At Cognite, Customer Success project managers Luiza Sinisterra and Christian Flasshoff find growth, fulfillment, and a team that embraces a wide spectrum of backgrounds
“The purpose of Cognite has always intrigued me. It was clear to me that the company was trying to address one of the most difficult challenges in the heavy asset industry.”
Meet Luiza Sinisterra, one of Cognite’s Customer Success managers. Luiza’s main project is to empower a Middle Eastern oil and gas company to realize a multi-year digitalization program.
“Our objective is to operationalize the developed solutions, increase the amount of integrated data sources through Cognite Data Fusion® (CDF), and use those solutions to improve dozens of platforms,” says Luiza. It’s expected that the project will bring significant gains to all areas of the business.
This is a new role for Luiza. After several years as a technical consultant, she was ready for change. “I wanted to transition into a role where I could influence the direction of an entire team,” says Luiza. “I now get to be the interface between technical and business teams in order to provide the best outcome towards customers,” she says.
Daily challenges have given Luiza a chance to grow into her role. “It’s a demanding and fast-paced environment, and we need expertise from everyone on our team to make it work. I needed to change my mindset. Now, instead of digging deep and identifying the root cause of a challenge myself, I work with my entire team towards finding a solution.”
Finding purpose at Cognite
“The high complexity of the project demands project management in different dimensions.”
Meet Christian Flasshoff, a recent addition to Luiza’s team and to Cognite. “I’m covering the technical delivery of the solution, while Luiza can focus fully on the bigger picture and the client interaction. This setup allows us to deliver a high-quality solution and continuously develop together with the client.”
With a background in banking and consulting along with a passion for technology, Cognite was a fresh choice for Christian. “I wanted to follow a career path with more exposure to technology. More than that, I wanted to work hand-in-hand with leading experts in the software engineering, data science, and industrial engineering field.”
Did Christian end up finding what he was expecting at Cognite?
“Absolutely,” says Christian. “After just six months on the job, the promise I saw in the position has been more than fulfilled. I’m really happy in my job, and I love being part of the Cognite family.”
While his everyday work is not quite the same as his time as a consultant, Christian is still able to use the same skill set. “At the end of the day, I solve challenges for our clients,” he says. “With Cognite, I’m equipped with an analytics and programming toolkit. For me, that’s made all the difference.”
While Christian’s trajectory has been to move from non-technical to technical, Luiza’s story is almost the opposite. “I have a background in Control and Automation Engineering,” she says. “I would learn how to optimize processes, conduct better analyses, and ultimately bring a higher control over any industrial process. But all my classes would talk about a future 20 or 30 years away.”
After graduating, she found that many traditional industries were not moving towards this future. “If something was running and generating profit, there was little interest in introducing new techniques.” But then something began to change.
“About five years into my career, I began seeing many projects with the most prominent and traditional industries coming from Cognite,” Luiza shares. “They all seemed to have a similar goal: to address this paradigm of modernizing and optimizing the industry through its most ‘unused’ asset: data.” The combination of a big challenge, proven success stories and a strong multidisciplinary team made Luiza dream about working at Cognite.
Growing a diverse team
“Our diverse backgrounds and interests makes the project team very special.”
“When the entire environment is strong and you feel that you can trust each of your team members, the project work becomes something fun that you always want to be a part of," Luiza says. "I find it incredibly inspiring.”
Christian agrees. “With a team of highly talented Cogniters, we are able to crack challenges that have not been solved before,” he said. His team not only solves challenges with a prototype of a digital twin or a machine learning model, but that they’re able to deliver these solutions on scale. “It is very rewarding to be part of a team that shapes the future of the new DataOps industry.”
Cognite is growing fast, and is on the lookout for a wide-range of backgrounds to fill Customer Success project manager positions. “If you come from a technical background but would like to learn more from sales, customer success management, or people management, there will always be an initiative or a project that you can contribute to,” she says. “Likewise, if you come from a business background but would like to learn more from data science, machine learning or software development, there will be opportunities for you to try it out.”
“With new clients and projects, we are always looking for new team members who can take on responsibility and enable our clients to create value with Cognite Data Fusion® (CDF).” says Christian. “Needs in Cognite can be quite different from project to project, so it’s important that our teams are heterogeneous. We’re open to a wide swath of experience for our PMs like, for example, management- or technology consulting, data science, computer science or, really, any related field.”
As a recent hire, Christian can speak to what a new Cogniter can expect. “During my first six months at Cognite, I encountered an incredible learning curve.” he says. “With hard work and focus, I was able to gain insights into the oil and gas industry, to develop my programming skills, and to dive into the world of DataOps. I wouldn’t have been able to achieve nearly as much without the astonishing support and kindness coming from industry experts who share their knowledge with me.“
Though longer at Cognite, Luiza still finds her work fulfilling. ”Instead of dedicating my days towards a single part of the project, I now focus on the entirety, always trying to elevate and broaden the scope. I love being able to quickly understand and communicate towards a non-technical audience what is at stake.”
Cognite is growing fast, and our diverse team along with it. Don't wait. Apply today and come along for the ride.