Hello, Paul! Shed some light on your journey. How did you become a Dynatracer?
I'm from Austria and live in the Salzkammergut region, but I grew up a bit north, in Freistadt — a town with a rich history, where people value close friendships, direct and open communication with everybody, family and… beer. I'm also 50% Czech and grew up bilingually in German and Czech. And all of this is still an important part of who I am.
My interest in technology started early. Even during my years in school, I was drawn to web development, design, hardware, and building things. I was also the teenager assembling his own PC and spending one or the other night gaming, which in hindsight was probably a pretty clear sign.
Academically, I came from the business side: a Bachelor in International Business Administration and a Master in General Management, with a strong focus on innovation & entrepreneurship. During that time, I also had the chance to work on projects involving high-volume data analysis with organizations like CERN, which definitely shaped how I think about technology, scale, and real-world impact.
One of the key turns in my career happened at ENGEL — a global company manufacturing injection moulding machinery. My former boss gave a keynote at an event in Linz, and afterwards I asked him if I could join his team. He said he had an open position, and that became my entry into product management. At ENGEL, I helped build digital solutions for production monitoring, machine learning, condition monitoring, and analytics services from the ground up — very much a 0-to-1 journey.
At some point, I knew I wanted to move further into a pure software environment. At ENGEL, software is important, but still not the main business. At Dynatrace, software is truly at the center of everything — the product, the culture, and the operating model. Before I took the decision to join, the hiring manager called me to explain the additional benefits of becoming a Dynatracer — including the Barista, breakfast and, of course, the after work beer tap. She then asked “Do you know Freistädter Bier actually?” I couldn't resist and joined Dynatrace in 2022. Becoming active in the Dynatrace Community felt like a very natural part of the product onboarding journey.
What do you work on, and what interesting things are you currently involved in?
I'm a Principal Product Manager in Digital Experience and responsible for RUM — Real User Monitoring.
What I enjoy most about the role is the variety. My days are usually a mix of shaping vision and roadmap, aligning with engineering and design, diving into hands-on project work, and talking to customers or partners. I really like that mix of strategy, execution, and real-world feedback. No two days are exactly the same, and that's a big part of what makes the role so interesting for me.
Right now, I'm focused on defining the next highlights we want to bring to the Digital Experience space. There are a lot of exciting opportunities ahead of us — from AI-backed use cases to behavioral analytics and mobile-specific features. At the same time, I'm very interested in how we can use AI more effectively in our everyday product work and value creation as a team.
One initiative I'm especially proud of is our RUM on Grail journey. More than a year ago, we set ourselves an ambitious goal: by the end of March 2026, we wanted at least 50% of customers to enable RUM on Grail. That was a bold target, especially since general availability only happened in January this year after a long and very important preview phase with many customers.
We ended up surpassing that goal, which was a huge milestone for the team. What makes me proud is not just the number itself, but what it represents: customer trust, strong collaboration across teams, and a lot of effort in turning a major platform shift into something customers actually adopt and use successfully.
Your “aha!” moment with Dynatrace — was there a recent problem you solved using our product?
One recent “aha!” moment for me came from working on self-service dashboards to help customers understand how ready they are for RUM on Grail, including all the related configurations and setup details.
What really stood out was how much faster I could move with AI support and tools like dtctl. As a product manager, I could build a first working version myself in under an hour and show that the idea actually works before a team had even refined a story for it. In a more traditional setup, that would have taken much longer and involved more handovers.
I'm not an engineer by education, so moments like that are especially exciting to me. They show how much the gap between idea and execution is shrinking — and how much clarity you can create early if you're willing to explore hands-on.
What makes the Dynatrace Community important to you?
"The Dynatrace Community creates a direct and continuous connection with users, customers, and partners across all kinds of companies and use cases. It's one of the best ways to understand what people are struggling with, what they're excited about, and where we can improve."
It's also a great source of input for the product roadmap. We can measure a lot through product usage and adoption data, of course — but I still love the qualitative part just as much: hearing what people really think, what they're waiting for, and how features help in practice.
And yes, if you work in product, managing close to 500 ideas can be… character-building. So my message to the Community would be: keep sharing feedback, keep asking questions, and please stay a little patient with us. It genuinely matters, and it does influence where we go.
What are your hobbies or passions? What keeps you motivated and brings you the most joy?
Outside work, I try to maintain my “fit dad” status. Family is a big part of what keeps me grounded, and life is definitely full at the moment — balancing work, family, personal goals, and the never-ending project of getting our house and garden into shape after building it and moving in about a year ago.
My wife and I are raising our two children bilingually as well, which is both meaningful and entertaining — especially when you suddenly find yourself relearning Czech children's songs and rhymes together with them. And thanks to my daughter, who loves music and singing, I've also started getting back into playing piano. My wife even organized the piano as a gift, with family contributing to make it happen — so I guess she more or less decided that I'd start playing again.
As much as I enjoy those musical moments at home, I recharge best outside — with fresh air, a steady pace, and usually a lot less harmony, unless you count the sound of nature.
Especially running and mountaineering makes my heart rate go up. My home mountain is the Schafberg, and one of the things I love most is that I can basically leave the house and head straight up — no car needed. Once you're up there, with views over dozens of lakes and mountains, it's a pretty good reminder of how small you are in a very big and fascinating world.
Sharing that passion with the local community is important to me as well. That's why I'm also involved on a voluntary basis with Naturfreunde, helping organize and guide tours for families and other outdoor enthusiasts.
I also think there's a nice product management lesson in hiking: it's not just about reaching the summit, it's about the path — and, just as importantly, getting home safely. That part tends to be underrated in both mountains and product work.
Anything on your bucket list?
I'd love to do more technical mountain routes in the higher alpine region in Italy and Switzerland.
And on a slightly more domestic level, I'm looking forward to the day when the garden is finally in shape, the barbecue is on, and my friends and family can properly enjoy the unique atmosphere around our house.
How can we find you online?
Get in touch on LinkedIn. And if you fancy a vacation in the Salzkammergut, Paul and his family have just started renting out an apartment — check out bergzeit-seensucht.at (vibe-coded and, naturally, monitored with Dynatrace 😉).
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