JC: What makes Yugabyte exciting, or unique in your opinion and stand out against others in the market?
DS: It is solving some of the hardest problems in the traditional database, associated with the adoption of cloud.
It is about database portability, scalability, and resiliency as well as simplicity in operations. Think of Yugabyte database like running cars down 5 lanes to the same destination but you can build new and remove new lanes without affecting any lanes and adjust to the car sizes as well. This is compared to having a single lane of a fixed width where in order to have more cars to the same destination, you have to widen that single lane causing downtime. This is a big deal to enterprises in their app modernization journey, it means the capability to support millions of transactions compared to tens of thousands previously without a huge setup cost.
It has been proven to work in the most challenging environments like the biggest banks, the biggest e-commerce providers, and more.
JC: What drew you to Yugabyte and this role?
DS: The company has a huge trust culture, there's a lot of autonomy and people are empowered to make decisions in their jobs. There is a sense of recognition, people are free enough to retain their individualism while collaborating with one another. Information is readily shared throughout the company, even from a strategy perspective, instead of the usual top management closed door discussion only kind of culture. People have full visibility of where the company is now and where they are going.
The leadership is the key differentiator to how things are done here.
Yugabyte is also quick to initiate and respond to execute on customer’s requests. Their research and engineering support is unrivaled as well as their dedication to customer success. There are not a lot of vendors out there who are willing to change their product for a client.
JC: From your perspective, why should candidates consider joining Yugabyte?
DS: Despite the bad reputation startups are having at this time, Yuga is a different start-up, with experienced leaders and solid contributors in the firm. As stable as it gets in the tech world in my opinion.
Currently, Yugabyte is growing at 200-300%v each year (same for APJ as well) and will likely continue this growth trajectory for the next 3-5 years. We are focusing on the sustainability of the growth; it is more important we get each market right instead of being everywhere and getting it wrong.
JC: What’s your vision for Yugabyte in the next 3-5 years? If you could sell Yugabyte to a candidate who is choosing between Yugabyte and another company, what would you say?
DS: The ability to evolve your role within the company, which area you want to grow, compared to others. One of our staff started as a senior sales person and now takes care of channels. Another employee has started in administration and now started to grow into a marketing role. APJ has literally no attrition to date. THe company prioritizes customer and staff development first.
We are also actively building a vibrant ecosystem; we have partnered with hyperscalers like AWS, vendors like Redhat, as well as ISVs, to grow our channel stream of partners and revenue.
There’re lots of things happening. The staff grew from 2 to 160 in less than 3 years in APJ and 140 in engineering and support. So the next 3 to 5 years are exciting times. New, but exciting.
JC: What interesting things did you notice or happened when you interviewed with Yugabyte and yourself?
DS: The cofounder gets involved with troubleshooting with the customers and is still actively involved in the field. The 3 co-founders are engineers at heart and are very passionate to resolve customer challenges and that has cascaded from the top.
JC: What’s another fun fact about Yugabyte?
DS: Free lunch once a week, for everyone in the company! Even during Covid times, that didn't stop the company.
JC: Who is your MVP so far in Yugabyte? How did that person make your job better?
DS: Everyone brings a contribution to the table in their own way and in my opinion, they are all MVPs themselves. If I were to name a specific person, it would probably be Laila. She is my personal MVP in the way she pulls everyone together in the company. In a remote working company like ours, this is very important for the sense of belonging.
JC: If Yugabyte is a person, who will it be? Why?
DS: It would be Barack Obama in the way that he is a super communicator, he is empathetic, I believe his heart is in the right place, and his intention is to do the right thing for everyone.
JC: Thank you!
DS: My pleasure!