Employee Spotlight: Daniel Schulwolf

Here at AtScale, we pride ourselves on building exemplary talent throughout all functions of our organization. Today, we are excited to introduce you to Daniel Schulwolf, the jack of all trades who discusses his first days during the founding of our Boston office and how he manages the critical business applications our teams count on every day. 

What is your role at AtScale?

A: My title is Manager of Business Operations. I primarily cover sales operations, support operations, and customer success operations, but I also assist my colleague in marketing operations and the team in Bulgaria who works on product and engineering operations. 

How long have you been at the company?

A: Since September 2018. 

You’ve been with AtScale since the founding of our Boston office. Can you tell us about the growth and change you’ve witnessed since you joined the team?

A: I was the fourth person in the Boston office after Cort Johnson, Dan Marzinotto, and Peter Dolan. My first week at AtScale was spent in a room on the 9th floor of the South Station WeWork, just Peter and I since Cort and Dan were attending a conference in New York. That was a pretty big change from the large company I previously worked for. We’ve grown tremendously since then. We’ve built out entire teams such as our BDR and tech support team, and we also hired some Sales Engineers, Customer Success managers in Boston, along with a few management positions. At first, we moved into bigger rooms within the WeWork, then to our current building where we started on the first floor, and we have since moved to our (currently unoccupied) office on the fourth floor. There’s been lots of forward movement in terms of our people and our space. 

What does a typical “day in the life” look like for you?

A: At a small company, being in operations implies wearing a few different hats. My primary role could still be considered Sales Operations, which includes supporting the sales team with active deals, whether that’s helping with pricing, order forms, and contracts- just the “deal desk”. More broadly, I analyze data on how certain business processes are performing. 

There are different components of the sales and marketing process I look at, along with support and customer success as well. I’ve also helped a bit on the product and engineering side with their processes. I take data from our key business applications and report on it to end-users, executive stakeholders, and ultimately the board of directors so that there is visibility across the company into how we are performing. 

Another thing I’m constantly doing is looking at is the critical business applications that our teams use, such as Salesforce and Outreach for sales, Marketo for marketing, and Jira for product. I make sure that these applications are configured and integrated in the best possible way for people to run the underlying business processes, all while enabling us to report key performance indicators.

There’s a fundamental balance that needs to be achieved between facilitating a process that’s efficient and isn’t too time-consuming for end users to follow, but also gathers sufficient information to make intelligent decisions on how we’re doing. 

What makes AtScale and our solution unique?

A: One of the unique things about AtScale is we have amazing, talented, and diverse people, both in terms of location, what they do, and the skillset they provide. It was great for me to come from a large company where I was mostly siloed and involved with just one part of the company, compared to now where I can collaborate with people from all levels of the company and across all functions. Working with the different people here at AtScale has been valuable to me. I think the team has done a great job building a good corporate culture. There are so many unique aspects to each team and location’s culture that are positive as well. 

Our solution is unique as it can help businesses of any size, shape, and industry, and provide insight on the key challenges they have and their KPIs in a way that’s faster, cheaper, and more efficient than they could previously. It’s also cool that we’ve only just scratched the surface of what our product can do. I think there’s a lot more to come from AtScale and a lot more potential use cases. 

What’s the most challenging part of your job?

A: Since I do have a lot of different types of work on my plate, staying organized can be difficult. It’s important to make sure that I’m prioritizing what’s most critical for the company while also making sure that I devote attention to everything that needs to get done. Some of that is also knowing when to shift things off my plate. It’s better to ask for help if I’m not able to get to something than let it sit around for a few days with no attention.

In terms of some of the core things that I do within Business Operations, a lot of it is around business processes and systematizing them in the different applications we use, there’s a balance you have to strike between a process that’s simple enough for people to use, follow, and adopt, but also robust enough to give us information on how that process is doing and where we can improve. 

The most rewarding?

A: I like working cross-functionally and across different seniority levels. It’s great to be able to collaborate with people in different departments, different executives, and individual contributors on projects that add value to the company. Various projects include different stakeholders and have tangible value for those individual people and the company as a whole. 

Describe AtScale in three words. 

A: Committed, Creative, Collaborative

When you’re not working, where are people most likely to find you?

A: Pre- COVID, I played a lot of soccer and devoted quite a bit of my time to help run an amateur soccer team in Boston. This year, I’ve had the chance to take up other activities that I’ve never been able to do before such as baking and tennis. I’m also a big fan of the outdoors, I like driving with my girlfriend to western Massachusetts or northern New England for hikes and skiing.

Thank you, Dan! Interested in meeting the rest of our team? Check out our past interviews: