Suggestions
Sean Lopp
Demystifying data
Sean Lopp is currently a Customer Engineer at Google, specializing in data analytics. He has a strong background in engineering and sales, having previously worked at RStudio, where he held roles in sales engineering and product leadership. Lopp has transitioned to Dagster Labs, where he continues to leverage his expertise in data orchestration and engineering.123
Professional Background
- Current Role: Customer Engineer at Google (focused on data analytics).
- Previous Experience:
Education
Sean holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Mathematics and Statistics from the Colorado School of Mines.24
Location
He is based in Golden, Colorado, and has built a professional network of over 500 connections on LinkedIn.45
Lopp's career reflects a strong commitment to advancing data analytics and engineering solutions across various platforms and organizations.
Highlights
My team is hiring a sales engineer!
https://lnkd.in/gsdn2Ere
Which might lead you to ask, what the heck is sales engineering?
If your company has ever considered onboarding a new software vendor, they’ve talked to a sales engineer. That’s the person who demos the product, answers technical questions, leads any proof of concept, and usually helps kickstart an implementation.
Why would (or wouldn’t) you want to be this person?
I started my career writing software. I enjoyed it, actually I enjoyed it too much. I was sort of like a video gamer, I would say things like “I’ll be done in an hour” and then 5 hours later I’d still be pushing commits trying to get one more error unblocked. I came home late and grouchy. Sales engineering gave me the huge dose of human empathy and encounter I needed on a regular basis to be a more balanced person while still scratching that technical itch.
You could say other roles provide that balance: engineering management, product management, even consultants. I enjoy sales engineering because it is competitive. It also doesn’t suffer from “OKR ambiguity”. You close deals, the business does well, you make money. It’s beautiful in both its simplicity and its challenge. In a startup, you get to be remarkably in tune with the health of the business, that gives you incredible leverage but it can also be a bit scary. Like any sales role, sometimes it comes down to a bit of luck, and sometimes that bad luck means you lose deals outside of your control. You get to meet a lot of interesting people and learn about how different teams do their work; unlike a consultant you’re not stressed about making every hour billable. Sometimes you do have to deal with difficult customers.
Why would you want to be at Dagster Labs?
Dagster is a Python data orchestrator. This means you get to play with Python, dbt, Spark, CICD systems like GitHub actions, and Kubernetes. It is a blast. Some sales engineering roles are not that technical. This one is. If you want to sell data tools instead of giving demos about martech, cookie tracking, and ad conversion - this is the place. The company has a lot of things going for it that other data tooling startups don’t: the product actually exists, users enjoy it, and we know how to sell it for money. The team is also incredible. I’ve worked with lots of smart people, what is unique about Dagster Labs is that every seat on the bus has a smart person in it. A really smart person. And none of them are jerks.
Interested?
Shoot me a DM.
Confused about sales engineering, or thinking that might be a good role for you just not at Dagster?
Happy to chat as well.
👉 Excited about data, orchestration, and open source? The Elementl go-to-market team is hiring for AE, SE, CSMs, and BDRs to spread the word about Dagster ‼
DM me if you'd like an intro to hiring managers or have question about the team, role, or tech.
