Day in the Life
I’m originally from Germany but I moved to Mexico during Highschool. For the last 5 years I have been living in a small beach town called Puerto Escondido, on the Mexican Pacific coast.
Here I live with my partner, my dog and my cats and spend a lot of time with my friends, going to the beaches or the river, playing tennis and reading books. I adore nature, good food and getting to know the world, which is why travelling is on the top of my list of priorities.
Tell us more about your experience and what led you to Percona.
My career path is not very typical. I studied philosophy and social anthropology, always knowing that I wanted my work to be meaningful and align with my values. After years of working with NGOs and cultural institutions, I joined an early-stage start-up in Mexico City. It was my first experience in tech, and I was surprised by how much impact could be scaled in this industry. I learned a great deal from that job and went on to lead the Customer Success team at a San-Francisco based climate tech company. When I decided to move on, I was lucky to find Percona because it combined what most mattered to me: flexibility, impact at scale (open-source technology), growth, and a culture that genuinely values people and diversity.
What’s a typical day like for you now?
What do you like to do in your free time? At Percona I work as a Customer Success Manager in a team of six. Usually, I start my day by walking my dog at the river. Then I have breakfast on the terrace under a huge guanacaste tree. At around 9am, I open my laptop and begin my workday.
I’m responsible for service satisfaction, retention and account expansion across a broad customer portfolio. This entails not only establishing trustworthy relationships and understanding my customers’ businesses and objectives in depth, but also a lot of cross collaboration with internal teams to ensure we are delivering and optimizing value.
As a team we meet once a week to discuss important updates and connect. Since we all live in different parts of the Americas, this is also a space to exchange personal experiences and have some fun. The global Customer Success team comes together once a month to align on processes, celebrate our wins, plan for improvement and play games on special occasions.
What do you like best about working at Percona?
One of my favorite parts about Percona is the people, how diverse and just human the interactions feel. People care about each other’s well-being, boundaries are encouraged, and mutual respect is a non-negotiable across the multiple cultures we come and work from.
All of that creates a real work-life balance. It allows me to do stuff like going to my favorite pilates class on Wednesdays before lunch, take creative breaks for my personal projects, or working from Europe when I go to visit my friends and family for a couple of months a year. I truly believe my colleagues and I are doing our best work because of that shared accountability and flexibility.
What did you do on your last FryDay?
Another perk at Percona are FryDays, a long weekend every quarter. I spent my last one off the grid at a beautiful lagoon nearby and completely disconnected for a few days.
Where was your last off-site? What did you like best about it?
Last year I met my team for the first time at a week-long off-site in Playa del Carmen, Mexico (I’m pretty sure I had the shortest way there). This year I’m going to a work event in San Francisco, and I’m looking forward not only to meeting many of my customers in person for the first time, but also to enjoy some good dinner conversations with some of my favorite colleagues.
