A day in the life - Deployments & Escalations Team
If we were you, we’d want to know a day in the life of a given job before we take the time to interview. So here it is.
QUICK BIO
Our product, Cloud Retailer is mind-blowing tech for small to medium liquor stores.
We are about 30 employees. ~10 are in our Sartell office, the others are remote. Some in the US, some in Poland, India, and the Philippines. Altogether we have people from 7 different countries on our team. The people in these remote countries are NOT cheap labor. We are NOT a call center. The teams outside the US are talented and real people. They work hand in hand with our US teams every day. We see their faces – we know the names of their kids. We are an ethnically and geographically diverse group – and we love that. Though we don’t spend much time focusing on it since it’s second nature.
One place we lack diversity: our values. We celebrate underdogs, geekiness, hard work, and people who put their team first.
If you want to understand the types of people you’ll be working with, the history of the company, and what we’re trying to accomplish we invite you to go to our mission page. There you can see the case studies published by Microsoft on our work and the awards and milestones we’ve achieved.
Our objective in a nutshell is to be unquestionably – the best computer systems for small to medium (1 to 50 locations) liquor stores. The aim is for people to say “You’re a liquor store? You’d be crazy not to use Cloud Retailer.”
Start of the day
The day begins at 8:30 AM CST, most start with a 15-minute standup meeting led by Greg – the tech team manager. This is an opportunity for the team to share information. Something we learned yesterday that may be valuable today.
Monday morning is training day. Often, it’s 1 hour where we discuss a customer scenario that took place and as a group break it down. What was done well, what could have been done better. We invest tens of thousands of dollars a year in our teams’ education.
Thursday morning is our “Level 10” meeting. This is an opportunity for everyone on the team to raise issues and help resolve them.
The day
On the DET team, you split your attention between 3 possible types of work:
1. Helping a group of clients (a cohort) through the process of deploying point of sales tech in their store. This means converting data (old system to new), getting hardware setup, training, configuring per requirements, and coaching them through the process. There are multiple people that participate in this process. Once expert at your job, you will be leading it.
~40% of the team’s workload
2. Working on escalation tickets from our RRT (Rapid Response Team). You can think of this team as level 2 tech support (we do not believe in traditional level 1 tech support). Your job may be to coach the RRT team member in a positive way, it may be to take the ticket and complete it. The most important goal with escalations is refactoring them. This means improving the situation so that the next time it appears it’s easier.
~40% of the team’s workload
3. Executing strategic company initiatives.
“Cohorts” as mentioned above – that was an invention of the team – and a problem aired in our level 10 meetings. We’re a growing company – constantly evolving our processes and our product. When we do – you’ll very likely be a part of the group that came up with the idea and the people who will be executing the change. When you’re doing your job well, you get to put your fingerprints all over this company.
~20% of the team’s workload
The day ends at 5:30 PM. The last three tasks of the day are (1) double-checking that we’ve kept all the promises we made for today. If we told someone we would get back to them by end of day – then we make darn sure that happens. (2) cleaning up other loose ends, and (3), figuring out what the #1 thing we need to get done tomorrow.
Our customer: "Bob"
Bob is a liquor store owner and is the avatar we created for our ideal customer persona. He owns that nice store down the street with a huge selection of bourbon. His store does between $2M and $6 million dollars per year. Not too shabby.
Bob knows he needs technology but it's not his favorite thing. If he can count on you, he is your best friend, if he perceives otherwise, he won't pull any punches. If it doesn't work - he's losing profits, customers, and employees. He counts on his tech to watch costs, speed up checkout lines, and be easy for his staff. He won't admit it (he thinks it would make him vulnerable) but the POS system is the lifeblood of his business.
It's critical to his survival and when things go wrong it's a huge deal. That said, if he can count on you, if he has confidence in you - he will treat you like a gem.
You will recognize that technology is only a hammer. A tool that helps you do your real job of creating HUMAN-based solutions for HUMANS.
Why are we talking about customers now? Because the customer is at the center of every good company. The fact that our clients are challenging (but worthy) is a huge opportunity. The team you are about to join has the level of talent to go further than ANYONE else in our industry. Find out more about why we 
Bob head to our mission page.
Let's talk
If this is starting to sound like your cup of tea – let’s talk. We invite you to send us your questions and/or your resume to [email protected]
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