Meet a Helpful Human – Wade Wachs

We’re the employees you would hire if you could. Responsive, helpful, and dedicated in ways automation simply can’t be. We’re your team.

Each month we recognize one of our Most Helpful Humans in Hosting.

Meet Wade Wachs

In your eyes, what’s the difference between Liquid Web and other employers?

I have been in the hosting industry for over 10 years. At Liquid Web, I have enjoyed a lot of room to experiment, which has given me a lot of room to grow and learn. For example, early in my career at Liquid Web, I helped our software development teams experiment with processes and workflows, but during the last few years, I have been working with a team focused on understanding our customers through data and analytics. I love being able to try new things.

The space to experiment in my career with different paths and skills is something I see as unique compared to my peers at other companies.

What draws you to the hosting industry as a career?

The technical challenges of automating a data center are incredibly interesting to me, especially challenges like handling new products, billing, e-commerce and beyond. In addition to solving our own challenges, I love to see what our customers are creating. As I’m working on accounts, I often see domain names that pique my interest and I just have to check them out. I have stumbled across many interesting businesses based on fun domain names.

What is the biggest milestone you’ve accomplished?

In my six years at Liquid Web, I have seen lots of change, having been part of several major shifts in the Software Development organization. The project I am most proud of, however, is the creation of our entire Business Intelligence framework. One of the tasks we focus the framework on is a deep understanding of the reasons customers contact our support. After all, the best customer experience with support is when we fix the systems before a problem arises in the first place.

My role is to gather the data and help us look for trends of issues our customers are experiencing. Some recent examples of work that has come out of this analysis include recognizing a trend with spam issues in cPanel hosted email, as well as improving the SSL and domain purchasing experiences.

Tell us about a truly rewarding experience you’ve had with a customer?

One of my former employers hosted their own servers in our colocation space at one of our data centers. Even though it was a 6-hour round trip, they had to send IT folks down about once a quarter to swap drives, add RAM, move data, and perform maintenance on their servers.

On one of their trips, as I was giving them a tour of our facilities, I was able to teach them about our other products and offerings, including our Managed Hosting offerings. A former IT employee had chosen colocation services without any input from the rest of the company. After his departure, they were very happy to hear about our Managed offerings and decided to migrate to them almost immediately.

We were able to save their entire travel budget for managing their server. They were much happier, and so were we. A win-win.

Work aside, what are some of your hobbies?

I am a scoutmaster in a local Boy Scout troop, and I love to mentor and help boys grow different skillsets. I am also an avid juggler.

In the summer, I love having water balloon fights with my kids. We have anywhere from 5-10 big water balloon fights each summer. Believe me, you don’t want to cross me in a water balloon fight. Ask my family.

What is your favorite TV show?

Gilmore Girls (that’s right, I said it!). While I watch the show for the incredible writing, I do have some opinions on the Team Jesse vs. Team Logan debate. It may be because I work around a bunch of Star Wars nerds, but I consider myself on Team Wookie.

You can follow Wade on LinkedIn. Or, check out the helpful articles he’s written for Liquid Web.

We hope you enjoyed our series, and stay tuned for the next Most Helpful Human in Hosting profile.