The following blog post is the latest edition of Meet the Bees, a series in which we get to know the employees at CloudBees (affectionately known internally as “Bees”). In today’s post, the spotlight is on Wesley G. Pullen, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) - Worldwide Field Operations!
With over 25+ years of professional experience, Wesley is a seasoned executive who specializes in Technology Innovation and Development, GTM Messaging, Strategic Technology Planning and more. He is passionate about team collaboration and believes in driving organizational success through building and leading collaborative teams.
We had a small fireside chat with Wesley to know more about his likes, dislikes, working experiences, and life in general. Wesley has responded to us in a very elaborate way. Here’s more to what he has to say.
Who are you? What is your role at CloudBees?
My name is Wesley G. Pullen and I serve the CloudBees family as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Worldwide Field Operations. As one of the thought-leading technical experts at CloudBees, I support in shaping product priorities and constantly evangelizing solutions and roadmaps. Prior to this, I was a member of the Executive Leadership Team within Electric Cloud when it was acquired by CloudBees in April 2019.
In my current role, I support strategic sales opportunities, drive Go-To-Market within CloudBees, and provide deep industry knowledge across the broad technology spectrum, including Software Delivery Management, CI/CD, DevOps Insights & Analytics, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence to help customers solve critical business problems.
What does a typical day look like for you?
I believe in the idea of waking up early and getting going. I am up around 4:45 AM EDT to make sure that I am responsive to the needs of the greater CloudBees Team. The salutation in my email signature says “In Your Service.” Let me tell you that I mean it literally and live my life by this principle. I am honored to be at CloudBees to serve this wonderful family. My aim is to be extremely responsive in assisting my teammates, colleagues, customers, prospects and partners with a business and technical acumen that makes them enjoy working with CloudBees. I make sure to proactively respond to their concerns and questions either via email, instant messaging, LinkedIn InMail, conference calls, video conferences or onsite meetings (post COVID-19, of course).
Currently, we are witnessing unusual times, globally, but still, my usual day continues to include the following components just like a PreCOVID-19 typical day:
Answering emails and Slack threads, primarily on CloudBees CD and/or CloudBees Build Acceleration.
2. Responding to customer and prospect requests, primarily on CloudBees CD and/or CloudBees Build Acceleration, sometimes on Software Delivery Management (SDM) and sometimes on Application Release Orchestration (ARO).
3. Reviewing competitive intelligence to ensure we are ahead of the curve.
4. Reading and studying the latest technology trends and how they might impact CloudBees.
5. Going through the CloudBees technology to stay sharp.
6. Meeting with customers and prospects (On average, I spend 50-55% of my time here).
7. Meeting with Partners.
8. Internal CloudBees meetings (On average, I spend 15%-20% of my time here).
What is your best experience, so far, in working at CloudBees? What has been the best thing you have worked on since joining CloudBees?
Being at CloudBees is an exceptional experience, and working with all the wonderful Bees is the best part of this experience. I have been to several places across the USA, Canada, EMEA, and Asia Pacific to work with customers, partners, employees and prospects. Successfully helping customers (and prospects) accomplish great things with our software solutions, implement best practices and world class services have always been the most exciting and memorable experiences.
Do you have any advice for someone starting a career in software delivery?
Software delivery is a great career field! I believe it is the last mile of the collective hard work that numerous software development teams and vital constituents (...that work within the software development and delivery lifecycle) put together. It allows you to be a part of a wonderful journey from idea to execution! It brings together so many innovative and hard-working people to ensure the success of the software they ideated over, planned, designed, built/constructed, tested, validated, secured, deployed and delivered to their end-users and/or customers.
My advice for anyone starting their career in software delivery (or any other software discipline) would be to understand that life is a series of decisions: some GOOD and some BAD! Learn how to be humble enough to know that the GOOD decisions you made were the result of the wonderful people that surround you, support you and enable you to be your best! Give them the credit they deserve and acknowledge them for their sacrifices and efforts. Appreciate your family, your mentors and your peers often. At the same time, grasp how to be a fast learner to minimize the impact of your BAD decisions. Be coachable, adjustable, and maintain a short-term memory (simply put, move on swiftly) so that you adapt fast from BAD decisions in your professional and personal life.
If you could eat only one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Italian Pizza straight from Sestri Levante with either my favorite cognac (Hennessy Ellipse) or my favorite wine (2013 Opus One, Napa Valley, USA).
What's your favorite sport?
Football (NFL) and there’s ONLY one team that matters - Pittsburgh Steelers!
Born and raised in Pittsburgh, we ONLY do the Steelers. I don’t even participate in Fantasy Football Leagues unless they include only Steelers players (past and present) ;). #GOSteelers #6SuperbowlRings #BlackandYellow
What is your favorite social media platform and why?
LinkedIn for sure. It is the only social media platform I leverage because it is professional and is a great networking platform. As it is auto-synced with Twitter, it allows me to encourage and motivate people all at the same time. You can connect with me on Linkedin here.
What is your favorite TV show character? Why is this character your favorite?
My favorite TV Show is Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU) and my favorite character on the show is Olivia Benson (played by Mariska Hargitay). She is my favorite because she fights for the innocent and works hard to make a difference in the lives of women. Her character reminds me of my mother who is strong, no-nonsense, never gives up, and stands for what is RIGHT!
If you weren’t working in your field, what would you be doing?
If not this, then I would definitely be teaching and mentoring students in a university.
From your years of experience in software development and delivery, would you like to offer some tips and tricks for success?
My best tip and trick is to always remember how critical it is to ensure that we work as a team! Remember, #teamwork makes the company’s #dreamwork! Regardless of the role we play in software development and delivery, at the end of the day, we are a team and everyone in the company is responsible for a quality product that delivers value and ROI to your customers. xfThe technical tip is to ensure defining and delivering a solid Minimum Viable Pipeline (MVP)/Minimum Viable Release (MVR) that takes advantage of all aspects of software development and delivery from idea to production!
What is the most common mistake made in software development and delivery?
The most common mistake that I often observe is jumping on to the next shiny technical solution and neglecting the practice of measuring for success! We should always remember that we cannot improve what we do not measure! Ensuring that we measure the success of the teams working in collaboration in software development and delivery is paramount.
What do you think the future holds for DevOps/CI/CD?
Needless to say, the future of DevOps and CI/CD is *very* bright! We still have a long way to go and many customers and prospects to reach here at CloudBees. We have the #1 rated solutions in our critical software disciplines and we are poised and positioned well with our senior executive staff, the board of directors, and CloudBees family to win big and make the most of the upcoming opportunities. Definitely, there are exciting times ahead!
It was great catching up with Wesley Pullen and learning more about him and his experience at CloudBees! Watch this space to meet more Bees as we cover them in our subsequent blogs.