What does it take to bring a great Customer Experience (CX) success story to Axway? Just ask Annie Yotova and find out.
Annie Yotova is a highly skilled TST (Technical Success) employee at Axway in Phoenix. Annie started working in Sofia, Bulgaria as a developer in 2005, then she changed her role over to Solutions Architect in Services. Back in 2010, Annie moved to Phoenix and she later transitioned over to the TST team.
Nowadays, Annie’s role is less connected to the day-to-day customer problems and more focused with supporting and implementing AMPLIFY(TM) Managed File Transfer (MFT), from enablement (both for customers and internally) to use cases and implementation details which allow for the platform to succeed. And if that wasn’t enough to do, Annie also supports the customer-facing teams.
In Annie’s current role, she finds new ways to use ST in the changing world of APIs, hybrid architecture and SAAS/PaaS in the modernized world of MFT. Thanks to Annie’s sound expertise, she works on best practices and standardization. This helps to make everyone’s work—and life—a lot easier.
Annie’s approach to her job
Annie’s approach to her job is simple: “Never walk into a room with a solution and think you have all the answers.” Annie feels, “even when you believe you know the answer, unless it’s a show us the solution session, when you think you know it all, you will have a sure way to fail.” Further, Annie says that you should never say “never be afraid to say I do not know.”
Annie certainly knows MFT, as well as ST, but having the answers to everything is simply an impossible goal to reach. Annie philosophy is “you must be open-minded to new ideas.”
Learning is always crucial to her job. You should never underestimate what other people can contribute to a solution because sometimes “a solution is hiding in the middle of an irrelevant comment or question.” This is so true!
When Annie started back in 2005, she had no clue what MFT was (she was hired as a developer for the Services team). Further, when a colleague explained MFT to her in detail, she did not expect to spend more than a couple of years working in this arena.
Lo-and-behold, 13 years later, she laughs at this very thought. Annie says, “you learn something new every day! The moment you stop learning, you stop being at the top of your game.” Truly sage advice!
Training
When it comes to training, Annie says she keeps “digging in” because when a customer asks her a question, she likes to keep up-to-date with her learning to give the best and most relevant answer.
According to Annie, “trying to explain something makes you dig deeper than you normally would so you know you are not mistaken when things don’t make sense.” MFT truly fascinates Annie, and she loves finding new ways to help our customers — as well as new ways to use our products.
Annie feels that “listening to our customers is indeed the best education.” For Annie, “some of the craziest (and now standard) solutions have come because a customer had an idea or because they discovered something no one ever thought of.”
The best part of the job
For Annie, the best part of her job is variety! This is the name of the game! One day she’s teaching, the next she’s on a plane helping a customer find a solution or a conclusion for a use case. To be precise, not everything in life has a solution, and Annie feels “admitting this concept is as important to finding the solution.”
For Annie, her new position is “somewhere in the middle between the old world of Axway and the new horizon.” Annie feels she does well in this regard. She has the background of the “old world and she is willing to find new ways to move forward.”
According to Annie, “MFT may be old technology but it is not going anywhere—it changes, it moves ahead but it will always remain somewhere in the stratosphere.”
Personal advice
For Annie, her mom likes to say, “you do not get taught how to do a job, you steal a job.” You need to be willing and able to “read/research/study on your own and admit when you are lost.” It’s important to know that you should never be afraid to make mistakes.
You learn more from failures than from successes. Annie feels that most of her knowledge comes from finding why something didn’t work and the research that was involved to solve the problem.
Annie’s personal advice for people out there wanting to take this career path or starting out is full-fold. It’s important to never refuse an opportunity that comes your way. Annie feels she’s had “multiple careers at Axway.”
Originally, she was hired as a developer in the Services team, then somehow, things turned around. She ended up visiting a customer (almost by chance) and then when Axway tried to explore the European and Asian markets with Secure Transport, someone had to go and do the fieldwork. Annie volunteered! The rest, as they say, is history!
From fieldwork to the architect position, as well as changing countries somewhere along the way, if someone had told Annie back in 2005 that she would end up in another country, “she would have laughed.” Annie grew into her job and she never said “no” to a challenge. This is indeed Annie’s special gift!
We salute Annie Yotova for her work ethic and wonderful contribution to Axway.
Learn more about how a digitalized Managed File Transfer solution supports infrastructure automation here.