🎯 How did you get your start in (tech) marketing?

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

Hi fellow marketers! 👋

This week, we are hopping on the time machine to go back to the start of our career journey. Do you remember your first touch with the marketing profession? Was it a pursuit goal or a lucky coincidence? 💫

Everything nowadays is built on marketing: the way we shop, the way we dress, even our daily decisions, and how we talk to people. We want to market ourselves as the intelligent, kind, and capable people we actually are (or hope we are, haha).  

To kick it off, here is my funny story about how I found myself in this position and why I am still here. 

I got my full-time job when I was 18. I joined a recently launched online bookstore, and I was responsible for various tasks, starting with the basics like putting up books online and moving up the chain with responsibilities like picking the orders from our providers, assembling and packaging, and so on.

It was a continuous learning curve, and the more time I spent there, the more I realized how your most important marketing is how you treat your customers (one time, we had an order from the building next to ours, so I delivered it myself in 5 minutes. I still remember the happy surprise from our customer.)

I was fascinated by clever and witty marketing, and I moved through jobs wanting to be the person to create "the next smart idea that boosts our marketing and makes customers happy."

 The software job hit me while working as a photographer and graphic designer (which I deeply loved).

My dear ex-Botron friends stole me from my current position and threw me to the hungry tech wolves. So, my journey is more of a lucky coincidence than a real pursuit, but I've never been happier like here in the Atlassian Ecosystem.

Ever since I started working in tech, I have applied the same principles and approach I learned from the start: focus on delivering high-quality content and being useful to your customers. Happy users and solid feedback worth more than a thousand ads :) 

... and here is the 18-year-old me, ready to spend the night packing orders so the customers receive them on time.

 

Your turn! I can't wait to read about how you stumbled across marketing, especially marketing in tech (more points for attaching embarrassing photos like I did 🤓).

[Kristen Roth]

What a story, Teodora! And thanks for sharing that photo of 18-year-old you! 🤩

Mine has also been a windy road that started with science, led me to marketing, and then over to tech...

I graduated from college with a degree in Microbiology, always having been fascinated by science. 🧪 While I absolutely loved studying science, I wasn't prepared for the work-life reality and how repetitive and monotonous most of my lab work would end up being day after day (unfortunately, my internships spending several hours a week working in a lab did not adequately prepare me for what it would look like doing the same work for 40+ hours a week).😵‍💫 After a few years of working in labs, I came to the harsh conclusion that I was not cut out for this type of work and needed a job where I'd have a little more variety in my day-to-day! 

I started casually browsing around for other types of jobs and came across a listing for a marketing agency looking for a science professional to help them market scientific research equipment. The job required zero marketing experience, and what they were after was someone familiar with the types of products they were helping their clients sell - and that was me! I spent a few years there learning how to be a marketer, was introduced to Confluence and Jira, and became interested in Atlassian. When I was ready to leave the nest of my first marketing job, I started looking for open roles at Atlassian, which led me to where I am today! 

Thanks for kicking off this convo, Teodora! I always love hearing these stories! 

(I need to spend a few minutes later today looking for some old photos to add to my story! There have to be some! 😂)

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

Whoa, I knew it would be a curious thread! 

What a start, @Kristen Roth :) I am also a science addict, and I always wanted to work something connected with health or science-based protocols or tooling. Of course, dreaming about it is so different than actually doing it, and from what you've shared, there may be a big surprise at the end!

It's so interesting how a tool (Jira and Confluence) can spark curiosity and desire in people to grow and expand their careers—another reason why I am grateful to be here. 😌

[Kristen Roth]

The winding paths we take to get where we are today are always so interesting! Thanks for joining us, @Fasemu Kumal !

[Huwen Arnone _Deiser_]

This 18-year-old Teodora picture must be worth some money. Especially now, being one of the official models of the ACEs High Velocity ITSM worldwide.

I will never forget that piece of content you wrote on Botron's blog (I found out years later, talking about it with you, it was your first), commenting on the differences implied by a marketing person working with developers and the different styles of communications. Even nowadays, I quote the enlightenment that the blog post provided because it was a bulb moment for me (proof of your principle of "always offer quality content.")

Now, how do I get into Martech? I think right after I moved from Venezuela to Spain. Before moving, my experience was focused on the Entertainment industry, although I had some customers in tech. 

