In our “Engineering Energizers” Q&A series, we examine the life experiences and career paths that have shaped Salesforce engineering leaders.
 

Meet Charlie Curtis: a lead member of the technical staff for Marketing Cloud’s production engineering team. (Need a little refresher? Marketing Cloud is Salesforce’s platform for delivering relevant, personalized marketing journeys across channels and devices.) Charlie and his Atlanta-based team develop cutting-edge automation software that helps users simplify their customer marketing processes by reducing manual labor, scaling their efforts, and saving money. 

Sometimes it’s great — everyone on the team might be really excited about the technologies that we are developing or thrilled about a new system design architecture we are innovating. In other situations, patience may be required to get a lot of smart engineers on the same page, as they all may have different approaches and visions for solving a complex problem.

There is a phrase we adhere to: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” This means that everyone has a voice on our team, and nobody discounts each other’s opinions. So, when someone speaks, you can tell that they are heard, which is really cool. Ultimately, our disagreements help shape the best solution possible.

Additionally, people who have the highest title in the room do not make all the decisions. They not only seek opinions from others, but they also value them. No matter what anyone’s title is, they can always contribute. It is awesome.