The beginning
Right from his very first day, Clemens took advantage of Cloudflight’s open door and flat hierarchy cultures. Even though he was just a junior software developer, he tried hard to participate in customer meetings and when he could, he took over extra responsibilities and always tried to get out of his comfort zone. This helped him learn to tackle demanding situations and taught him how the business works. Over time, as he was getting more experience, he joined the ranks of project and team leads.
He also pushed himself to constantly keep learning. When Cloudflight started a new project in IoT – where everything would be done from scratch – he did not hesitate a second and jumped all over it. The start was far from easy. Eventually though the project was highly successful. Clemens got to use some interesting technology like Kafka, a system for asynchronous messaging, which is used for high data load processing or got very in-depth in Python and MQTT. Unbeknownst to him there was one more opportunity to discover.
The Netherlands
While he was working in the IoT project, Cloudflight was preparing plans to expand to the Netherlands. Was it destiny or just a stroke of luck we will never know, but at the same time his girlfriend got an amazing job opportunity involving relocation to Amsterdam. After everyone learned about this a few calls followed. Then a few exchanges. Then it did not take much to make the final decision to move there together to start a new adventure for themselves and for Cloudflight.
Opening a new location in a new country is hard. Clemens had to set up our presence from scratch: find the right people, create a business network, get an office to collaborate in, understand everything from the legal perspective and draft a business plan to make sure there is enough business potential. Eventually he succeeded and now the Amsterdam office is a thriving location. The work is of course never finished and as a Managing director Clemens constantly strives to expand the business in the Netherlands and makes sure the location grows and prospers.
“Do you want to grow? Ask for more responsibilities. Nobody will offer you a leadership position if you just stick to your tasks”
From the interview with Clemens
