IT Career Energizer

Arlene Andrews is a self-guided learner who has moved into the Quality Advocate section of the tech world with Lightning Fox. In this episode Phil and Arlene discuss the importance of continual learning, why you should do due diligence on a company before agreeing to join them and how the current diversity trend is impacting the way the tech industry works.   KEY TAKEAWAYS: (4.10) TOP CAREER TIP Be curious and interested in everything. The more you know the easier it is to find interesting projects and people to work with.   (5.16) WORST CAREER MOMENT A start-up Arlene worked for is now being investigated for major fraud. The fraud took place around the time she left. The experience has taught her to be a little bit more cynical and to carry out more due diligence before accepting new positions or projects.   (6.33) CAREER HIGHLIGHT Working on a group project with the CodingBlocks Slack folks is currently Arlene’s career highlight. The idea came from the community and the CodingBlocks team decided to make it a reality. It is a large scale ongoing project that will help people across the world. Arlene is enjoying being part of something that is bigger than herself. It is enabling her to explore new tech and get over her imposter syndrome.   (8.14) THE FUTURE OF CAREERS IN I.T The fact that people from all fields are now able to get involved in the IT industry is an exciting trend. It means that people are now able to make tech their 2nd career.  Arlene is self-educated, yet has still been able to have a successful IT career. Having people from different backgrounds involved in the industry is helping companies to see things from a different perspective. As a result, they are able to serve more people efficiently.   (10.20) THE REVEAL What first attracted you to a career in I.T.? – At the time that Arlene was introduced to computing, things in were not going the way she wanted in the rest of her life. So, being able to get her VIC 20 computer to do what she told it was an utter delight. What’s the best career advice you received? – If something catches your interest, find out more and try using what you learn. What’s the worst career advice you received? – When Arlene entered college, she was told to become a secretary and get a job with a company she could stay with for life. These days, following that sort of path is no longer necessary, for anyone. What would you do if you started your career now? – Arlene jokes that she would have started her IT career 20 years earlier. What are your current career objectives? – This year, she is due to speak at a couple of conferences and is working on growing her blog. What’s your number one non-technical skill? Short story telling has taught Arlene how to engage her audience in fun yet effective ways. How do you keep your own career energized? – Giving back to the community keeps Arlene engaged and energized. She spends a lot of time on the developer focused slacks tracking down answers for people’s questions. What do you do away from technology? – Arlene enjoys writing, knitting and she tries to walk. But, the thing she enjoys most is being out with people seeing how they use and enjoy tech.   (18.00) FINAL CAREER TIP – Stay curious. Keep doing what you are doing, but be sure to expand to cover all of the bases and be ready for the future.   BEST MOMENTS (4.12) – Arlene - “Be interested in everything.” (11.52) – Arlene - “Just try it.” (12.48) – Arlene - “Don’t get locked into one way of looking at how to do things” (14.14) – Arlene - “Start your IT career young and start safely.” (17.59) – Arlene - “Stay curious and expand your knowledge to cover all of the bases.”   ABOUT THE HOST – PHIL BURGESS Phil Burgess is an independent IT consultant who has spent the last 20 years helping organisations to design, develop and implement software solutions.  Phil has always had an interest in helping others to develop and advance their careers.  And in 2017 Phil started the I.T. Career Energizer podcast to try to help as many people as possible to learn from the career advice and experiences of those that have been, and still are, on that same career journey.   CONTACT THE HOST – PHIL BURGESS Phil can be contacted through the following Social Media platforms: Twitter: https://twitter.com/philtechcareer LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/philburgess Facebook: https://facebook.com/philtechcareer Instagram: https://instagram.com/philtechcareer Website: https://itcareerenergizer.com/contact Phil is also reachable by email at phil@itcareerenergizer.com and via the podcast’s website, https://itcareerenergizer.com Join the I.T. Career Energizer Community in Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/ITCareerEnergizer   ABOUT THE GUEST – ARLENE ANDREWS Arlene Andrews is a self-guided learner who has moved into the Quality Advocate section of the tech world with Lightning Fox. Having previously worked in a wide range of business operational roles she is now able to leverage her experiences of supporting customers in her new role.  She is also a fan of learning and has a passion for connecting people to resources that will foster improvements.   CONTACT THE GUEST – ARLENE ANDREWS Arlene Andrews can be contacted through the following Social Media platforms: Twitter: https://twitter.com/ArleneAndrews_1 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arlene-andrews-a02a7a107/ Website: https://arleneandrews.github.io/    

My guest on today’s show is a senior cloud advocate for Microsoft.  As a member of the Azure engineering team, he engages with the community and customers around the world to share his knowledge and collect feedback to improve the Azure platform.   Prior to working for Microsoft, he was a Lead Architect for a consulting and engineering company in Switzerland.   EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Thomas Maurer. He works for Microsoft as a senior cloud advocate. In that role, he engages with customers and the community to use the cloud to transform their businesses. He is part of the Azure engineering team. Thomas has been awarded the Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) Award, several times. He is also an accomplished public speaker and the author of two books. Over the years, he worked as a software and systems engineer for several companies. Prior to joining Microsoft, he was the Lead Architect for a Swiss engineering and consulting firm. