Extreme : Living on the Edge and Loving It – My Journey with Extreme

For 25 years, Extreme Networks has been helping customers to advance their digital transformation efforts and deliver progress like never before. As we reflect on our 25 years in business, there's a lot to both celebrate and look forward to. To tell that story, we couldn't think of a better way than to talk with our employees who have been along for the ride. Throughout 2021, we'll be talking with some of our incredible employees that have been with Extreme for 2+ decades, and next up is Rosalie Bibona, Senior Product Manager.

Rosalie started her career with General Electric/Lockheed Martin, and later join a start-up called Mesh Networks which was acquired by Motorola. Through acquisitions, she came to Extreme in 2016 after working for Motorola and Zebra. Today, Rosalie is a Senior Product Manager who works on a variety of projects from new product launches to product development with her focus being on Wi-Fi. Learn more about Rosalie's journey from our Q&A below!

How did you come to Extreme? What has your journey been like?

When my career first started, I was an engineer working for General Electric and later for Lockheed Martin. It was at Lockheed Martin I had my first experience with spinning military 3D simulation technology into commercial products. After working with Sega on 3D textured images and networking arcades games like Daytona 500, I was hooked on bleeding edge products. My next venture was working for a startup, Mesh Networks. Motorola acquired Mesh Networks and later merged with Symbol Technologies. From there, Motorola sold their handheld devices and wireless LAN business to Zebra, and then Zebra was acquired by Extreme in 2016. Before the acquisition, I had worked with Extreme as a partner so when the acquisition happened, I was excited and looking forward to the transition. I enjoyed being a part of the two companies merging because it was such a smooth process and so many of our technologies complemented each other.

How do you help Extreme advance?

My role at Extreme today is developing Wi-Fi solutions, both hardware, and software. In this position, I work a lot with sales and our strategic accounts to understand customer wants and needs to develop a product that will help both Extreme and our customers advance. For example, after meeting with some customers that were having challenges with connections in underground subway systems, we started implementing changes to our products that would help solve that issue. What I've learned is I never jump to conclusions about what the problem is even though everybody might want to. You really have to hone in on the issue with your engineers and your QA group.

What is your favorite part of your job?

My favorite part of my job is getting to work with amazing people and customers. Throughout my career, I have gotten to work with the best of the best internally and some really amazing customers. Specifically, I love working with everyone and coming together as a team on our product launches. We all work so well together - they always end up amazing and we have fun doing it!

What makes Extreme different from other companies?

The people. Plain and simple, Extreme hires the best of the best! I have not met a single person here that I can't work with because everyone is approachable and always willing to do what it takes to make sure everything is done and done well. Extreme's strategic vision, product roadmaps and my coworkers are the reason I wake up every morning happy to go to work. The quality assurance (QA) group here is amazing, probably the best quality team I've ever worked with and our supply chain is off the charts - that team is untouchable!

What has been your biggest achievement in your career?

We have been able to accomplish so much together working as a team. I am proud of the 11ax launch in the stadium market and meeting deadlines. The team all stepped up to the plate, and when you get everybody running in the same direction, you're successful. That is just one example of many of what we have accomplished here at Extreme, we are always doing the impossible and achieving success.

How would you describe Extreme?

Living on the edge.

Here at Extreme, we are always designing state-of-the-art technology and coming up with innovative ideas to enhance the experiences of our customers. I say, "living on the edge," because I feel that we are always willing to take risks and don't see failure as negative, we see it as a "first draft" and are able to go back and improve.

25 Years Young and Still Growing - Join Rosalie and the Rest of the Team!

Visit our careers page to explore opportunities in product management as well as the many other roles in which you can advance and help Extreme drive effortless networking experiences for enterprises worldwide.