What does it truly take to be the first Solutions Engineer (SE) at a high-growth startup, balancing customer demands with product development?

In this episode, Shivam Trivedi, Head of SE at Factory and former Founding SE at Glean, joins Chris Clark to discuss the unique challenges and rewards of being a founding SE.

We cover:

• How Shiv got into pre-sales: After starting his career in corporate security, Shiv realised he missed customer interaction and saw Solutions Engineering as the perfect bridge between his technical background and his desire to work with people.

• What Shiv's role as a Founding SE involved: As a founding SE, his work spanned from managing every deal and troubleshooting early-stage products to providing a tight, consultative feedback loop directly to the engineering team.

• What's driven Shiv's career success so far: His success is built on ruthless prioritization, the ability to write and communicate raw ideas quickly for clarity, and a "customer-obsessed" approach that focuses on building trust and technical champions.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone curious about the high-stakes world of early-stage startups and the "grit" required to build a pre-sales function from the ground up.

You can follow Shiv on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shivamctrivedi/

You can follow Chris on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-james-clark/