Q&A with Tech Lead Jacob Pretorius – our new Optimizely Gold MVP

We're delighted to congratulate our very own Jacob Pretorius on being upgraded to an Optimizely Gold MVP (Most Valuable Professional). 

Jacob plays a vital role at dotcentric, adding value to client relationships to ensure the successful execution of their projects. At our Gold Partner agency, Jacob advises and educates clients on products and features, and recommends Optimizely solutions that will help deliver against their strategic priorities, particularly in the fields of Commerce and Content Cloud (CMS). 

In addition, he actively contributes to shaping our agency's technical roadmap by establishing and enhancing our operational procedures. Jacob was first recognised as an Optimizely MVP in 2021. 

We conducted a recent interview with Jacob to delve deeper into his accolades and experience of working at dotcentric.

Q: What does it mean to you to be upgraded to an Optimizely Gold MVP?

A: I'm really honoured to be recognised, and not just being renewed but an upgraded status this year. As an MVP, our role is to help Optimizely customers understand the product. Through my blogs, I’ve written about Optimizely’s headless content management, GraphQL, experimentation strategies, and Optimizely Feature Experimentation.

It’s been great to help the customers understand the products and maximise the value they receive. Overall, it’s very rewarding and I’m delighted to have been upgraded to a Gold MVP.

Q: How has dotcentric allowed you to develop in your role?

A: At dotcentric everyone works with each other quite closely all the time. Communication is fast so we can find solutions and deliver results quickly and easily. We all have a mutual trust in each other's abilities to add value to our clients.

We are provided with opportunities to contribute to the agency’s growth in various ways. One such example is writing blogs, which helps demonstrate our expertise to those that follow dotcentric. We are also encouraged to attend webinars, meetups, training sessions and events, such as Opticon, Optimizely's annual conference, that allow us to enhance our expertise in the fields that we work in.

Q: How has your relationship with Optimizely grown since joining dotcentric?

A: It's grown a lot! Because I work across multiple clients, I get exposure to a lot of different setups. Due to my role, I’ve gained a lot of valuable experience, enabling me to engage more closely with the business aspects rather than solely focusing on the implementation side.

It has been quite fascinating to witness that aspect of the partnership, something I hadn't previously been exposed to. It's an experience that has sparked my enthusiasm, and I look forward to engaging in it more moving forward.

Q: What makes dotcentric such an exciting place to work right now?

A: There’s a lot happening with our clients to help them make the most out of the products they already have. That means helping them understand features and maximising the value of their packages.

We’ve just finished a big project to completely revamp how a commerce website takes and processes payments. The work we’ve done has been well received and provided the client with a much better outcome than their previous implementation.

It’s an exciting time to be at dotcentric. We’ve got plenty of fulfilling projects that we’re working on and there are more in the pipeline.
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Jacob is an invaluable asset to the team, consistently demonstrating exceptional dedication, strong problem-solving skills, and an ability to collaborate effectively. His commitment and outstanding contributions significantly add to the agency's success and foster a positive and thriving work environment. So, congratulations again, Jacob, for your achievement. 

For more information about how our team of Optimizely experts can help achieve your business outcomes, get in touch.