Marcel Arentz

Hi Masl, thanks a lot for your time. You've been part of Checkmk since August 2016, making you one of our "old hands". You started your journey as a consultant and technical writer, back then still at Mathias Kettner GmbH, dealing with system and customer support. Since January 2020, you've been working in product management, now as Head of Product, partly also for the Knowledge Team.

What made you decide to join Checkmk?

At the end of 2015, I started switching an old monitoring system with many different components over to Checkmk. That's how I came to Checkmk as a user, and I didn't want to miss the opportunity to join a company that deals with the entire spectrum of IT.

How did you move from consulting into product management?

At the time I started at Checkmk, there was no clear division of roles. So I worked in support, or as a consultant. Almost right from the start, I also regularly helped out in development. There, it was completely normal to take on product management tasks as well and coordinate implementation decisions with customers. Due to this proximity to all departments, my focus developed very naturally. I know the customer side very well and programmed some requests directly myself. At some point, it became clear that we needed colleagues who officially worked solely on the further development of our products. So in early 2020, I laid the foundation for the "Product Management" department.

What fascinates you most about your work at Checkmk and what are your responsibilities?

On the one hand, I keep learning something new about Checkmk. And on the other hand, I get many insights into a wide variety of IT areas, such as networks, virtualization, microservices, and much more.

Of course, that is also the core of my current responsibility as Head of Product. Even in my leadership role, I still often enter a field where the person I'm speaking with is the expert. We then build a common understanding in order to further develop Checkmk in that domain. Having a fundamental understanding of these sometimes highly specialized IT areas is essential and at the same time very challenging.

My product area also includes the team that creates our documentation. We have worked hard to achieve a very high and unusual standard, which we implement and maintain together.

What does a work week look like for you?

Due to my history at Checkmk and my broad technical expertise, every week is very different. The common thread comes from working closely with colleagues across all departments and, of course, our customers. Especially the latter often requires a high degree of flexibility due to different working styles in order to coordinate with one another.

On other days, I work more on the future of Checkmk by sorting and prioritizing our ideas and those of our customers, and then incorporating them into a roadmap together with my colleagues.

Basically, my days revolve a lot around internal and external collaboration. Connecting different departments and customers takes up a large part of my work. I gain my domain knowledge through these discussions, by taking a look at our support, or through conversations with our users.

Which tools/technologies do you work with in your team?

Since my work over recent years has taken on more of a coordinating and coaching character, I now work a lot with Google's Office Suite. Besides that, Jira is still one of the tools I continue to use heavily, as we map most of our work there. I work with Checkmk very intensively at times to experience new features firsthand. That helps me put myself in our users' shoes.

Because I talk to many different departments, I also regularly use their tools—whether it's Jenkins, Git, Python, or Gerrit from development, CRM tools used by sales, Jira Service Desk from support, etc. For daily communication, we have tools like Slack.

Describe in your own words the relationship between Checkmk and customers. What makes this relationship special?

I very quickly learned to appreciate the collaborative partnership between Checkmk and our customers. Being able to talk to each other on equal footing and design helpful solutions together is a rare gift. This becomes clear to me time and again at our conferences and in other direct conversations: the self-conception of working together on a product, valuing each other's expertise, and then sharing the results of this work with all other users is something truly special.

Is there anything that currently bothers you about your work?

We have so many ideas and improvements, and so little time. Due to our close contact with the real world with our customers, I regularly see opportunities for improvement that I would love to implement all at once. It can be frustrating when we clearly see the benefits and yet know that we have to decide against them. I really dislike saying "no" to our customers—but I have to do it far too often. This is certainly also due to a lack of motivated new colleagues who have a strong interest in the broad scope of IT and see the unknown as a challenge rather than a threat.

What makes Checkmk so special?

The opportunities for personal development are immense. Every day is like a new training session to deepen your knowledge in one area of IT—or build completely new knowledge. This also creates a sense of cohesion among colleagues, since everyone has delved into different areas and you can only make progress as a team and through mutual support.

That takes away the pressure of having to know everything and at the same time opens up the path to continuously absorb knowledge. For me, someone who loves learning new things continuously, this is a dream job.