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (1.15) – So, Thomas can you tell us a bit about your career before joining Microsoft. Thomas explains that he started his IT career straight after he left school. He began by working for a firm of consultants, then a service provider, before returning to consulting and engineering. He ended up working a lot with Visual Studio. So, when he got the chance to be a Microsoft Cloud Advocate he couldn’t resist saying yes. Thomas really enjoys the fact that the role keeps him close to the community, attending events, learning and helping others to do more. (4.18) – Can you please share a unique career tip with the I.T. career audience? Thomas says it is very important to learn to stay positive. Things are bound to go wrong. Maintaining a positive attitude helps you to get through those times and make what you are working on a success. Over the years, Thomas has noticed that negativity attracts negative things. The mindset of the workforce has a huge impact on a company. Of course, at times, things get tough, but being optimistic keeps you going and takes you through it. (6.26) – Can you tell us about your worst career moment? And what you learned from that experience. Many years ago, Thomas spotted a job he really wanted. But, he just assumed he was not experienced enough to land the role, so he did not apply. Instead, he set his sights lower and joined another company. When he rang a friend to tell them about his new job, they thought he was crazy for taking it and told him that they could have helped him to land the job he really wanted. They said so in a nice way, but it was still a bit deflating. At that point, Thomas realized that not applying for his dream job was a mistake. It felt pretty bad, but he had said yes, so he started working for the other company. Only then did he realize how big a mistake he had made. They did not have the right type of projects for his skill set and what he wanted to learn. So, for a few months, his career progression slowed. Fortunately, not long afterwards, he was offered his dream job. But, he played things cool and told them he wanted to sleep on it. This gave him time to think and be certain that he was not making a mistake. In the morning, he took the job, which turned out to be one of the best decisions he has ever made. (10.30) – What was your best career moment? Of course, landing his dream job was a big moment. So, was getting his first Windows Insider MVP award, in 2012. He is especially proud of the fact that one of the chairmen nominated him. Thomas loves working with the community, speaking, blogging and helping others. But, it felt great to have his efforts recognized. Over the years, Thomas has won several MVPs and other awards. (14.39) – Can you tell us what excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? The never-ending variety of the projects you end up working on keeps things exciting and interesting. But, Thomas thinks the changes cloud computing has brought have been particularly exciting. Better still, there is more to come. He also sees machine learning, IoT, 5G and AI bringing in another wave of drastic changes. The list of new opportunities this tech opens up is endless. (16.52) – What drew you to a career in IT? It was Thomas’ love of gaming that laid the foundations for his IT career. Through it, he got into building his own computers and optimising the operating system. (17.30) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? The best career advice Thomas given was not to complain too much. Instead, work to make things better. (17.47) - Conversely, what is the worst career advice you've ever received? Someone once told Thomas to stretch the truth a bit. Thomas does not feel comfortable doing that. He believes that if you take that approach, in the end, people will lose trust in you. (18.19) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? Thomas says he would become a data scientist, working with AI and machine learning. (18.50) – What are you currently focusing on in your career? Of course, Thomas is focusing on adjusting to a different working environment. His role as a cloud advocate requires him to spend a lot of customers listening to their issues. So, at the moment, he is honing his listening skills. It is vital that he truly listens to what they are saying. If he fails to do this he cannot make the right decisions. (19.38) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? Thomas feels that is his presentation skills. It was a tough skill for him to learn because he was a very shy person, but he is glad that he did. (20.26) - What do you do to keep your own IT career energized? Being a person who wants to know it all helps to keep Thomas’ career energized. He finds being on the bleeding edge keeps him interested and engaged. (20.59) - What do you do in your spare time away from technology? Thomas enjoys running, playing badminton and going to the gym. They offer him the chance to completely switch off from work-related things.  (21.50) – Phil asks Thomas to share a final piece of career advice with the audience. Never give up on the things that are important is Tomas’ parting piece of career advice. Not everything will come easily, but, in the end, you will get there. Good results, often require a lot of hard work and effort. BEST MOMENTS: (3.24) THOMAS – "Listen to your customers. Think about what’s on their minds, what is stopping them from succeeding." (4.41) THOMAS – "What's helped me a lot is staying positive." (6.19) THOMAS – "Enthusiasm is infectious."  (17.26) THOMAS – "Stop complaining. Instead, take action and make things better." (22.02) THOMAS – "Never give up. Be persistent and put in the practice to reach your goal." CONTACT THOMAS: Twitter: https://twitter.com/ThomasMaurer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasmaurer2/ Website: https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/

My guest on today’s show is Chief Architect at Headspring, author of MVC in Action books, an international speaker and a prolific OSS developer.  He is an expert in distributed systems, REST, messaging, domain-driven design and CQRS.   EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s podcast is Jimmy Bogard. He has a BSEE in Computer Engineering. But, he became a software developer and engineer. Jimmy worked for Icabob Design, VI Technology and Dell Inc in those roles. In 2008, he joined Headspring and, today, he is their Chief Architect. Jimmy is an expert in distributed systems, REST, domain-driven design, messaging and CQRS. He is also the author of the ASP.NET MVC in Action books, as well as a prolific OSS developer and public speaker. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (00.46) – So, Jimmy, could you tell us a little bit more around your background and your current role as chief architect at Headspring? Jimmy starts by explaining that he graduated with a computer engineering degree and kind of fell into an IT career, when he left university. In time, he landed a job at Headspring. (1.47) – Can you please share a unique career tip with the I.T. career audience? When he studied to become a computer engineer he was told that to succeed in that field you need to be continuously learning. He was told that he would need to reinvent himself every 5 or 10 years. It was a good habit to get into. When he moved into software he was already able to move from one technology to another fairly quickly. Jimmy says it is also important to stay in the know. That way you will be learning and growing in the right ways. In other words you have to become a T-shaped developer. That is to say you have a broad knowledge of a lot of subjects and technologies. But, have also taken the time to dive deep on at least one of them. (3.07) – What approach do you take when learning new technologies? Jimmy explains that the client’s needs drive the skills he learns. He focuses on learning those technologies that will help them to achieve their goals. You have to be careful not to dive in too deep. If you do that you spend too much time learning and not enough time working on the projects. To stop that from happening Jimmy periodically pauses and asks himself does this really matter? If the answer is no, he stops learning that tech or skill and focuses on something that is more relevant to what he is working on, at that moment. (4.11) – Can you tell us about your worst career moment? And