As part of a new ongoing Q&A series spotlighting our employees, CDS introduces you to dedicated individuals whose outstanding work contributes to the success of our mission.

Below is the interview held with Mohamad Sbeiti (Platform Support for the CDS Platform products).

“We help people do their jobs more easily. When issues come up, we work through them so departments don’t have to spend time figuring them out on their own. We support teams throughout their work and aim to make them feel like they have someone they can reach out to when they need help. We provide real human support, not a chatbot, and that adds a lot of value to our Platform products. What makes this work rewarding is that we’re supporting departments across the federal government, and through them, helping deliver services to people in Canada.”

Q1. What is your role at CDS?

“My role is divided into three key areas, including client support, technical demonstrations, and internal process improvement. I assist users with technical issues and product-related inquiries, support the Growth team during product demonstrations by providing technical expertise and answering technical questions, and develop automation, documentation, and customization solutions to improve internal workflows and operational efficiency.”

What skills would you say are needed on a day-to-day basis to do this role?

• Adaptability: Be able to shift between tasks and respond effectively to changing priorities.
• Continuous learning: Maintain curiosity and a willingness to learn as new challenges and technologies emerge.
• Problem assessment: Understand the complete scope of an issue before taking action to ensure an effective resolution and clear client communication.
• Provide high-quality customer service: Be patient with your clients as they will not necessarily have the same level of expertise with using the product.

Q2. How would you say your work impacts the product teams as a whole?

“My work helps the product teams by showing them what real users are experiencing in production. When an issue comes up, I investigate the issue and make sure the product team understands what’s going on, how often it happens, and how it affects the user. So this helps them prioritize fixes and improvement based on real client (product user) impact, not just theory.”

Q3. What does a typical day look like, and what does Platform Support actually do for the teams using our products?

“Most of my day is filtering incoming requests, investigating issues, and communicating with the teams who reach out. I check new tickets, prioritize based on urgency, and then spend some time reproducing the issue on our end so we understand the root cause, not just patch the symptom. A lot of the job is coordination: with the product teams when something needs to change, with the department’s team when an integration is involved, with the client to make sure they understand what happened.”

Some examples of where this has made a real difference:

Example #1: 

“Earlier this year, a department preparing to launch a benefits form on GC Forms encountered an issue just two days before their scheduled go-live date. Within four hours, we reproduced the problem, identified the root cause, and worked with the team to implement a solution. The issue involved a form configuration feature, such as conditional logic and translations. With the fix in place, the department was able to launch the form on schedule without delays.”

Example #2:

“A department using GC Notify was preparing to send a campaign of more than 250,000 emails. In the week leading up to the launch, we worked closely with them to test their configuration, identify potential rate-limit constraints, and adjust their daily sending limits accordingly. As a result, the campaign was delivered successfully without any issues.”

What these examples share is what every Platform Support ticket has: we focus on getting your service live and working.

Q4. What’s something you’ve learned in this role that has surprised you? What is one part of your job that people underestimate?

“What surprised me most was how important clarity and context are when resolving issues quickly. Often, the speed of a resolution depends less on the complexity of the problem and more on how clearly it is described from the start. Because of this, I learned to ask better questions upfront and make sure I fully understand the situation before jumping into troubleshooting.

The aspect of the role that people underestimate is the importance of translating technical information into language clients can easily understand. For example, when leading a technical meeting for a small team, some attendees may not be familiar with the terminology being used. Part of my role is explaining how the product works in a way that helps them use it effectively. Learning how to communicate complex information to less technical users in a clear and approachable way is a skill I’ve developed throughout this experience.”

Q5. What makes this work special and unique?

“We help people do their jobs more easily. When issues come up, we work through them so departments don’t have to spend time figuring them out on their own. We support teams throughout their work and aim to make them feel like they have someone they can reach out to when they need help. We provide real human support, not a chatbot, and that adds a lot of value to our Platform products. What makes this work rewarding is that we’re supporting departments across the federal government, and through them, helping deliver services to people in Canada.

I would also say the customer service aspect, as that adds uniqueness in how we help our clients to use these products.This connection with our clients allows us to note all the interesting use cases of CDS Platform products across the country.”