A Solution Pathway with Tina Do
Management Information Systems, or MIS as we call it, is best known as the intersection where business and technology meet. It’s a great crossroad to reach, especially for San Jose State University being in the heart of Silicon Valley where tech staples such as Google and Facebook are just around the corner. While it may seem that our path to a career is obvious, it isn’t always easy to decide what route we want to choose with our degrees.
To help clear that up, I reached out to Tina Do, a former MISA Board Member who graduated as a Gary J. Sbona Honors student with Cum Laude distinction here at SJSU in 2016. While talking to Tina, it was interesting to note that her career roles have changed over her time as a working professional.
Tina spent her student years as an intern for a construction company mainly working with IT. Upon graduation, she got a position as a configuration engineer which dealt with implementation. Though she liked her job, she came to a realization that onboarding wasn’t her thing.
Eventually, Tina landed a gig at Freshworks, a SaaS company, where she is currently a Senior Solutions Engineer. When she told me her position, she asked me if I knew what it entailed. My guess of “providing solutions” was a vague one. Luckily for me, she said, “When I graduated, I didn’t even know my role existed!”
“When I graduated, I didn’t even know my role existed!”
So what is Solutions Engineering?
Tina Do: “What I do is build solutions for prospects, along with the sales team. The sales team finds the prospects, and the customers come in. I meet with them to listen so I can understand their business needs. From there, I build what they need with the software that I’m selling.”
James Manalili: “Is that similar to Sales Enablement?”
Tina Do: “No. Sales enablement is more of an internal role. I am still customer-facing. So I speak to customers every single day.
James Manalili: “So you’re more into the technical aspect, than the business aspect?”
Tina Do: “While the account executive does the business wing, I do the technical wing and check off all their needs to make sure we bring value to them. It’s a lot of fun.”
“I check off all their needs to make sure we bring value to them. It’s a lot of fun.”
After describing her role, I was curious to find out more about it. Supporting Tina’s description, I found that Solutions Engineers face many responsibilities! There is no preset path to become a solutions engineer. Since it requires so many different skills, one will need to work with different technologies, businesses, and wear multiple hats to become a successful Solutions Engineer (Safanov, 2019, para. 15).
Solutions Engineering is a great way to utilize the skills we learn as MIS students. On one end, we provide the business acumen to help understand our customer, and on the other, we help find solutions based on the technologies around us.
“There is no preset path to becoming a solutions engineer.”
The road Tina took to where she is now wasn’t always clear, but the passion for her job shows she ended up right where she wanted to be. When we asked Tina about what she wants us to remember when driving into our careers, she encouraged all of us to “Never let yourself down and give up”. In a way, she’s telling us to just keep going down the road until we find our own destination.
“Never let yourself down and give up.”