what you learned from that experience. Years ago, Jimmy was working on a loyalty rewards project for a major retailer. He came up with what he thought was an important, but easy change to implement. For some reason, it went live not long before Black Friday, the busiest time of the year for the retailer. Unfortunately, a mistake slipped through. Jimmy had miss configured the dependency injection container in a way that registered some components twice. The net result was that everyone was awarded double reward points. Worse, nobody noticed the error for about 10 days. When the client asked him to check he did. But, he only ran the test locally. Not in the full environment. So, everything looked fine. In reality there was an issue. People were receiving a 10% off coupon via email. Followed shortly by an identical coupon giving them another 10% off, which they were not actually entitled to. The customers thought it was their lucky day, so did not complain. So, there were no emails from them saying there was an issue. Just a spike in the figures that was disguised by the fact this was all happening at the retailer’s busiest time. Eventually, Jimmy could see the issue and was able to fix it. But, he felt awful. The mistake was an expensive one. Understandably, the retailer did not want to take the coupons off of their customers. They were only able to revoke the duplicates that were attached to unopened emails. Naturally, changes were made to make sure something like that could not happen again. One of which is to track the key metrics and forecast what they should look like once any changes went live. Now, if they change up or down further than anticipated the system immediately flags it as a potential issue. This triggers extra tests to track down and solve any issues. (10.49) – What was your best career moment? Jimmy says that it is the things that he deliberately set out to achieve that he is proudest of. For example, building a system for a local county government in Texas, whose budget had just been slashed. For them, he took a 100% paper-based case file system and digitized it. They had tried off the shelf software, but none of it quite worked for them. When Jimmy presented his tailor-made solution to the team, he got a standing ovation. They like it that much. Better still, Jimmy was able to physically see what a difference his new system made. (13.52) – Can you tell us what excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? The fact that the work he and other IT professionals do makes it possible for companies to do things they could not before is exciting. Jimmy knows the work he and other IT professionals makes a huge difference to people. (15.10) are there any particular tech advancements you are attracted to? Jimmy’s interest lies in technologies that help people to get their jobs done faster. (16.20) – What drew you to a career in IT? When he graduated, there were not enough computer engineering jobs to go around in Texas. He realised he had to do something else and decided to get involved in software. After all, everyone needs software and it is constantly evolving. (16.57) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? About 12 or 13 years ago, his mentor suggested to Jimmy that he start a public blog. He did, and that was what sped up his progress in the IT industry. It is something Jimmy recommends others do too. He finds that writing things down chrysalises his thoughts about things. (19.02) - Conversely, what is the worst career advice you've ever received? When he and his fellow graduates spoke to their professor about the fact they could not find jobs, his professor suggested they all go to graduate school. Advice Jimmy did not follow. He did not want to spend even more time and money studying, especially because there was no guarantee it would improve his job prospects. (19.48) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? Jimmy says he would focus on finding good mentors from the start. Early in his career, he made the mistake of trying to emulate what the most popular and vocal developers were doing. But, his hero worship only took him so far. His mentors helped him far more. (20.47) – What are you currently focusing on in your career? Jimmy is working on his communication skills. He wants to be able to effectively communicate with, and influence, people who are high up in the structure of organizations. The more they understand, the better their IT-related decisions will be. He believes that this top-down approach will lead to fewer people working on projects that were flawed from the start and never see the light of day. (22.23) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? When we build something the customer does not like we all have a tendency to blame them. In reality, most of the time, both parties play a role in these types of failure. Usually, it comes down to bad communication. Over the years, Jimmy has honed his communication skills, which has helped him to get better results for his customers and build a successful career. So, he sees that as his number one non-technical skill. (23.45) - What do you do to keep your own IT career energized? Jimmy has found keeping on the move helps to energize his career. Working on projects that keep him learning is essential. That is part of the reason consulting is such a good fit for him. He finds that role to be particularly energizing. (26.46) – Phil asks Jimmy to share a final piece of career advice with the audience. When Jimmy first started out he had a really bad case of imposter syndrome. He felt he could not match up to his heroes. The guys he followed and whose books he read. Around 2003, he attended a Java conference and was able to meet some of them. He went up to one of them and said something like I am happy to meet you, congratulated him on his work and told him that he was one of his heroes. The guy said thank you. But, he also said “we’re all just developers.” Basically, people trying to figure out what we’re doing and learn how to do things better. In short, all developers are novices, beginners who need to work together to figure things out. In the world of IT, you will rarely find one true expert. Things move too fast for that to happen. Nobody is an imposter, we are all still learning and everyone has something to contribute. BEST MOMENTS: (2.07) JIMMY – "Career-wise you have to reinvent yourself every five or 10 years." (2.28) JIMMY – “Make sure that you're always growing and expanding." (13.52) JIMMY – "It is exciting to know that the things we build enable our customers to do things they couldn’t before." (17.48) JIMMY – "Writing helps me to crystallize thoughts about things." (27.58) JIMMY – "Embrace your imposter syndrome. It's OK not to know exactly what you’re doing, because no one else does either." CONTACT JIMMY: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jbogard LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimmybogard/ Website: https://jimmybogard.com/

