Welcome to the latest installment of a new blog series introducing some of the experts you might encounter when you work with ScyllaDB. (Past ones: Tyler Denton, Faisal Saeed).
Today we’re featuring Susie Solis, Technical Support Engineer on the Customer Experience team here at ScyllaDB. She lives in Colorado and has been at ScyllaDB for almost 3 years.
Let’s learn a little about Susie…
What do you do here at ScyllaDB
I’m a Technical Support Engineer. I help customers troubleshoot database issues.
I also work closely with our engineering and cloud teams when an issue requires a deeper investigation.
Please share a little about your path to ScyllaDB
My background is in technical support, cloud infrastructure, and distributed systems. Before joining ScyllaDB, I worked in Strategic Technical Support II / Tech Lead at HashiCorp, where I spent a lot of time working with technologies like Terraform, Kubernetes, Linux, and the major cloud providers.
That experience taught me how much I enjoy solving complex problems. ScyllaDB was a natural next step because it gave me the opportunity to dive deeper into databases.
Tell me about one of the most interesting projects you’ve worked on here
The most interesting project that I worked on was a Kubernetes project that used Terraform code and the Kubernetes operator. I built the system so that we can stand up a similar environment and troubleshoot issues more easily for Paramount.
What’s the most impressive ScyllaDB feat you’ve seen a team accomplish
I’m always impressed when a customer migrates a demanding production workload to ScyllaDB and is able to support high throughput while maintaining consistently low latency.
One of the most impressive things I’ve seen is how ScyllaDB handles big traffic spikes during major streaming events. Customers like Hulu or Paramount can have a huge number of people watching at the same time, and ScyllaDB is able to handle the extra load without causing problems.
It’s really cool to see because those are the moments when everything needs to work. The traffic jumps quickly, but ScyllaDB keeps up and lets the customer focus on the event instead of worrying about the database.
What do you like to do when you’re not working or on-call
When I’m not working or on-call, I love being outdoors such as camping, hiking, paddleboarding, or kayaking whenever I get the chance. I also love to travel, dance, go to festivals, garden, and cook. I’m a purple belt in karate and play seasonal adult sports, too, so I like to keep myself busy!
What’s your top tip for getting the most out of ScyllaDB
Start by thinking about how your application will actually use the data. ScyllaDB works best when your tables are designed around the way your application reads and writes information.
