Updated 2023
At Glint Solar, we are a diverse team of passionate individuals working together towards a shared goal: Accelerating the renewable energy transition. Our company culture is characterized by openness, collaboration, and the belief that a diverse work environment fosters innovation and success.
That's why we're excited to introduce Lena Karlsen, our exceptional VP of Customer Success, and John Modin, our sharp CTO and Co-Founder.
In this blog post, we meet with Lena and John, who share their insights into life at Glint Solar, our company culture, and the qualities we value in our team members, specifically in the roles of Customer Success Manager and Software Engineer. And with open positions waiting for the right candidates to join our team, prepare to be inspired!
Lena: “Mission driven. Talented. Fun."
“We all work together towards the same mission: Accelerating the renewable energy transition. We have our differences and similarities but this makes us and the company stronger. We have a talented team that I’m really proud to be part of and we enjoy great food, ice baths and music together. It’s important to laugh and enjoy life to the fullest!”
John: “Open, adventurous, kind"
“Working together trying to solve problems that are new to us. Everyone helps, everyone is ready to step up and learn new things, and everyone can voice their opinion. We also care about each other and understand that you cannot always be at a hundred percent, and that’s ok.
Lena: “In a small startup of 15 employees, everything we do somehow involves all team members. Everything is a team effort and we all contribute with individual initiatives and suggestions. One of the things I love about Customer Success is that it’s so connected to most key business areas. And to foster collaboration and teamwork we have cross-functional workshops and presentations to learn about each other's tasks and needs.”
John: “It’s ok for anyone to ask questions and come with ideas, even outside of your daily work. I think it’s best to lead by example so I ask alot of stupid questions (at least that’s my excuse :))
Lena: “When it comes to customers, we measure health scores that are based on several inputs, and measured in different ways. Salesforce famously built an advanced model based on 127 inputs with a 95% churn prediction accuracy. Another company had a much simpler approach, measuring usage of only three key features of the product to predict churn. For us, it’s a mix of product usage and customer sentiment that makes the most sense at this stage.”
John: “Our goal is to speed up the adoption of solar energy. In order to do that we need to have a scalable business and a great product that is really useful. At the moment that means we are keeping track of how fast we are growing, both in terms of team and number of customers, as well as how much the product is being used. We also do regular check-ins with our customers to get feedback, whenever they are happy with our solution and are actually able to find better sites faster, that’s a huge win!
Lena: “I believe that we, as a company, have the responsibility to build and represent an inclusive work space. The foundation we build now will help us grow and scale in a healthy manner. It’s also important to remind ourselves that, even if we’re still small, we do make an impact. We need to keep educating ourselves on Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) so that we have the right tools for this work!”
John: “Yes! I think that in order to come up with great solutions it's a huge benefit to have many different people with points of view and ways of thinking working together. It’s also much more fun and inspiring!”
What are Glint Solar’s long-term goals as a company?
Lena: ”Our goal is to provide the most user-friendly solar software on the market. In order to achieve this, we need to think about the whole customer experience from start to end. Customer Success plays a central role in understanding the whole customer journey.”
John: “We want to speed up the building of renewable energy, specifically solar energy. It's just not fast enough at the moment. We are starting with making a tool for solar developers to go from a target number of mega- or gigawatts to actually having somewhere to build those solar parks since we see that this is a part of the process that hasn’t received a lot of attention from software companies and can be made much more efficient.”
Lena is passionate about creating and nurturing relationships with our customers to ensure their success. With a strong focus on understanding customer needs and establishing feedback loops, Lena helps shape our software’s offerings for maximum impact.
“Customer Success plays a central role in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company. In an early-stage company, even more so. We need to constantly learn about the customer and their desired outcomes and pain points, and we’re building a close feedback loop with the Product team. As a Customer Success Manager, you will be responsible to build these relationships and set our customers up for success!”
“I believe that skills can be taught if one has the right mindset and motivation. You need to love speaking with customers and it’s very important to be curious and eager to learn. This is what matters the most to succeed!”
“What I can say is that every day will be different. As a Customer Success Manager, most days will involve communication with customers through calls or emails, as well as administrating, planning, and monitoring different accounts. There is usually always some cross-collaboration with product, marketing, and sales during the week and, at the end of the week, we share customer learnings with the rest of the company.”
Our software is only as good as the engineers who build and maintain it, and we're lucky to have an incredible group of Data and Software Engineers who work hard every day to keep Glint Ground running smoothly. Leading the charge is John Modin, CTO and Co-Founder of Glint Solar.
“As a software engineer you will be working as part of a team together with our Head of Design, Lars, to come up with the best solutions to the challenges that solar developers are facing when trying to get a project ready to build. You will be responsible for making sure that the software works well and is scalable and secure, but also contributing to the ideation and prioritization by knowing what is technically possible and coming up with simple solutions. Your role will also be to question ideas and only build them if you also think it’s a good idea, there are alot of ideas that are bad ideas and as a software engineer it is important to help avoid spending too much time on those.”
“Caring about your colleagues. To be ok with making mistakes and be ok with others making mistakes or being wrong. Taking responsibility and holding others accountable, but not pointing fingers. Honest and straightforward.”
“The company as a whole meets every Monday to review how we are doing in terms of our objectives and key results (OKRs). In the product team we then have a Monday meeting where we talk about and prioritize the main focus for the week. We have a standup each day to identify any issues/ blockers and to keep each other in the loop. Other than that, we try to avoid having too many internal meetings, if we need to have a chat about something we just grab hold of someone who looks like they need a break from what they are doing, and go have a whiteboard session or a coffee.
Our office is located in the center of Oslo, near the water, so there are plenty of nice places to go for a walk if you need a change of scenery. It’s worth mentioning that we have a hybrid work model. What this means to us is that most people will come to the office most days, but some people will have a day or two at home a week or take a remote work week from France once in a while. I typically come to the office 3 days a week since my commute is a bit long and I have to pick my son up at kindergarten.”
As we continue to grow and make an impact in the solar energy sector, we are looking for passionate people to join us. Visit our careers page now and take the first step towards joining the Glint Solar family!