My guest on today’s show is a JavaScript developer, consultant, author and, educator.  He is a huge proponent of the web as a mobile app platform and wants to help developers push it to the next level.  Henrik is also a conference speaker and has taught workshops for Frontend Masters and O’Reilly and author of the book Human JavaScript.   EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s I.T. Career Energizer podcast is Henrik Joreteg. He is an independent JavaScript Consultant, speaker, and trainer who is particularly interested in the intersection between web and machine learning. Henrik specializes in building Progressive Web Apps using tools like Redux and React/Preact. His consultancy work has led to him working on projects for firms like Microsoft, Starbucks, and Groove. Henrik is the author of the popular book Human JavaScript. He has also helped clients like AT&T, Ericsson, and Pacific Northwest National Labs build modern JavaScript applications KEY TAKEAWAYS: (00.43) – Please expand on my introduction and tell us a bit more about yourself. Henrik explains that he has been involved in the IT industry for a while, so his career has been varied. Recently he has helped Starbucks with the architect of their progressive web app. He also now spends quite a bit of time consulting. Recently, he wrote and published the Human Redux Book, a kind of follow up to an earlier book he wrote. (1.53) – Can you please share a unique career tip with the I.T. career audience? You need to make sure that you are able to continue learning. If your current role is not allowing you to do this, you should move on. Continually pushing yourself out of your comfort zone a little ensures you continue to learn and stay relevant. It also builds confidence and turns you into a more attractive employee. As a result, finding well-paid work is never a problem. Be especially careful if you are working for a large company. While working for a firm like that, is all too easy to stagnate and not make an impact. In the long-term, doing this will harm your career and stop you from increasing your wage packet. At the very least, take on a side project that pushes you. Because you are doing them outside of the confines of your workplace you are free to explore and take your skills in new directions. (4.15) – Are your books an example of this? Yes, the first one Human JavaScript certainly was. At the time, Henrik had been working on a cutting edge app which included real-time asset tracking transposed over a map. Something nobody else was doing back then. So, he wanted to show the world what could be achieved by working with JavaScript slightly differently. Writing the book was a lot of work, but it pushed him to develop new skills. More importantly, because he gave the book away free, he was able to help other developers, from across the world, to break through and create exciting tools. (6.01) – Can you tell us about your worst career moment? And what you learned from that experience. Early in his career, Henrik had a job where he was not given enough work. So, he used some of his spare time to teach himself Python and work on a side project. Unfortunately, doing this got him in a bit of trouble. Henrik had built a Twitter bot that followed people on the platform. This activity got him added to a watch list. After about a month of monitoring him, he was called in and spoken to about his internet usage at work. They explained that his work was good, but they had concerns. Henrik was not impressed by the fact that they decided to monitor his activity instead of speaking to him and explaining the issue straight away. So, a month later he left. His other low point happened when he found himself working virtually around the clock on a collaborative project. At the time, his daughter was very young. So, she really needed his attention. But, he didn’t have any time free to spend with her. He hated being in that situation. At that point, he realized that things had to change. So, he started to take steps to get his work/life balance back. (9.18) – What was your best career moment? Developing and launching the Starbucks app has been a highlight. Both Google IO and Microsoft built their versions on the same day. Creating the SimpleWebRTC library was another highlight. He landed several talking gigs off the back of it. For example, speaking at dotJS, in Paris, where he spoke in front of 1000 people. (10.33) – Can you tell us what excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? The fact there is still so much to do and achieve is really exciting. Seeing people applying machine learning to old problems is particularly interesting. Henrik is especially interested in the intersection between web and machine learning. He has a lot of friends who are dentists and doctors. Henrik can see dozens of ways tech can be used to help them to work more efficiently. It is just one example of how much more there is still out there for IT professionals to do. (12.36) – What drew you to a career in IT? Henrik admits that he kind of fell into it. At university, he studied finance and entrepreneurship. When he came to start his own business, he realized that every interesting business idea he could think of was web-based. At the time, he had no money to hire developers, so realized he would need to learn how to do some of it himself. So he signed up for Lynda.com and watched the how to build applications with ColdFusion video. Armed with that information, he built his first web app. Then he landed a job with ESRI in Redmond and was lucky enough to work with the ColdFushion expert Louis Mohan. (15.34) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? Keep learning, but try not to take yourself too seriously. Stay humble and your confidence will grow. In time you will realize that it is your ability to figure out what you need to learn to solve the problem that is your most important skill. (16.44) - Conversely, what is the worst career advice you've ever received? A lot of people have told him to follow his passion. Henrik does not believe this to be good advice. It is far more important to be doing work that has an impact and enables you to eventually achieve a high level of autonomy. (17.32) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? Henrik would probably follow the same path. He would want to continue to be a generalist rather than a specialist. Henrik thinks that being able to handle a whole project is very beneficial. By taking this approach, you eventually find what you are good at. When you do, you can specialize and make that your passion. His advice is to take an entry level job, somewhere you can learn. A lot of small companies will give you the chance to get your hands on lots of stuff. Once you have learned everything you can, don’t be afraid to move on to the next opportunity. (19.12) – What are you currently focusing on in your career? Henrik wants to be more autonomous. He is working to gain more control of his life. His aim is to earn good money, but, still have time to do other things, in particular, with his family. (20.30) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? For Henrik, having a general understanding of business has helped his career a lot. Being able to see things from the perspective of the end user is very beneficial. Understanding how organizations work and people think are both great soft skills to have as an IT professional. They ensure that the solutions you come up with are truly effective. (21.36) - What do you do to keep your own IT career energized? Henrik works to make sure that he gives every project all he’s got. This approach gets the best results and helps to drive your career forward. (22.41) - What do you do in your spare time away from technology? For many years, Henrik did nothing much outside of tech. But, for the past few years, he has worked to get back into enjoying outdoor