Confluent Champion: How Olof Solves for Customer Success

Two and half years into his career at Confluent, Olof Wändahl says that the best part of his job is the satisfaction of overcoming customer challenges and the freedom in finding those solutions.

Based in Sweden, Olof has worked in technology for his whole career. At Confluent, he’s found a unique environment that values his expertise and contributions and has empowered him to do what he does best—solving challenging technical problems for global organizations.

Learn what pushes Olof to bring his best in his role as a Principal Customer Success Manager at Confluent.

What made you decide to join Confluent?

I’ve worked at American software companies my whole career but was drawn to the discipline of distributed computing, as it’s a hard and interesting problem for the world’s companies to solve. I was looking for something still early in its journey while still being somewhat established. I didn’t want to join something very mature where most roles were only about refining what had already been built. There needed to be some space left for creativity and net-new creations in processes and ways of working.

Once I applied for a role I was interested in at Confluent, my interview experience was straightforward and fairly quick. The whole process took about a month. The only doubt I had about the opportunity was that I would report to a recently promoted first-time manager. I decided to take the chance, and it turned out to be the right move. He really made himself personally accountable for my onboarding process and was keen to get it perfect and not just wing it. As a result, I was ready to take on customers within a month of joining.

In your role on the Customer Success team, you put a lot of effort into helping organizations succeed with Confluent. What’s the best part about interacting with customers, in your experience?

Having a customer-facing role in B2B tech definitely keeps you on your toes. There’s always something going on, and I think I would miss that action elsewhere. For example, I currently have two customers starting onboarding to Confluent Cloud, another getting close to migrating, and 10 different work streams relating to our data streaming platform products across the rest of the portfolio.

Our latest product releases seem to really resonate with our customers, as they solve painful problems like bridging the gap between the operational and analytical data estate. To then be able to bring a product like Tableflow is a real win-win situation for all involved. I guess what it fundamentally boils down to is helping customers gain new capabilities to become stronger competitors in their industry.

How have you grown or changed since joining Confluent? What motivates you to excel in your role, and how does Confluent support your ambitions?

I have definitely become more resourceful and accountable, in line with our “Be Fired Up and Get Stuff Done” value. This is likely due to Confluent running lean account teams that make it easier to divide work but also increase the responsibility for each account team member to actually deliver the work they take on.

I think Confluent excels in professional growth—setting a target and then allowing people to figure out the best way to solve it. It may not be for everyone, as some people prefer more guidance along the way, but luckily for me, it coincides with how I do my best work.

What's unique about Confluent's company culture? What’s one question you would tell people to ask about the culture during their interviews?

Something I really appreciate about Confluent culture is the direct access we have to all our expertise around the world. The absolute majority of the problems I need to solve for our customers find their solution only a Slack message away and an asynchronous interaction with one of our engineers. I think this is key to having the remote work model truly succeed.

Personally, I think Confluent is the closest to a true meritocratic organization that I have worked for. What you bring to the table and what you do is what matters.

Rapid-fire questions:

1. What job did you want to have when you were a child?

   1. Pilot

2. What’s the best decision you made in your career?

   1. Working in the field, close to the action

3. What’s your work-from-home must-have?

   1. Espresso machine

4. If you could have your team off-site anywhere in the world, where would it be?

   1. Stockholm’s archipelago in June

5. What’s your favorite way to unwind after work/on the weekends?

   1. 18 holes of awful swings