Zach Boley

Hi Zach, thanks for the interview and taking the time. You joined Checkmk in February 2023 and you have been working in the US Public Sector before, in both Local and Federal governments.

What made you decide to join Checkmk?

I needed something to monitor my personal infrastructure at home and in the cloud and most of the solutions I found only gave surface level viewpoints when I needed everything.
I also wanted to start monitoring my newly formed Kubernetes clusters and flex my knowledge while learning more about monitoring and Kubernetes processes.

How did you come to Checkmk?

I found Checkmk on LinkedIn and dived head first into it after learning just enough to get it setup.

How is it to be part of the build of the US team with Checkmk?

We're a small group that's mostly spread out across the US so we usually connect over Slack or video call but even with this “challenge” we already have our inside jokes and lots of laughter. Over the few months we've all gotten to know each other quite well!

What does your working day look like?

My day usually starts with checking email and Slack messages for any client requests or tickets. If there is a scheduled Consulting call or Presales Demo I will prioritize that and prepare for that.

What does a typical work week look like for you?

As a Consultant there isn't a “typical” work week as each one can be different. Usually it is dependent on how many presales or consulting tasks we have going on. Otherwise, it is clearing out the ticket queue.

What fascinates you most about your job at Checkmk and what are your tasks?

That it's always different and that there isn't a “normal” as each day/week can be different! But in general I do:

Presales - This involves demonstrating Checkmk to a potential customer and answering any questions they may have about certain scenarios that they have or any challenges they face.

Support - This one is working on tickets that come in from our customers.

Consulting - I may work with customers who want a bit more hands on help with setting up Checkmk or setting up a specific task.

One of the best things about the job is the background of our customers and seeing how they use Checkmk. It never fails to amaze!

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

We use a variety of tools to get our job done. We use Slack for communication internally and Jira for our ticketing system. Confluence is used for documentation as well as Bookstack.

Outside of that we use Google Meet, WebEx, MS Teams, Zoom or whatever else a customer may use to communicate with us.

We also use Ubuntu on our machines and personally I mainly use Kubernetes and Docker for testing Checkmk releases and simulating customer environments.

What is most important to you in your work life?

Being able to approach my day however I like and being given the freedom to choose how I approach it! Also having an amazing team that's understanding and friendly is a top priority!

What do you think makes Checkmk or your team in particular special?

The openness we have at Checkmk is amazing. All decisions are brought to everyone's attention and if there's something wrong that happened people will speak up and talk to you/help you with it.

Do you remember a particularly interesting, exciting or beautiful experience you had at Checkmk? If so, can you tell us about it?

I would say Conference #9! It was amazing to put faces to names and meet all the customers that I talked over email with and how they use Checkmk for their companies. Also got to meet a lot of the team in Europe that I haven't gotten to speak to or meet before.