activities. They have a boat and enjoy skiing and camping, as a family. (23.27) – Phil asks Henrik to share a final piece of career advice with the audience. If you are working as a consultant, don’t set yourself up as the expert. When you do that you hold yourself apart from your client. Your relationship with your client should be a collaborative one. It is important to become a part of their team. When you do that their problems become your problems. The issues you are there to solve. It also ensures that you stay aligned with the people you are there to help. BEST MOMENTS: (3.04) HENRIK – "Staying with a big company, when you're not actively learning and getting pushed, is an expensive mistake to make." (11.43) HENRIK – "There are so many cool problems to tackle." (11.45) HENRIK – "It's fascinating to see people applying new things like machine learning to old problems" (16.12) HENRIK – "Your confidence doesn't come from what you know; your confidence comes from your ability to figure out what you need to know." (20.52) HENRIK – "At the end of the day, every problem is a people problem." CONTACT HENRIK: Twitter: https://twitter.com/henrikjoreteg LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/henrikjoreteg/ Website: https://joreteg.com/  

GUEST BIO: My guest on today’s show is a public speaker, blogger, and technical writer.  She has spoken at more than 40 conferences in three continents on a variety of topics.  She is also a Senior Developer Advocate for LaunchDarkly and she specializes in creating entire documentation suites for new companies.   EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on his IT Career Energizer podcast, today, is Heidi Waterhouse. She is an accomplished technical writer. Heidi has a talent for quickly understanding complex systems and creating clear and concise documentation. Heidi is also a well known public speaker and blogger. She has delivered talks at 40+ conferences, across three continents. Currently, she is working for LaunchDarkly as a Senior Developer Advocate. Her role there involves listening to current and potential clients to understand their needs and help the development team to meet and exceed them. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (00.37) – Can you perhaps tell us a little bit of why you got into public speaking blogging and technical writing as well? Heidi explains that it kind of happened by accident. While at university, she got mononucleosis and had to spend a semester at home. During her recovery, she was given a musical optical character recognition project to work on. She enjoyed the work so much that she wrote up a set of instructions. She wanted to make sure that others could make the magic happen and enjoy using the system to the extent she had. Heidi enjoyed doing that so much that, when she returned to university she changed her degree to technical writing. When she started working independently she got into public speaking. At first, because it was an effective way of promoting what she had to offer. She helped audiences to see that hiring a technical writer makes a lot of sense. In the end, it is far cheaper than paying an engineer to do it. They don’t really know how to tackle the task, so it takes them longer and the results are never good. (3.22) – Can you please share a unique career tip with the I.T. career audience? Heidi’s biggest tip is that there is no such thing as a soft skill. All skills matter and are useful, especially people skills. Being able to get along with your co-workers and relate to your customers is just as important as quantifiable skills are. If you can’t do those things your career will stall. The same is true of communication skills. It does not matter how good a developer you are if you can’t explain why you deserve funding for an important project you won’t get it without the ability to communicate. (5.00) – Can you tell us about your worst career moment? Heidi has been fairly lucky in her career. But, she remembers not being able to get the Microsoft Security Bulletin (Patch Tuesday Bulletin) to compile. She could not leave it half done or deliver it late. But, it just would not compile. In the end, using git-bisect she was able to find the error in the XML. It was a stressful moment, there was no way she could not publish a document like that on time. Fortunately, she was able to get it done, but it was a close call. (6.44) – What was your best career moment? Heidi says that she feels like she keeps experiencing that best moment. Every time she gets on stage and speaks. She really enjoys getting people to think about things in a different way. In particular, when members of the audience come up to her afterward and ask for help with a problem. Of course, occasionally you fail to connect. But, most of the time, you make the connection and can see that you are helping, which feels great. (8.10) – Does the response you get from the audience vary depending on where you are in the world and who you are presenting to? Heidi says it does. For example, in the UK, fewer people approach her after the talk. Instead, she gets asked a lot of questions on Twitter. She has also noticed that Agile transformers can, as she puts it, “talk the hind legs off of a donkey”. (9.10) – Can you tell us what excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? Heidi looks forward to the day when most of the boring tasks will be automated out. She believes that the fact this is happening will lead to even more interesting and exciting IT careers. (10.59) – What drew you to a career in IT? Hiedi was an English major in university and was planning to become an English professor. But, when she was exposed to the world of IT she was fascinated by it. When she realized she could combine both interests and have an IT career she was hooked. She loves sitting in conferences learning new things. (11.49) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? People kept on telling her to ask for more cash. In the end, she listened and got over being shy about doing so. It was good advice. If you do so when you are offered the job, people readily agreed. They have already slotted you into their organization in their minds, so do not want you to slip through their fingers. (12.47) - Conversely, what is the worst career advice you've ever received? Someone once told Heidi not to do more than was absolutely necessary to get the job done. That was terrible advice. Heidi does not think you should kill yourself for a job. But, it is important to do a good job and take every opportunity you have to explore and learn. (13.56) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? Heidi says that she would probably get into developer advocacy as soon as possible. For her personally, it is an ideal fit. She loves the fact that the role enables her to go out there and help people to find solutions to their problems without having to behave like a salesperson. It is always interesting to learn about the pain points of end users and take them back to the development team. She is endlessly surprised by the different and innovative ways users use the software and tools she shares with them. (15.00) – What are you currently focusing on in your career? This year, Heidi is looking forward to her keynote at Velocity, this November. Her other goal is to mentor and help more people, this year. She strongly believes that once you start to progress up the ladder, you should reach back and help others to follow you. (15.58) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? Being able to condense anything down into its essentials is a skill that has helped Heidi a great deal. She believes that if you can’t explain something to the proverbial five-year-old, you have probably not understood it properly. (16.30) - What do you do to keep your own IT career energized? Going out and seeing how others do things, keeps Heidi energized. For example, she will attend talks on subjects she is not familiar with just to see how others do their presentations. Doing this keeps her fresh and enables her to pick up new ways of doing things. It also keeps her in touch with upcoming technologies. Right now, she is super interested in GraphQL, despite the fact that the company she is working for does not use it. (17.29) - What do you do in your spare time away from technology? Heidi is still working on developing interests outside of technology. For example, she has started to sew the dresses she wears for her conference speeches.  (18.11) – Phil asks Heidi to share a final piece of career advice with the audience. It is important to remember that your career is not your job. If you are not getting what you need out of the job you are doing, leave. Find another that does engage you and enable you to carry on learning. Things have changed from your parent’s days. Your company is not your family. If they had to make a choice between you and making more money, they will usually choose the latter.   BEST MOMENTS: (3.37) HEIDI – "There are no soft skills, just difficult skills that have to do with people."  (13.22) HEIDI – "Don’t be afraid to do more. If you're doing something interesting you will be learning something." (15.52) HEIDI – "The minute you climb up the ladder, you need to reach back down to help somebody else up." (16.15) HEIDI – "If you can't explain it to the proverbial five-year-old, you probably don't really understand it.” (18.15) HEIDI – "If you are not getting what you need out of a particular job, save your career, and leave.” CONTACT HEIDI: Twitter: https://twitter.com/wiredferret LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidiwaterhouse/ Website: https://heidiwaterhouse.com/

GUEST BIO: My guest on today’s show helps developers to take a step up in their skill set with a focus on making complex topics approachable, regardless of skill level. He is a Microsoft MVP for .NET, has authored seven courses for Pluralsight and has delivered more than 300 technical presentations across the United States and Europe.   EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s I.T Career Energizer podcast is Jeremy Clark. Currently, his focus is on helping IT professionals to quickly improve their skills. He has authored several courses for Pluralsight, a platform that enables developers to assess their current skill levels and identify the right training path for them. Over the years, Jeremy Clark has delivered more than 300 technical presentations at conferences, throughout the world. He has also spent over 9 years of his career sharing his knowledge as a consultant and mentor. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (00.49) – Can you maybe tell us a little bit about some of the courses you've written for Pluralsight. To date, Jeremy has produced 7 courses for that platform. He wrote his C# Interfaces course, largely because as a new developer he struggled to understand what interfaces were. The same is true of his Practical Introduction to Dependency Injection course. Most people get introduced to dependency injection backwards. Typically, they get given an application that has a DI container and just left to try to figure things out themselves. Jeremy currently speaks at conferences on about 20 subjects. All of which he has struggled with, at some point. He finds helping others to get over the speed bumps he faced to be very rewarding. (2.33) – Can you please share a unique career tip with the I.T. career audience? Jeremy’s advice is to get involved with people in the industry as much as possible. Make it a goal to attend a meetup, or something similar, at least once a month. When you do that your world gets a lot bigger, really quickly. You learn so much. Often, you will find people working with the same tools as you, but using them in a different way. Or, you will come across developers who are doing similar work to you. But, are using tools you do not know much about. Either way, you get to learn a lot from them. Unfortunately, at the moment, Jeremy is not able to do this as much as he would like. The nearest meetups and user groups are at least an hour and a half drive away. So, he struggles to attend them regularly. But, to some extent, attending conferences fills in the gap for him. Attending and speaking at them means that he still gets to interact with others who are working in the industry. (5.16) What would you recommend to someone who cannot get to meetups, conferences or other physical events? Right now, there are not many effective virtual groups for people to join. But, that is something that Jeremy is trying to change. In the meantime, his recommendation is that people listen to podcasts as a way of learning. Live coding is good too. On twitch streaming, there is usually some interaction and you can follow individual coders. (6.55) Can you share with us your worst IT career moment and what you learned from that experience. Fortunately, Jeremy has not had any of those oh my goodness I’ve just deleted the production database moments. But, he has found himself working on projects where there are at least 3 layers of project managers sitting between you and the end user. That sort of project setup makes it is all but impossible to come up with something that meets the end users needs. You just can’t get close enough to them to find out what would actually be helpful. Everything gets filtered through layers of project managers and the important things are lost in translation. Usually, things get bogged down to the point where great solutions get left on the shelf. In the end, progress slows and the project gets cancelled. These days Jeremy recognizes those flawed projects and does not get involved. Instead, he focuses on working on things where he stands a good chance of having a positive impact. (9.20) – What was your best career moment? Jeremy’s biggest successes have come from his habit of getting to know what his end users needed. For example, he was in the office one day speaking to a group of administrative staff. While he was there chatting to them he ended up watching how they were working with the system. He noticed that they were spending quite a bit of time creating a report to print out to help them to carry out their job effectively. So, he said to them would it be helpful if I put a print screen on the admin screen. Of course, they said yes. It took him just 5 minutes to do it. Yet that simple change saved the admin team a huge amount of time and stress every single day. They had not thought to request the change because they had assumed it would take too long and cost too much to have it done. Every time Jeremy spends time working alongside the end users he finds that he is able to make a huge difference to how easy it is to get their job done. (13.44) – Can you tell us what excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? The fact that we can change the world really easily is something