Meet the team: Rajneel, Customer Projects Manager

What do you do at Auxo Software?

I’ve just started as the Customer Projects Manager. It’s a new role that’s been set up to manage projects like new installations for our SAM, Orion and Autoline customers, SAM to Orion upgrades or Orion SQL upgrades.

I’m going to be setting up the processes and documentation for onboarding so it’s a seamless experience for new customers.

What were you doing before joining us?

For the last two years, I’ve been in the SAM support team at Auxo helping customers with their technical issues for email, SMS, database enquiries and SQL conversions. Before I joined Auxo I was working with an ISP in their business services team doing sales and support. I would sell them all the gear to get their business on the internet and then if it went down, I would fix it.

I’ve always been technical. I grew up on a farm and I was always fixing things. If an engine broke down you can’t just leave it, you’ve got to sort it out and get it back up and running. Fixing engines turned into alarm systems and then getting out in hurricanes to fix solar generator power boards. That gave me awesome practical experience and knowledge and then I came to NZ and studied the foundations of it all (electrical, electronics and computer networking) at MIT.

What are the values that drive you?

Three things that are very important to me are: getting things done, keeping things simple and trying again (and again) if your fix didn’t work.

On the farm, if something broke, we had to fix it. You can’t go back home and say you didn’t feel like fixing the water pump or say that the repair didn’t work. Farms don’t work like that.

My ability to not over-complicate things has done me well in my IT career, especially when it comes to not using jargon. It can be easy to speak to customers in our very technical language, but that doesn’t mean anything to a customer on the other end of the line that just wants their problem solved.

What’s your big, hairy, audacious goal for the year?

Getting all the processes right and sorted out, so that moving forward everything flows. Creating clear guidelines of how an implementation should happen, where everyone knows what should happen at each stage and knows the progress of each project.

Getting all Orion customers onto SQL asap, so they get access to all the new Orion features that we’ve brought out over the last few years.

What do you enjoy doing when you are not working?

I’m an avid cook, I love cooking. I didn’t have a choice growing up because I come from a family of chefs. Everybody cooks, apart from my brother, he can make noodles and that’s it.

My Auxo team are my guinea pigs. Most recently I made them lamb tagine. Although I don’t have an actual tagine, so I used an upside-down pot which worked surprisingly well. Seafood is my specialty. Most people mess it up and the Fijian in me hates that. It’s a good challenge

What’s something most people don’t know about you?

I’m a genuine collector. When I get into something, I really get into it. When I was a kid I would get up at 7.30am every Sunday for the cartoon, X-Men, Spiderman, Voltron. Then at 8 or 9 years of age, I bought my first comic. I now have some very rare comic collections, fantastic rare first issues.

I also have a good collection of sword and knives. Katanas , daggers, long swords and amazing replicas from shows like The Witcher, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings. I used to make knives back home so really have an appreciation for the craft.

Five fast favourites:

• TV show – The Witcher
• Food – Middle eastern-style lamb steak
• Car – Nissan Skyline
• Holiday – Malaysia (just for the food)
• Song – Enter the Sandman / No Diggity