In 2022, my employer began going through an acquisition process. This brought new opportunities to grow in ways that it has never before been able to. The biggest change that I've encountered so far has been the expansion into the European market. One of our leaders recently performed a “roadshow” in which he met with a number of European companies demonstrating our services and abilities. European companies have started working with us and this is very new for both management and the technical staff like myself. Three or so months on, I wanted to note some of my lessons learned working with European clients.

Lesson 1

First and foremost: Timezones will destroy your flow, and you’re going to need a good PM. I know this seems obvious, but as an American working with teams in both Europe and Malaysia, it can take almost 24 hours to get a response to an email. This changes the flow of a project in ways you might not expect. In order to get the information you need in a timely manner (read: in time for your deadlines), you must predict future questions and blockers and get the conversation started early.

Not only that, but meeting times are more limited, and you must value every minute of those meetings more than you have in the past. It becomes much more important to know your specific questions beforehand, as well as know exactly who you need to talk to.

A good project manager becomes much more valuable in this environment. They will need to juggle scheduling meetings with limited availability, managing deadlines and deliverables, and keeping the meetings on track and efficient. Doing this may sound easy, but it is more of an art than a science, and a great PM will lower the burden and stress on the rest of the team.

Lesson 2

Second is to lean into cultural differences. The European clients I’ve worked with are much more interested in getting a large amount of documentation than the American clients I’ve worked with. While this can feel challenging to some consultants, this allowed me to flex my documentation creation muscles and create many templates that myself and coworkers will use on future projects. This will allow me to deliver higher quality documentation to all my future clients, increasing the value of both my and my company’s services.

Lesson 3

Finally, and most importantly, my biggest takeaway is that the “game” hasn’t changed. I’m still working with the same tech, building it out and designing it for the same reasons I have at every American company I’ve consulted at before. I work with the same coworkers and managers for the same end goals as I always have. It’s easy to psych yourself out with new international opportunities, but the “game” is fundamentally the same.

Overall, working with international companies has been very interesting. It has allowed me and my employer to grow in ways I never thought possible. I’m very excited to continue doing this and am looking forward to a great 2023!

Disclaimer: The opinions and content are my own and do not necessarily represent the positions or opinions of my employers or clients.