Perficient colleagues within our award-winning Sitecore team bring years of experience and vast knowledge to the practice and our clients. We’re proud to announce that recently nine of our colleagues have been named 2024 Sitecore MVPs.
Below is a deeper look into Eric Sanner’s role as a solutions architect and his first time being awarded a Sitecore MVP. Eric shares his passions outside of work, how he maintains work/life balance, and advice to anyone wanting to become a Sitecore MVP.
How long have you worked at Perficient?
I’ve been here for 8.5 years. I started in October of 2015.
Are you part of any culture groups?
I’m part of the Pride at Perficient group. We have a little grassroots effort of people in the LGBTQIA+ community. We have about 200 members and we’ve been doing a variety of social events geared towards our community and allies.
Within the Sitecore, Optimizely, and Acquia business unit, I also run a group for welcome chats for our new hires. I also host watercooler chats every month as a way for people to connect and not necessarily talk about work. With so many of us working remotely, it’s a great way to connect.
What is your role? How would you describe a typical day in your role?
I’m a solutions architect and mostly focus on Sitecore, primarily back end but I dabble in front end as well. A typical day consists of me interacting with clients, trying to make sure we understand what we’re trying to build and accomplish. I then make sure that I can break that down into manageable pieces of work and either help do some of the work myself or help guide a development team to implement that work. I spend a lot of time doing research on different tools and technologies. Also, I try to make sure that I stay current with my own set of skills.
What has your experience going through the MVP process taught you?
I learned that the Sitecore MVP award isn’t necessarily about your skill level but about your interaction with the community. It is a community-based award and now, being more involved, it has taught me the real value of that community. It’s important to be part of it and make a name for yourself, just really building your reputation and being known for the content you’re putting out there.
What does being a Sitecore MVP mean to you? 
Being an MVP is a really exciting thing. It’s the culmination of years of hard work. It means a lot to me to be recognized for all that effort because it is not an easy thing to work for and acquire. Not everyone who applies is awarded MVP and there is no guarantee you’ll get it again year after year. It’s a continuous thing to keep pushing for. It’s a recognition of all that hard work which is really valuable.
What is your advice to someone who wants to become a Sitecore MVP?
The thing that really helped me and is valuable to anybody who wants to become a future MVP is to learn how to promote yourself. It’s not always easy or comfortable to present to a room full of people. It’s even harder to present and be confident that you know what you’re talking about.
There are a lot of intelligent people in the Sitecore community and trying to put out valuable content and show that your contributions are worth putting out there is always a difficult thing to do. My advice is to trust yourself. Find something that you can contribute to the community that you think is fun and interesting to you. If you don’t think the topic is interesting, then you aren’t going to enjoy creating the content for it. The biggest thing is just to have fun and enjoy the process.
If you had to define yourself using one Perficient value, which would it be and why? (People, pride, clients, innovation, integrity, collaboration)
People always stands out to me. I help run the welcome chats and the watercooler chats so that is something really important to me and it’s one of the things that keeps me here. Perficient is the best place to work and we have the best people. People always say their place is the best and my answer is no different. I think it’s also evident in the fact that sometimes we have people leave and a lot of times they come back because it is such a great place to work. I consider quite a few of my coworkers to be friends and I wish we lived closer and could get together as a group more often.
Outside of work, what are you passionate about?
I live in Philadelphia, so I am really passionate about travel. Living here, we are super close to New York, Washington DC, and the Jersey Shore, and we go visit these places multiple times a year. We love exploring Philadelphia and there’s a ton of great food and plenty of things to do here.
I’m really interested in board games. I have a huge collection of board games that sit behind me all day while I’m working and they show up in the background of my video calls. I try to play at least once a week if I can, maybe more.
The other thing that I am interested in is called acroyoga which is short for acrobatic yoga. It’s similar to Cirque du Soleil in a way. I’m currently trying to learn to do a handstand. I can lift people up with my feet and flip them around in the air.
Perficient believes in a strong work/life balance. What is one way you accomplish this?
I work remote. I have an office inside my house but I am really able to disconnect from that space. My day starts at 8:00 EST and I finish my day at 5:00 EST. That may seem kind of rigid but I’m always on time and anybody that needs to contact me knows that I am available between those hours. Obviously, if I need to stay later and something needs to be done it’s not a big deal. I don’t have work related stuff on my phone either, so it is very easy for me to disconnect from work. Having this set time block works for me. 
Why did you choose Perficient? What keeps you here?
I had been at a small web design company that I helped start. I was there for 15 years and I was looking for something a little bigger and more stable. Then, I went to a job fair at my old college, Ball State University, where I met a group of people from Perficient.
We really connected and they got back to me super quick, and I think I was hired within seven days. I went to the Chicago office where I met several people and signed an offer letter that day. It just comes back to the point of the people here being so great. Everyone I met was so nice and that is a main thing that keeps me here. I really like my job so there’s no reason to leave.
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