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“I can confidently say we have the best product and best offering in the industry.” 

• Help drive the world’s technology engine
• Learn how to succeed on the Altium sales team
• The future looks great for sales at Altium  

“Altium Stands for Opportunity”

“Sales is the core of every business,” says Stefanie, Altium’s Regional Sales Manager for Central Europe. When she first joined us in 2016, she was looking for a growth opportunity where she could leverage her dual background in industrial engineering and business administration. Software sales to the electronics industry seemed like the perfect fit for her passions for technology and business, and Stefanie’s growth trajectory from Account Manager to Account Executive to now Regional Manager for Central Europe proved it was.

Stefanie’s journey taught her critical lessons for success in sales and leadership. “I learned a lot about determination and the need to challenge yourself to take a disciplined approach,” she said. As Regional Manager, Stefanie was charged with building and improving the new business team, and she challenged everyone to raise their game by approaching our customers and selling our software in a different way. But her unwavering commitment to improving everyone’s performance was more than worth the effort. “The team was very successful in the end,” she said proudly.

Having Fun on the European Sales Team 

The European Sales team is an expanding group of ambitious sales professionals working with both new and existing customers. Altium Designer is the world’s most popular software for designing and creating electronics across dozens of industries, and its customers are an amazing mix of famed global enterprises, innovative newcomers, and 30,000+ small and medium sized businesses that are the backbone of global electronics innovation. “Working with customers like these on a daily basis, showing them new products and applications, our component search and cloud platform, and helping them solve their business challenges with the industry’s best software,” is one of the most rewarding aspects of being part of the Altium sales team, according to Stefanie. 

Of course the growth opportunities can also be quite rewarding, and they’re another reason people join the Altium sales team. She believes everyone on the sales team has the same opportunities that she has had to grow personally and professionally while progressing through the organization. Curiosity and the desire to learn new things are among the most important traits for growth, she says, along with the ability to work in a dynamic environment and adapt to change quickly.     

Fun also factors into the sales team equation. Stefanie describes the team as a “great collaborative environment,” where people believe in what they and Altium are bringing to the world. “We have a great team spirit,” she says, “even in hard times, always ready with a laugh and smile.” 

What it takes to Succeed at Altium 

The most important qualities to bring to Altium are a strong desire to learn and grow along with the ability to adapt to, even embrace, rapid and unexpected changes. “This industry can change very quickly, and that influences our day-to-day activities,” Stefanie advised. “If you’re someone who can adapt and enjoys learning new things on a regular basis, and working with new and current customers in the electronics industry, you should definitely think about Altium.”  

For anyone interested in joining the Altium sales team, Stefanie’s recommendation is, “Don’t be afraid to take the challenge and apply. We have a very diverse team. And you don’t necessarily have to come from the industry.” It’s more about having the right soft skills and core values, she suggests. “Being determined, curious, creative, and wanting to learn — if you have these assets, you can be successful, regardless of your background.”

“I got a LinkedIn message about a position at Altium. I liked the product so much, I knew I had to talk to them!”

• Learn why Renata went from Altium user to Altium evangelist
• Discover why Altium is the go-to place for electronics enthusiasts
• Be part of the transformation that Altium software is driving 

“Marketing and engineering? That’s my sweet spot!”” 

Renata’s background is rooted in electrical engineering. She first used Altium Designer when she was studying for her degree, and later at a San Diego company that built video game controllers. When someone contacted her about joining Altium to market the software she loved, she jumped at the opportunity.

Fortunately for both Renata and Altium, she has an exceptional talent for explaining complex technologies so anyone could understand them, talents which first found opportunities as a product marketing manager for major international companies like Siemens and Sony. “Since I graduated in 2005, my first role was product marketing manager,” she said. “That’s my passion.” 

And then came the call from Altium.  

“I was a product marketing manager for Altium 365 during its initial growth as a platform, and I was one of the first marketing team members brought on board.” That was about three and half years ago, when Covid was still roaring. 

Altium 365 is the first cloud-based collaboration platform for electronics design and development. When the pandemic hit, and people had to start working remotely, Altium 365 became practically indispensable. Since Renata joined the team, Altium 365 has grown to a fully scaled and launched product, so it was time for Renata’s new Altium challenge—Altium Lifecycle.

Lifecycle Continues Altium’s Transformation of the Industry

Altium Lifecycle is a fairly new concept not just within Altium but within the entire electronics industry. Within the electronics development domain, Lifecycle provides enterprise-level companies with a system for managing every aspect of electronic hardware development throughout the larger product development process and key business systems. “When they invited me to join the team, I said ‘Yes!’ right away. I wanted to take what I knew about Altium 365 and add to that. Learn and develop new concepts and grow with the company.” 

