If you look up the phrase “If you can’t beat them, join them,” it means that, if someone is too strong for you to defeat, it is better to be on the same side as them. Pretty smart, right? Well, Cribl doesn’t compete with anyone – the opposite, in fact. They complement many toolsets that are in use today and give the customer (that might be you) the power of choice.

Yes, you read that correctly… you have control over where your data is going, how to get it there, in the format(s) it is needed, regardless of what toolset you are using now or in the future. Sounds almost too good to be true, huh? But it is true – so true that I joined the Solutions Engineering team to be part of this amazing company, and to help customers just like you realize the power of Cribl’s Stream observability pipeline software.

Why change careers to join Cribl?

I attended a demo of Cribl’s Stream product and was blown away. How can this software exist and I not know about it? Does this really work? I saw how simple it was to mask sensitive PII/PHI data from my logs, removing all the guesswork dealing with configuration files… I saw volume reduction examples that were simply too good to be true. And being able to route the same source data to multiple destinations in whatever format was needed.

This would make my life so much easier, save the company money, and lower our risk potential with our data. Can it really optimize the usage of the tools we’ve already invested in, and give us more control over where this data is consumed? All in one easy-to-use tool.

Fortunately, a friend already at Cribl referred me and was very supportive in convincing me that I could do this job. That I should do this job. I should be in front of customers more. I should help customers just like I realize there are better ways to do the tasks that I struggled with every day.

The more I researched the company, the more I liked what I saw. I interviewed with many folks here, some doing the same role I was interested in – all passionate, intelligent, smart people who truly felt that they could help customers, too.

I even got to meet the company founders, who drove home their primary company value, “customers first, always” and being part of something special. I was in. Fully committed. And I worked my butt off to make it happen.

What does a Solutions Engineer do?

Here was my starting point: I had no previous sales experience, not in any official role or capacity, but have always been in the IT space as an administrator, performance/monitoring engineer, enterprise architect, and Splunk administrator. I enjoy talking about technology, the challenges that we face working in this field, and the amazingly smart people at companies that work tirelessly to make all this technology actually work (it is amazing when you think about it).

I’ve designed, built, installed, and supported just about every facet of Splunk that’s possible in both small and large implementations. I enjoy helping customers use and find value with their data and make better business decisions with that information. I take the time to learn efficient ways to solve problems and to do things a smarter way, not just the way they’ve always been done. Maybe I was a solutions engineer already, now that I think about it!

How are things going?

So now, after a few months on the job, I’m as excited as I was the day I accepted the offer. Moreso, if that is possible! Learning more about how customers use the Stream product to solve their daily challenges, and seeing the product in use, is amazing!

Customer needs come first here at Cribl, and we build features and enhancements into the product that customers request. We’re always listening to our customers, which is pretty cool.

The teams/organizations here at Cribl are truly amazing. The people are the difference. The engineering and knowledge levels here are exceptional. Every single person here is committed to being the best they can be, and to helping in any way they can. It’s inspirational, and I am super proud to be a part of it.

We love what we do. Do you? If not…

We’re hiring

• Interested in this and other amazing roles at Cribl? Look here.
• Want to know more about Stream and what it can do for you? Look here.
• Want to try the product in a free, hosted, fully functional sandbox? Look here.

And please join us on our Slack Community, even if you’re not already a customer. See how customers interact with us, make suggestions, get help, and help one another with solutions. It’s a true community of great people.

Maybe you should be part of it, too? As the saying goes… If you can’t beat them… ah, you know the rest. 😉

The fastest way to get started with Cribl Stream is to sign-up at Cribl.Cloud. You can process up to 1 TB of throughput per day at no cost. Sign-up and start using Stream within a few minutes.