In Spain, I used to work in a tech startup focused on digital corporate libraries (difficult to explain), and Deiser called me to join as their marketing person. It has been six years since that moment—quite a ride.

That blog I mentioned earlier was pivotal for me; it made me understand those standard communications issues with devs and how to solve them.

So thanks for that, thanks for this, you grumpy. 

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

I am grateful for these words, @Huwen Arnone _Deiser_ 💙 I will never forget the moments of deep frustration when communication wasn't as good as I wanted (and used to) to be. Now I am working with the perception of "this would probably be communicated badly, so let's start it from there". 

It makes such a difference to the daily workload and the mindset. 

Thank you for sharing the struggle year after year :) 

[Johanna Pichotka_APTIS_]

That's an awesome story! 😍​

My journey to marketing was 100% a lucky (or at first unlucky) coincidence. 

After I graduated highschool I moved on to another school to get my A-levels. But being there was a horrible experience which is why I left in the middle of the year with absolutely no idea what to do next. 

So I started looking for an internship just to have something to do until the end of the school year. Through friends I got in touch with my now boss who offered to meet with me. 

And so after a few trial weeks, I started my 6 months internship which at first was just helping everyone out where I can. And because I had always loved writing, in my spare time at work I was allowed to start writing a few articles for the website about like really basic stuff. 

The longer I worked there, the more I became involved in product marketing and discovered how much I loved it. 

So I started my training to become a marketing professional directly after my internship. Which means I have started directly in tech marketing which I also think was a really lucky coincidence as well because the ecosystem is a truly wonderful place to work at. And I can't imagine working anywhere else right now. Tech marketing got me hooked. 😁​

And that's my story of how an unlucky event turned into a really lucky career journey. 

I would have loved to post some embarrassing photos from my first few weeks but since we were just two people at the office we didn't take any. ​😥​

The only photos I have are of a beautiful snowy Germany. Which is not that nice when you actually have to go to the office. 😂​

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

Nature photos always work for me 😍

I love your story @Johanna Pichotka_APTIS_, feels so familiar. Reading about your experience makes me think how people who are passionate and loving of their job often got it by accident or by heart and not by following their degree :) 

Marketing in Tech is always cool because each morning, you wake up to face a new issue 😆

[K. Fiorella Drozd]

@Teodora V _Fun Inc_ @Love this and love this group! 

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

@K. Fiorella Drozd, you are missing a whole paragraph here 😝 
Reading about our group members, we already know your story would be nothing but interesting! 

[Dániel Ballabás - catworkx]

Really cool topic, and it was nice to read everyone's story. I (hope to be able to) look at marketing as Applied Creativity. 

I wanted to work in the film industry since I was around 12, mainly as a screenwriter I guess. (I blame seeing the First Harry Potter movie, the Fellowship of the Ring and the behind-the-scenes DVD extras of them right after each other :D ). I pursued this dream right through high school, and a BA and MA degrees in Film studies. During university though, I wanted to get as much insight into the film INDUSTRY part as I could, so I went as an Extra to a bunch of shootings that happened in Hungary at that time. Here comes an old photo of me being not really impressed by the spear that killed Jesus in the Borgias. :D 

It gave me a chance to discover that I didn't really like working 16+ hours a day, having no life, etc. so when an internship offer at a TV Channel came, I grabbed that. I also realized I can have a steady 9-5 job, and keep writing for my drawer. (Especially after the realization that I haven't 'lived enough' to have enough worthy stories to tell) :D 

The TV job mainly covered social media and content creation and management, and I spent there about 2 years. This 2 years was also the time when hungarian media became a political battleground (further reading: https://444.hu/tldr/2022/02/28/the-art-of-media-war-this-is-how-viktor-orban-captured-the-free-press-in-hungary) the thought "F this SH, I'm out" formed in my head again (talk about collecting stories to tell, right).

The first job that took me was a marketing assistant position at a commercial real estate firm, which was super intensive, but very educational. Spent two years there learning the craft, and then I moved  between a few other B2B companies (Digital Pathology , Flow Chemistry ). These two companies also infected me with the idea to "work somewhere which contributes to making the world a better place".