“The Lifecycle team mostly all work remotely,” she explained, yet everyone is still very connected. “It’s a small team. We talk all the time. We have ideas and meetings, and everybody shares their insights and experiences.” And everyone has the same goal: Release Altium Lifecycle, explain it, and “Make people fall in love with Altium Lifecycle,” Renata proclaims. Given her past experience with Altium software, she knew it wouldn't be the first time it made users fall in love.

What Keeps Renata at Altium

“My favorite thing is learning about innovation: How can we serve different users and  customers with different applications and products?” And learning is Renata's main priority. “There are so many things I want to learn. Fortunately, Altium is very transparent as a company because anytime I want to find something out, I can talk to everyone everywhere. People are so open,” she said. “You also have to be open,” she suggests to anyone considering joining Altium. “You have to be open to learning, and you have to be open to change.”

The fascinating initiatives she’s worked on, like Altium 365 GovCloud, which is tailored for US government regulations and Altium Education, which provides free Altium Designer Pro licenses for students, keep her focused on what she can accomplish here. “When I see students using Altium for projects, that’s the future. And that’s what makes it even more exciting.” 

“I was excited to join the kind of company where you can actually make a difference.” 

• Learn how Thomas and Altium are transforming electronics
• Join us in solving real-world problems on a massive scale
• If you’re curious, you can shine at Altium

What exactly is “Octopart”? 

Thomas, who’s been in the electronics industry for 15 years, knew about Octopart long before joining Altium. “I would visit a customer and see it come up on their screens,” he explained, “and I would end up asking people how they used it.” 

At its core, Octopart is a search engine for the global inventory of electronic components, but also so much more. As engineers design the printed circuit boards (PCBs) that allow electronic products to function, they may need to incorporate dozens, sometimes hundreds, sometimes thousands of smaller individual components. Octopart is the industry-standard search engine that engineers use to source and evaluate the components their designs will need to work. But that’s just the start. It also gives procurement teams information on prices, whether those components will be reliably available throughout the life of the product, and tools to easily execute their purchase so production can proceed without any surprises later. 

“Think of Octopart this way,” Thomas says. “We are a vertical search engine helping engineers find the right parts and purchasers find the right offers. We’re giving them information in a crisp, clear format that doesn’t hurt their eyes or their brain and lets them get through it all quicker so they want to come back.” And come back they do, with millions of searches every month, including what Thomas calls Octopart’s “Power Users”, who use the platform multiple times, month after month. “Octopart is pretty popular,” he said, in a profound understatement.  

How the Octopart Team Is Helping Transforming Electronics Creation

The entire process for developing new electronic products has long been plagued by inefficient and inaccurate manual processes that lead to errors, add costs, and generally get in the way of innovation and production. Through products like Altium Designer for designing PCBs, and Altium 365, which allows teams to connect and collaborate, Altium is moving the industry toward much faster and more efficient ways of working. By making the process for ordering components easier, faster, more accurate and reliable, Octopart is playing a large and expanding role in transforming the industry by modernizing one of its most vital and challenging steps.  

“We were talking to one purchaser who was ordering thousands of parts every month — and searching one part at a time! We’re working on a tool that will enable purchasers to buy in bulk and get them through that sourcing process of finding winning offers and getting them through their job quicker,” he explained. 

One reason that Octopart is so effectively transforming the industry is that it’s an open platform, free for anyone to source and purchase components, whether they’re an Altium customer or not. To explain the philosophy behind that, Thomas mentioned a previous company he was at attempting something similar. “They weren’t building for the masses, though, just for large enterprise customers. We’re doing the exact opposite, which is how we’re transforming the entire industry, not just a few customers, and thus transforming the world.” 

What Is It Like to Work on the Octopart Product Team?

Thomas likes to describe the Octopart product team as “empowered.” While acknowledging that initiatives frequently flow from the top down, it’s not a rule. “We’ve set up an empowered team that’s expected to have (research-based) opinions. That’s encouraged — invited actually  — by senior executives, for the team to put their ideas forth and build the product roadmap from the ground up. If you're a product manager who wants to be involved in developing the strategy and the vision for the product, Altium would be a good fit.”    

Curiosity is also in high demand on the Octopart team. “If you’re that curious person who wants to learn, loves doing customer interviews and getting feedback, building out personas and journey maps, prototypes, working with designers and engineers, iterating ideas as a team and putting them in front of leadership, well, this is the place for you.”

For anyone interested in joining the Octopart team at Altium, that’s the kind of thinking required. And if you join us, “Your voice will be heard,” Thomas says, “and you can truly drive the company forward. To me, that’s really rewarding and it’s why I like being here.”