Jeremy finds really exciting about the IT industry. (15.10) – What first attracted you to a career in IT? The idea of being able to automate tedious tasks is what first appealed to Jeremy. It all started while he was working as a hotel receptionist to pay his way through university. At the time, every week, the assistant manager spent hours putting the schedule together using Excel. It was a long and tedious task. There was a lot of cutting and pasting involved because she had to produce multiple sheets. One for management, another for the union and several others. Jeremy realized he could set things up so that she entered the information once and it populated all of the other formats automatically. Doing that made him realize he could get paid well for doing something similar in other workplaces. (16.27) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? That advice came from David Neal. He has a great saying – You don’t have to ask permission to be awesome. It does not matter what approach you take to the job. As long as the results are awesome, your boss will be happy. For example, if you have a situation where test driving development will just take too long. Just get on with it and produce the software. Get it done and your manager will not care that you did not follow the test-driven development path. (17.18) - Conversely, what is the worst career advice you've ever received? Someone once told Jeremy to just do what he was paid to do. At the time he was working as a consultant. The person he was speaking to was of the opinion that he should just do what he was hired to do. Even if he could see that the company he was working for was heading in the wrong direction. This approach is not one Jeremy feels comfortable with. Instead, he likes to dig a little deeper and get a better understanding of what he is being asked to do and why. For example, on one job he asked to go into the field to see how the software he was working on was being put to work by the end-users. The project manager appreciated that approach. As a result of finding out about the customer's pain points were the rewrite was much better than it would have otherwise have been. As Jeremy says, people don’t hire him to be quiet and do what he is told. They hire him because they want to tap into his problem-solving skills. (18.44) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? Jeremy would get involved with other users as soon as possible. It is a good way to learn a lot and it is a fast way to build up your network. If you do that, finding your next role becomes a lot easier. (20.10) – What are you currently focusing on in your career? Jeremy is currently working in the training space, so his focus is there. He is doing a lot more conference work. Mostly because it is such an effective way to reach others. It feels great to stand up there, explain something and see the light bulbs go on. (21.11) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? Understanding the business rather than just how to code has helped Jeremy’s career. Knowing what the business you are working in is doing makes a huge difference. Everything you produce is so much more relevant and effective. (22.18) - What do you do to keep your own IT career energized? Periodically, Jeremy pauses and refocuses. He finds that keeps him grounded in reality. For example, now that he is in the training space he works to understand how ordinary developers see things. Doing this makes sure that the tools and training he produces are truly relevant to them. He thinks about how they are going to perceive and navigate what he produces. Jeremy constantly asks himself how can I make the world a better place? Right now, with the skill set he possesses that means producing great software for his end-users. (23.43) – What do you do away from technology? Jeremy reads a lot. Right now, he is especially interested in finding out how the brain works and mindfulness. He also enjoys hiking. (24.57) – Phil asks Jeremy to share a final piece of career advice with the audience. Jeremy believes that everyone has something of value to share. From a fairly early stage in his IT career, he felt the urge to speak at conferences. But, he didn’t do it because he believed that he had nothing of value to share. Eventually, he realized that you do not have to be an expert to be able to share your knowledge with others. There is always someone on the path just behind you who can learn from what you know. BEST MOMENTS: (1.39) JEREMY – "Most people get introduced to dependency injection backwards." (3.29) JEREMY – "When you attend meetups, your world quickly gets a lot bigger." (17.16) JEREMY – "You don't need permission to be awesome." (21.00) JEREMY – "When I speak in front of 100 developers, I can impact them all. It is really rewarding." (25.41) JEREMY – "Help someone behind you on the path. Everyone has something useful to share." CONTACT JEREMY: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeremybytes LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-clark-21a6822/ Website: http://www.jeremybytes.com/Default.aspx

My guest on today’s show is a Developer Advocate at Google working with the Chrome team to develop and promote web standards and developer tools.  Prior to Google he worked at Lanyrd on their mobile website and for the BBC on JavaScript libraries and standards. He says that he wants the web to do what native does best, and fast. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Jake Archibald. He is a Developer Advocate at Google. Currently, he is working with the Chrome team developing and promoting innovative tools like squoosh.app. He is there to promote web standards and developer tools to all who will listen. Before beginning his career at Google he worked for the BBC developing their web services and JavaScript library and standards. Later he moved to Lanyrd. Today, he is a well-known conference speaker. Jake has delivered talks at JSConf.Asia, LDNWebPerf and SmashingConf London, to name a few. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (00.49) –Could you give us an understanding of what your current role with Google as a developer advocate is like? Jake starts out by explaining that it is a really varied role that changes from day to day. Last year, he was working on Squoosh.app, an image compression tool for the web. It uses codecs from C and Rust to compress images in the browser. Other times he works on web standards. He is also involved in fixing Chrome bugs. He sees is role as promoting the web rather than just Google services. When other browsers get things right they praise and promote them too. His aim is to help everyone to get more out of the web and working for Google has not constrained him at all he has been given the freedom to speak freely, which helps things to move forward faster. (3.50) Phil asks him to tell the audience about his work with the BBC, which was also all about web standards. Initially, Jake made web pages for TV shows. He then moved on to work on the BBC’s JavaScript library, which they use on pretty much every one of their pages. One of the biggest challenges he faced then, was keeping everything backward compatible. BBC policy meant that everything they produced had to be accessible using free tools, even older versions. Because, at the time, the newest version of Safari was a paid for tool, everything they built had to be compatible with the older version because it was