Q&A with Louise de Jong, Senior Principal Talent Advisor—Engineering

Q. Can you share what your role as Senior Principal Talent Advisor entails and what teams you serve?
A. In my role at Aviatrix, I recruit for the product engineering organization, partnering closely with the leaders on that team to understand their hiring needs and expectations. I’m regularly searching for a range of experienced engineers and engineering leadership, including software engineers, systems engineers, quality/automation engineers, site reliability engineers (SREs), user interface/user experience (UI/UX), technical writers, and engineering trailblazers to join our growing company. I manage the entire recruitment process—from identifying, sourcing, interviewing, scheduling interviews to negotiating compensation packages. From start to finish, my goal is to make the experience as smooth as possible for both the candidate and our team.

Q. You’ve got an impressive resume spanning 20+ years in senior recruiting roles. Prior to joining Aviatrix in June 2021, you spent more than a decade recruiting for the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s (OCI) team. Can you share some of your accomplishments while there and how that experience has helped your recruitment efforts at Aviatrix.

A.  For more than 10 years, I supported Oracle’s product engineering team. I was one of the first talent advisors recruiting for the founders of OCI and the lead recruiter who helped build OCI’s Network Infrastructure from the ground up. I supported software engineering, and the network operations teams, hiring in an incredibly competitive Seattle and Bay Area market. At the time, OCI had a startup culture and was the fastest growing division within Oracle for over 5 years. It was coined the “Little Orazon” because we strategically sourced and hired top engineering talent from Amazon Web Services (AWS). The knowledge that I gained while recruiting for OCI taught me so much about the competitive landscape for hiring engineering software talent in the cloud networking and security space and has proven invaluable to my role at Aviatrix.

Q. From your experience, what makes a candidate stand out from others?

A. A candidate who catches my attention is an engineer who is the driver of engineering deliverables, contributes to Open-Source projects, is a subject matter expert in their domain (e.g., cloud networking, cloud security, distributed systems, infrastructure, etc.) and a great cultural fit. In my recruiting playbook, there are five top criteria that a candidate must meet.
 

• Drivers of Deliverables: They are the drivers of their engineering team’s deliverables in the networking and security domain, working for major cloud service providers (e.g., AWS, GPC, Azure, OCI, Alibaba), cloud native multicloud software companies or a traditional networking software company.
• Modern Language Coders: They are well-versed coders in modern languages (e.g., Golang, Python) but we also hire engineers with C and C++ experience.
• Subject Matter Experts: They are the subject matter experts in specific domain spaces (e.g., networking, security, distributed systems, infrastructure, etc.).
• Solid Career Tenures: They have outstanding career tenure and demonstrate career progression throughout their career.
• Cultural Fit: They are a great cultural fit for Aviatrix—they have an entrepreneurial spirit, are passionate and enthusiastic about working in a startup environment, can adapt easily to change, and thrive in a fast-paced, unstructured work environment. They should be transparent and want to collaborate, love to learn innovative Open-Source technologies, and look for ways to continue to iterate and improve.

Q. Any advice you can share for prospective employees?
A. I encourage candidates and new hires to check out the Aviatrix Certified Engineer (ACE) Program and regularly participate in the various training paths that we offer to customers, partners, and anyone who wants to learn more about cloud or master cloud networking and security. I got ACE certified to have a foundational understanding of cloud networking to help me in my role.

Q. What are the common factors that drive software engineers to join Aviatrix Engineering?
A. Software engineers come to Aviatrix because they want to make a significant impact on developing end-to-end innovative solutions that address the networking challenges faced by enterprises adopting multicloud architectures. There are four areas that draw in the right candidates.
 

• The Work & The Impact: Engineers come to Aviatrix because they want to make an impact while working on very challenging and complex problems, including a lot of greenfield projects.
• The People and Leadership: Engineers want to collaborate and work alongside other talented engineers and engineering leadership who are passionate about making a difference in cloud networking. Our engineering leaders include our head of engineering and three vice presidents of engineering who all came from Google Cloud. They’ve been very instrumental in attracting top engineers. Additionally, Doug Merritt, Aviatrix’s new CEO, has an incredible reputation having led Splunk through a major cloud-first transformation from a license model to a consumption model, which is a model that Aviatrix mirrors.
• The Growth Opportunities: Engineers want to grow their skillset and careers, which in a smaller team environment like Aviatrix, happens much faster. As our company grows, all of our engineering talent is growing, too, and will move into new positions as we continue to scale as a product engineering organization.
• Competitive Compensation: Engineers are looking for a competitive compensation package including competitive-based salaries, stock options (ISOs), and benefits. We offer incredibly competitive salaries, ISOs, and benefits (e.g., matching 401K, flex vacation, etc.). The prospect of ISOs becoming profitable is a major draw for engineers looking at Aviatrix given that we are a pre-IPO company.

Q. What is the most time-consuming part of the recruiting process?
A. The most time intense part of my job is sourcing and identifying prospects. I use social media tools like LinkedIn Recruiter to find and connect with prospective candidates. I meticulously reach out to prospects first by thoroughly reading a candidate’s profile to see if they match what we are looking for, and then I personalize each InMail/Reach Out. This process is time consuming, but this is my preferred approach versus bulk emailing as I receive a greater response rate with higher quality candidates.
 
Q. What is your favorite part of your job?
A. My favorite part of my job is when I can call a candidate with the good news that they will be receiving a job offer. Being able to help someone find a new job at Aviatrix is a humbling experience. Knowing that I helped make a positive impact on a candidate’s career choice is such a rewarding experience. A few months back, I received a wonderfully heartfelt thank you note from a candidate I was working with who is now part of the Aviatrix engineering team. He expressed his sincere gratitude for the guidance I provided during the interview preparation phase and noted the support throughout his recruitment process was invaluable. Hearing that made my day and why I enjoy my job.
 
Before joining Aviatrix, Louise spent over 10 years as senior talent advisor for Oracle’s product engineering organization, where she was one of the first talent advisors to work with the founders of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to recruit top talent and led the company’s OCI’s Network Infrastructure recruitment efforts. With more than two decades of technical staffing experience, she has worked with product engineering teams across various domains, from large cloud software enterprises to security software and IT services startups. Connect with Louise on LinkedIn. View the Careers page for the latest Aviatrix job openings.