Setting Member: Guido from PernixData

Remote work has become a popular work-style over the past years and is today the reality for many individuals. We caught up with one of our members Guido Hagemann, working remotely in Berlin for the Silicon Valley startup PernixData.

Explain PernixData to someone walking down the street?

Pernixdata is the leader in server side storage intelligence. This perhaps won’t mean anything to you but almost all businesses worldwide are running virtualized systems in their background infrastructure. 

Virtualization abstracts the running applications from the hardware and enables companies to deploy their systems to any supported hardware. Additionally, virtualization makes it possible to have multiple Operation Systems on a single physical device by providing a hardware layer in-between and utilizing your hardware much better.

PernixData is fundamentally changing how storage is designed and operated in virtual data centers. Our flagship product, PernixData FVP™ software, virtualizes server flash and RAM to enable scale-out storage performance that is independent of capacity.

What's your favorite part of a workday?

When there’s a complex problem that is not easy to understand. This is what keeps me excited and interested!

How does your workstation look like?

MacBook 13”, 16GB of RAM, SSD, etc.! We run most of our applications remotely, e.g. our LAB in order to simulate customer environments. A fast and smooth internet connection is very important.

Do you prefer working remotely?

Generally, I can say that I prefer to work in an office with other people. I worked from home the last year before I started to work about a month ago in a Setting office.

The advantage of working from home is the quiet environment and no time spent on travelling. The downside is the missing external input and now after a year, I can say that I need people around me and I am not a permanent ‘working-from-home-person’. We are working remotely here in Berlin, as our headquater is in San José, California and our customers and colleagues are distributed all around the world.

From your experience, how can a remote team work together most effectively? Any tips?

I find most important how a company treats their employees. If the company views their employees as the most important investment, I am sure remote workers will be more content as they're not just another number. I further believe that micromanagement can be desctructive, as obviously not everyone works in the same way. Team building activities after work can bring teams together and trust each other, which helps teams perform in stressful time periods.