Stuff I'm Into
I'm cursed (or blessed) to be fascinated by lots of things.Broadly, these things seem to revolve around food, music, art, sustainability, travel and fermentation. You can learn more about these things from my homesteading blog called Hatching a Plot, or in various collections of links, images and musings around the web.
Hatching A Plot
This blog chronicles our journey to create our own little slice of land in Vermont.
Below are some recent posts:
Personal website update
04/09/25
Winter 2025
03/03/25
Spring 2023 Homestead Tour Videos
06/18/23
Completed Stone Walls in Garden
05/26/21
Starting Again With Ducks
09/14/20
Homestead Resources
Over the past 15+ years we've been learning about farming, goats, cheese, gardening and livestock. Here are some books that have been helpful to us.
If you are interested in similar topics, this section has a lot of great resources and books that we've found along the way in the areas of cheese, goats, poultry, animals, gardening, preserving and brewing.
Media
- Reading continues to be a crucial part of my life. I'm reading currently or some ideas, feel free to check out my GoodReads profile.
- One of my favorite book genres is Fantasy. If you are just starting out in your discovery of this genre or want some ideas of new series to try, here are some of my favorites. Recommended books in the fantasy genre
- It's been difficult to find time to play around with creating my own electronic music lately with kids and other responsibilities, but here are some of my favorite original compositions. These are in various stages of completion and polish, but check them out. song demos
- A short primer on the movie genre of film noir and some recommendations
Music
What I've been listening to
Because They Want Our Seat
Sara Landry
04/23/25 10:50 AM
Heaven
Sara Landry
04/23/25 10:46 AM
Prisoner
Sara Landry
04/23/25 10:41 AM
devotion 396hz
Sara Landry
04/23/25 10:38 AM
Twilight
Slasherez
04/23/25 6:44 AM
Twilight
Slasherez
04/21/25 3:33 PM
Voodoo - Extended Mix
Tinlicker
04/21/25 3:26 PM
Perfect Mistake - Extended Mix
Tinlicker
04/21/25 3:19 PM
Soon You'll Be Gone - Vocal Mix
Tinlicker
04/21/25 10:45 AM
Voodoo
Tinlicker
04/21/25 7:02 AM
About
I'm Curtis Swartzentruber, a technologist and homesteader currently living in Vermont. Learn about both my professional and personal interests here.
About Me
Enterprise Software and Solutions Engineering Leader
I've been working in IT and technology for over 30 years, including software development, consulting, pre-sales and engineering management. Most recently I was VP of Sales Engineering Operations at Kore.ai, which included a wide variety of tasks supporting the global sales and GTM team. I spent much of my career as a developer, software consultant and team leader working across projects encompassing most of the major trends in technology over the years.
My journey began in the early days of the web, where I used a number of full-stack web application technologies. Along the way I've worked on mobile apps, with various cloud platforms, APIs and distributed application components.
Over the past 5-10 years, my focus has been on contact center, customer experience and digital transformation, with a recent deep focus in conversational AI. This included integration work with multiple CCaaS, CRM, data and analytics platforms.
Name
Curtis Swartzentruber
Email
curt AT swartzentruber DOT net
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/skills0/
Working From
Remote
Target Roles
VP/Director/Senior Manager of Sales Engineering/Solutions Architects
I enjoy leading and mentoring teams of SEs or solution architects
AI Strategist or Architect
I believe there is a need for holistic overlay roles that help businesses realize the value and practical application of AI to solve business needs today
Sales Engineer or Solutions Architect Principal/Overlay
As an individual contributor, I would find high impact and generalist/overlay/specialization SE roles the most interesting
Director/Senior Manager of Engineering or Professional Services
I would mainly find this interesting at product company rather than an SI or large services company. I have a lot of experience mentoring and growing teams and individual developers, including teams that span global locations.
Resume
Results-driven IT executive with 30 years of experience leading cross-functional teams and delivering cutting-edge technology solutions. Recent practical expertise in AI strategies, Large Language Models (LLMs), Generative AI, prompt engineering, and agentic workflows. Proven success in VP, Practice Director, Engineering Management and Technical Lead roles, driving business growth, solution architecture, project management, and pre/post-sales strategy. /p>
Work Experience
Here are some recent career highlights. Full resume available upon request.
Kore.ai
Feb 2024 - Feb 2025Vice President of Sales Engineering Operations
- Appointed by CEO to create and manage Sales Engineering Operations team, including process creation, urgent deadlines, prioritization, mentoring and overall solutions design and direction to improve ability to showcase all products. Reported to President/COO.
- Significant global involvement in many key deals including strategy, solutions advising and customized demos and proof-of-concepts. Experience in supporting healthcare, banking/finance, retail, media and utilities verticals.
- Go-to subject matter expert for multiple complex customer and prospect issues, blockers, technical win requirements across both Kore.ai and third party CCaaS/integration platforms such as Genesys, ServiceNow, Salesforce and Zendesk.
- Close collaboration with product engineering team for feature enhancements, deep troubleshooting and advising on complex defects and improving documentation, including rewriting certain public documentation.
- Managed demo team of 25+ based in India, demo environment and all active demos used across global sales organization.
Kore.ai
June 2022 - Feb 2024Partner Solutions Architect
- Key contributor to multiple net new ISV integrations listed in marketplace platforms such as Salesforce, Zendesk and Genesys. Played cross-functional roles in technical oversight, product management, GTM, marketing, content creation and fit-for-market. Enabled solution engineers and account executives to communicate and sell these solutions, including pre-sales and post-sales support.
- Led sales support, discovery, solution design, POC and prototyping work for a variety of partnership and channel approaches, including BPO/MSP, OEM, ISV, Reseller and GSI models.
- Collaborated and advised partnership directors and AEs with GTM and commercial models, strategy, solution blueprints and live demos, leading to channel growth.
- Created technical blog posts, one-pagers, press releases, webinars, enablement sessions and video demos and walkthroughs, driving partner and sales enablement, education and market presence.
Perficient
July 2020 - June 2022Practice Director, Customer Engagement and Contact Center
- Overall customer engagement practice leadership covering resource management, sales support and business development, professional services engagements and Twilio partnership
- Provide delivery team oversight and guidance for 10-20 customer engagements per year Led all stages of professional services delivery (sales qualification, discovery and requirements, estimation, SOW creation, project planning, project oversight and governance, successful delivery)
- Direct supervision, mentoring and coaching of up to 20 engineers at all levels
My Education
I hold a Bachelor of Business Administration from Belmont University. I also briefly studied engineering at the University of Delaware