Let's get acquainted with Mert Unsal: speaker at Atlassian Conference in Northen Europe 2024 and Senior Solutions Engineer at Atlassian

Atlassian Conference in Northern Europe 2024, taking place on April 4th, is a unique all-day conference and an important connecting place for Atlassian enthusiasts from all over Northern Europe.

In the following interview, we will get acquainted with Mert Unsal, Senior Solutions Engineer at Atlassian and guest speaker at the Atlassian North Europe 2024 conference on April 4.

Hi, Mert! Tell us about yourself and what you do?

Hi! I’m Mert Unsal, a tech passionate professional, Sr. Solutions Engineer with a background in Software Development and IT Operations. I have been living in Turkey and the US for some time before moving to Amsterdam yet I can say I happily found myself and my home in Amsterdam. 

In my personal life I am very much into photography, 3D printing, race biking and gym classes. In my free time I like to travel and explore as much as possible.

Also I must say thanks to Atlassian TEAM ANYWHERE we can work from other countries with certain rules and timelines which I like the most! So since the Netherlands is missing mountains, you can often find me on top of rock or hiking on a mountain trip far away from Amsterdam.

Mert on a hike. Photo: private collection.

Could you share a bit about your journey and how you became a Senior Solutions 
Engineer at Atlassian?

I have joined Atlassian family with the acquisition of Opsgenie where I was a Customer Success Engineer for Opsgenie for 1.5 years already back in the day.

Since September 2018 - time flies! - I’m working in the solution engineering team of Atlassian, covering different products and solutions in various regions within EMEA throughout the years. I’m very excited to be part of this fast developing and growing organization.

At the moment I’m focusing on ITSM solution of Atlassian with Jira Service Management and specializing in incident management processes. 

What does a typical day look like for you as a Senior Solutions Engineer at Atlassian? 

It’s hard to tell! Overall, a solution engineer at Atlassian or in many other organizations could be also called as presales engineer in the simplest version is to support our clients with solutions for the requirements.

At Atlassian we have solution area specializations and I’m one of the ITSM specialist SEs in the team. My typical day usually includes about 1 to 3 customer or partner meetings a day where I’m supporting clients with technical assessment and evaluation of Jira Service Management, introducing our clients to new features and functionalities and supporting them in finding the best suitable solution for their use cases as well as provide feedback to product development for the gaps flagged.

It also means I’m learning something new every day because it’s certain that you will get a question from a partner or you will hear a challenging use case from a client you haven’t heard before.

As you prepare for the Atlassian Conference in Northern Europe 2024, what are you most 
excited about?

It’ll be my first time in Tallinn! I know this is a cliche, but after COVID and the economic slowdowns that followed, it’s going to be a delight to have this in person engagement! There are many interesting conversations to be had – from new features and solutions in ITSM, to governance and ways of working and more.

What trends should professionals in service management be aware of in the coming 
years?

The technology that comes to mind immediately is generative AI, whether that’s Chat-GPT, Sydney, Bard, and a host of others besides. There is a compelling use case of plugging them into your corporate knowledge and collaboration platforms so they can provide users with not just search results, but with actual answers that can string together multiple search results covering different topics.

That’s the difference between searching for the page on expense reimbursements, and being able to ask “can I expense my taxi from my hotel?” and get the correct & comprehensive answer (involving policies, exceptions, submission process, etc.) back without involving a knowledgeable person or manager.

The impact of this technology on knowledge management – and by extension, on self-service portals, ITSM, and ESM – is something I am very excited about. Atlassian has already stepped into smart ways of working with Jira Service Management and we are super eager to understand how this technology evolves with various use cases! 

Your talk is titled “The future of service management with Atlassian.” Can you give us a sneak 
peek into some key points or themes you'll be addressing?

Sure! With this presentation I’m hoping to bring everyone to a certain level of knowledge with Atlassian’s Service Management offering, Atlassian platform and its strengths.

There will also be lots of exciting new features and innovative functionalities in the platform specific to well known processes such as incident management, asset management and more to showcase how we can deliver amazing service experiences to both internal and external users.