BlazeMeter Employee Spotlight: Todd Hall, Customer Success Manager

We’re excited to introduce our stupendous customer success manager, Todd Hall. Todd has been working with BlazeMeter since 2010. Before BlazeMeter he worked as an APM architect, in IT management, and in database administration. As is clear from speaking with him and from his impressive resume, Todd is passionate about system performance and helping people understand what’s going on in their systems, because they can use the information to make better decisions. 

Let’s get to know Todd a bit more!

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I live in Dayton, Ohio. Lots of things were invented here, like Cheez-Its, the step ladder, the pop top beverage can, car self-starters, and even airplanes! Personally, I also like science and inventions, I find them very intriguing. I also like metrics because they provide objective information about what’s going on.

What do you do outside of work?

I played football in college and now I follow the games and especially the University of Dayton’s basketball team. I also do woodworking, I fix things around the house and I’m involved in our community. Golf and biking are additional favorite pastimes of mine.

My family and I like to travel and experience different cultures. Four months after my wife and I were married, we moved to Australia and also traveled around China, Egypt and Thailand. Traveling is a wonderful thing to do. You can really see how all people are people, they just want to get along and be safe. Traveling teaches you that. 

I have three children. My son just got married in a surprise Halloween-themed event. I also have two daughters. One is an accountant and the other is an aerospace engineer.

What made you decide to work at BlazeMeter?

I was working for a company in Melbourne, Australia. They put me at the help desk and I got a call from a woman who was frazzled because she had to leave work to pick up her daughter from school, but she was stuck because she was trying to run the end of the day process, and it wasn’t working. I was able to talk her through it so she could go pick up her daughter. At that point, I realized that a computer system needs to be predictable. It can’t go up and down. People have lives and they need to be able to depend on it so they can do their job and go home. That was an important learning point for me.

Later on, at a different part of the company, I wrote metrics into the inventory system’s application so I could track performance. We had warehouses across the country and our people in the field would provide different observations about how the system was performing. Without metrics it was hard to ascertain, because people have different interpretations. The metrics provided an objective account.

So moving into APMs and then to BlazeMeter and performance testing was a natural fit to me. I love performance, I love analyzing metrics for decision-making.

What do you love about working at BlazeMeter?

I like the chance to make a difference in people's work lives. It’s important for me to make a positive difference. Inside BlazeMeter, I like the relationships we’ve built inside our team. This is a very special company. And it’s not just because we’ve traveled together a lot. We’ve been to the Dominican Republic, to Mexico (twice) and to Atlanta, Idaho. Meeting the team has enhanced our relationships and work experiences.

What’s your favorite BlazeMeter feature?

I like how BlazeMeter enables scaling performance testing. There’s only so much you can do on your own locally with JMeter. Scaling opens up lots of new opportunities. I also like the reporting, obviously, because it shows you the metrics.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to run performance tests?

Get solid metrics. Don’t necessarily trust the experts. Going back to the Wright brothers, if they had listened to experts we wouldn’t be flying around the world today. They ran experiments themselves and you should, too. Don’t make assumptions. Instead, try to prove if something works.

What words of wisdom would you give to someone who wants to enter the performance testing job market?

Start by learning JMeter. Download it locally. It’s freely available. It’s not a skill many people have and it will help you stand out.

Get started working with Todd and all the other immensely talented BlazeMeter team members — start testing for free today!

Start Testing Now