Career Path Of A Master Principal Solution Engineer At Oracle
Brandon's career path began with college internships, where a sales role selling advertisements revealed a preference for "customer management, working with different customers, client facing roles," while back-office IBM internships validated a desire to work in tech but not behind the scenes. This led to a role at Oracle, spanning database sales to social media and eventually the current position in customer experience applications providing customer demonstrations for marketing, sales, and service.
Sales, Customer Relationship Management, Technology, Career Path, Internships
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Brandon Ray
Master Principal Solution Engineer
Oracle
Wake Forest University
N/A
Communications, Computer Science
Technology
Sales and Client Management
Scholarship Recipient
Video Highlights
1. Early customer-facing experience: A sales representative internship selling advertisements exposed him to customer management and client interaction early in his career.
2. Validating career interests through internships: Internships at IBM, though back-office focused, helped him realize his preference for customer-facing roles and solidified his interest in the tech industry.
3. Varied experiences within the same company: His career at Oracle involved working in three different divisions (databases/higher education, social media, and customer experience), providing diverse experiences and exposure to different aspects of the tech industry.
Transcript
Could you walk me through your career path, starting with your experiences in college? Did you have any internships or jobs that led you to your current role?
I had a few internships in college. One was a sales representative job before my sophomore year, where I sold advertisements to local businesses around Wake Forest campus. This role really exposed me to customer management and client-facing roles.
After that, I did a couple of additional internships. At IBM, my work was more on the back office side in procurement services and supply chain. These internships taught me that I wanted to be on the front line, talking to customers.
This validated my preference for customer-facing roles and confirmed my interest in working in tech. After graduating college, I applied to and worked at Oracle. I feel like I've worked at three different companies within Oracle because I've been in three different divisions.
I started in sales and business development in Boston for Oracle, working with databases and higher education institutions. I wanted to switch product sets as databases weren't the most exciting at the time; I wanted something more engaging to demo.
I applied for other positions internally and externally and transferred to a different division of Oracle that worked with social media companies. It had a very different vibe, and with several recent acquisitions, it felt like a startup.
This was a great experience. I moved to Colorado and worked with companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat. I was there for a few years.
There were some issues with product development and the growing pains of the business, as well as working with partners like Facebook. So, around 2020, I applied for my current position. I'm now working with our customer experience applications, focusing on marketing, sales, and service, and providing customer demonstrations for those applications.