So when I was approached by an Atlassian marketplace partner, EverIT, it was a pretty easy decision, as I was already using Jira & Confluence & Trello, and I just needed to research their, and Atlassian's CSR activities. And I thought after switching between completely different fields, easing myself into Tech marketing will be just as easy. Well, I was a bit wrong about that, as I found the depth of the Atlassian Ecosystem resembles more of an Ocean, than a lake, but, I also found, that there's more room for creativity (I love Apptoberfest, for example) here than at previous companies.

[Kristen Roth]

I agree with you, @Dániel Ballabás - catworkx, these stories have been great to read and yours is no exception! What a winding road!

[K. Fiorella Drozd]

I love that you come from film and entertainment! The Atlassian Ecosystem indeed resembles more of an Ocean - I am learning more about it every day! 

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

Epic story @Dániel Ballabás - catworkx! 

I also wanted to get into the cinema industry, and I graduated from a Movie&Theater Make-up academy to achieve my goal. However, the same thing hit me. It's so complicated to get into this field (especially here in Bulgaria) only to realize you no longer own your time and say goodbye to good night's sleep and holidays.

I think you made the right choice :) 

[K. Fiorella Drozd]

👋🏽 G'day fellow marketers!

Since my pal and colleague @Teodora V _Fun Inc_ called me out, I figured I should probably come back post-PTO and share how I fell @ss backward came to find myself working in tech marketing.

Please allow me to introduce myself.....Hi, I'm Kelly! I am from Chicago and currently call San Francisco home! 

Like many of you, I also have a pretty diverse portfolio of experience, and my career has been and continues to be a bit of a winding road (which I very much enjoy). After playing softball in college, I wanted to stay working in college athletics, so I did operations, sales, and fundraising for my first several years post-college. As sexy as working in college athletics might sound, the hours + nights and weekends are punishing, and the pay is peanuts. So, I left and started working in sales.

I loved sales because I liked the relationship-building and problem-solving pieces. Still, after 5+ years, I was getting a little burnt out and had an excellent opportunity to work at a client of mine, which happened to be one of the largest children's healthcare charities in the world - ALSAC/St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (side note: ALSAC is the organization's fundraising and marketing side of the house, comprising about 1,400 people that raise ~$2B annually so the hospital can focus on research and patient care). 

While at ALSAC/.St Jude, I led a team in marketing operations that was focused on program and project management and the tools and ways of working to help teams work better (more effectively and efficiently together). Part of my role ended up overseeing our work management tools stack, and since we were adopting a more agile approach, Jira and Confluence were a huge part of our transformation. So, I became a Jira and Confluence nerd and started meeting some folks at Atlassian. 

Long story short, I ended up speaking at TEAM2020 - since things were pretty wild at that point with the beginning of COVID, my participation in the conference went from being part of a customer panel in Vegas to being the 2nd speaker after Scott F (I am still in shock that this all worked out the way that it did and was extremely lucky!)

Shortly after TEAM, I had the opportunity to interview for a few roles at Atlassian in Product Marketing. I ended up going to work on the incredible Jira Software team focused on landing new customers. From there, I worked with the Advanced Roadmaps team and then over to the Confluence Whiteboard team (in the very early stage, which was crazy and super fun).

In 2022, I left Atlassian to work at a start-up to help some friends of mind build their product team and launch their online learning platform. Then, this summer, I made my way to Tempo and back to product marketing again, and I finally got to visit Syndey with the Tempo team for the High Velocity event. 

What I have enjoyed most about my career and different roles has, by far, been the people that I have gotten to work with and cross paths with! 

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⚡️ Random Fun Fact ⚡️ I met my husband when we both worked at St. Jude - he taught me how to use Confluence, and now he works at Atlassian leading product design for Compass. 

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Thank you for giving us a place to share; I love learning about and meeting others and helping people get the most out of Confluence 💙

Cheers,

Kelly 

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

I knew it could never be a 'classic' (boring?!) life story when it's related to a person who enjoys Atlassian Ecosystem marketing. 

Thank you for sharing @K. Fiorella Drozd 😍

I loved this story. I sometimes feel sad that our most passionate and inspiring jobs are usually treated and poorly paid (the reason why I never continued my best-ever job at the zoo). But the experience and the emotional growth we gain is massive.

And you can never go wrong with people who love Confluence, that's for sure! 💙