Rhys, because he is incredibly tall, so I could likely get on Rhys’ shoulders and get us out of the elevator.
Q: What does last Friday of the month mean to you?
I work remotely in Santa Barbara, California, so the last Friday of the month typically means for me going on a run and getting to go for breakfast with my wife. I usually organize a hike or stand up paddle boarding, which are two things that often during the week I don't have as much time to do. Last Friday of the month allows me to celebrate the month, looking back and giving yourself a pat on the back. Additionally, it allows you to take a breath before you go into the next month; as you've probably heard, the pace is really fast here. Having those times to just take a breather and make sure you're ready to go again is invaluable.
Q: What is something you're looking forward to with the future of incident.io?
The thing I'm most excited for with the future of the incident.io is who else we’re going to work with. If you look at our website, you’ll know we already have some fantastic brands as customers. Even in my short time here, I've been able to bring in some new folks into the mix, so I'm really excited to see who we’ll be working with in a few years time.
Q: What is it like being part of the Sales team?
The Sales team here is really special, for a few reasons. Everyone is so willing to help each other–I really can't think of a scenario, even with time zones, where somebody hasn't been willing to jump on a call with me and help me out with a problem. Seeing how everyone works as a team is pretty unique. With Sales you can definitely have lone wolf situations where somebody wants to take on everything themselves and run it. When I'm going into deals, it's almost like the sales boundaries are broken down because engineering, support, talent and our executive team are all involved as much as I am. Even people externally who are fans of us get involved as well.The more I think about it and what makes it so special being here is the team mentality, it’s pretty rare. When we win, we really win as a whole company. It's not just the Sales team–it's everyone.
Q: What is something that's exciting about working in the incident management space?
The thing that's exciting about this space and being involved in it is there is a lot of room to change the status quo. There are plenty of legacy systems, things like paging systems that have existed for a really long time and maybe haven't gotten as much love as other parts of folks' tech stacks. There are also a lot of home built systems that are starting to come to their end of life. The market potential is really exciting, we’re seeing that through so many companies coming into the space and so many companies starting to look at this as an area of investment. Incident management touches so many parts of the business: your brand, your revenue and how much money you're spending as an organization on support. Every time I do business justification exercises with customers, I'm always blown away by how many parts of the business we actually touch. You often think about incident management as being an engineering or support problem, but that’s far from the truth in my experience.
Q: If you were to work on another team for a day, what team would you work in and why?
In an alternate universe, I would like to see myself in the Talent team. I think there's a lot of crossover in skills when it comes to recruiters and salespeople. I love promoting incident.io as a brand. I think being a recruiter would be really fun, getting to talk to a lot of candidates, hear what their goals are, and get them excited about what their life could look like here and how they could achieve those goals.
Q: What is your day-to-day like, especially being remote and in a different time zone?
So I'm on the West Coast, so pretty much as far as you can get from BST or EST. I really appreciate that there's a lot of flexibility here for me to work when it's convenient for me. I've actually started working mostly East Coast hours; I'm a morning person in general, so it means that I actually end in the afternoon. I'm able to have this whole part of the day that never existed before in previous jobs. I’ve found aligning with the team and getting my work done efficiently by the afternoon has been a game changer.
Q: Would you rather have a WFH or a hybrid role?
I've done both. There's joys about working on the road, but there's also a lot of pitfalls, like not having good internet. At the end of the day, I'm a creature of habit. I love nothing more than just coming in with my coffee to my home office and having my dog next to me playing some tunes and just kind of jamming out. It just feels cozy and it kind of feels like my safe zone. So I feel like my best work usually comes there.