still free. (5.41) – Can you please share a unique career tip with the I.T. career audience? The thing that made Jake successful was being in the right place at the right time. He feels there is an element of luck involved in everything. When he started out he knew very little about the web. But, within 2 years he had learned most of CSS, HTML, and JavaScript. So, when the web exploded he was able to exploit that knowledge to the full. This was despite the fact that there were, and still are, gaps in his knowledge. Not knowing everything will not stop you from progressing in your IT career. So, don’t get hung up about it. Just maximize what you do with your current skills and keep on learning to succeed. (8.00) – Can you tell us about your worst career moment? That happened early in his career. He was working for a large corporation looking after their site and intranet. One day the HR department asked him to take some of the job postings and install them on their intranet. It sounded easy but was far from it. The way their site worked with cookies made it very tricky to scrape the information, so it could be added to the intranet. At the time, he knew nothing about Perl. But, it was really the only solution. So, he had no choice but to work out how to do it. After a bit, he managed it and the team he was working with were really pleased. But, he realized they had zero understanding of what it had taken to achieve that result. At that point, he realized he had not found his dream job. In fact, it was going to be quite limiting, so he had no choice but to move on. That felt pretty bad. He was pretty disappointed. The other worst moment was when he broke the BBC’s iPlayer, their streaming service. He had not uploaded something properly. An error which, after two weeks, broke the corporation’s streaming service when a rarely used server was pulled into use. Only then did the error become apparent. He was blamed, despite the fact that it was a weakness in the deployment system that ultimately caused the issue. (13.58) – What was your best career moment? For Jake, being able to contribute to the HTML spec was a huge moment. The web will outlive him, so it feels good to be leaving a legacy, something which others will continue to benefit from. (15.45) – What excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? For Jake, the fact that the web and JavaScript are still growing is exciting. In 10 years it is going to look very different than it does now. We are going to be able to do so much more with it. (17.55) – What drew you to a career in IT? When Jake was given his first computer at about the age of 7, he was hooked. He loved programming stuff that resulted in immediate visual feedback. So, he fell in love with the web the moment he was introduced to it. (19.00) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? One of Jake’s first jobs was working for a UK retail chain called GAME. Weirdly, his then boss told him to “get out of retail as soon as possible.” He pointed out that the pay was awful and the job was rarely enjoyable. At the time, the job fitted in well with his studies, so he stayed. But, he took the advice to heart and was careful to make sure he did not follow a career path that led to him working in retail. (20.55) - Conversely, what is the worst career advice you've ever received? Interestingly, that came from a deputy manager at GAME. He wanted him to go into retail management. Fortunately, his direct boss had already pointed out to him the pitfalls of that career path. So, Jake did not make the mistake of staying in retail. (21.19) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? Jake would make sure that he got a grounding in the basics. His career path meant he skipped a lot of the simpler stuff. Now, he is struggling a bit because of this. He wishes he had done more of a computer science based course. Instead of the multimedia orientated one he actually completed. (22.38) – What are you currently focusing on in your career? Jake’s primary objective is not to get promoted into misery. It is something that he has seen happen to others. It is all too easy to get taken further away from what you enjoy doing every time you get promoted. Plus, of course, every time you move up the ladder you end up with more responsibility. He would rather take a sideways move than end up doing something he does not enjoy. Right now, his focus is web performance. He thinks that a lot of the bundling tools have got things wrong. So, that is very much a focus. (24.07) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? Becoming a confident speaker has made a huge difference to Jake’s career. One conference talk led to another until he started to become well know. When that happened, finding work became really easy. The thing he enjoys most about conferences is speaking to people after he has given his talk. Jake finds that he learns so much from those conversations. (27.00) - What do you do to keep your own IT career energized? Jake says that he embraces procrastination. The most important work he has done has happened when he has meandered away a bit from what he should have been doing. Giving yourself a little time to explore is a great way to get the creative process going and come up with something really different. It is a great way to break the cycle of boredom and re-energize yourself so you can get some of the more tedious stuff done. (29.13) - What do you do in your spare time away from technology? Jake walks a lot, especially in the countryside. He finds it to be a good way to get away from things, take a bit of exercise, re-set and re-energize. (31.00) – Phil asks Jake to share a final piece of career advice with the audience. While at school his art teacher said to him “you get better with every painting that you paint.” Now, he realizes that is true of coding too. You need to practice to get good at it. If you are not developing the skills you want on the job. Take on small projects outside of the workplace to help you to do so. BEST MOMENTS: (2.35) JAKE – “I’m paid by Google to promote all things web." (5.50) JAKE – "Learn to be in the right place at the right time." (14.11) JAKE – "Contributing to the HTML spec was a huge moment for me." (16.36) JAKE – "In 10 years, we're going to look at the web now and think that looks so ancient." (22.40) JAKE – "Don’t get promoted into misery." (27.00) JAKE – "Embrace procrastination, as much as time allows." CONTACT JAKE: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jaffathecake GitHub: https://github.com/jakearchibald/ Website: https://jakearchibald.com/

My guest on today’s show is a Staff Operations Engineer from Zendesk.  He describes himself as a Linux systems geek with a passion for making systems serve great content.  And he is recognized as an expert in metrics and monitoring, about which speaks, as well as a featured panellist for the MonitoringScale Live community panel.   EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Jeff Pierce. He has been working in the industry since 2003 when he started Coldflare Internet Services. Later, he moved into systems administration working for several firms. Jeff then changed direction a bit, taking up a role as a senior systems engineer for Apple in 2011. Then again when he started work as a DevOps Engineer for Krux Digital and a Senior DevOps Engineer for Change.org. After a few years working as a software and infrastructure engineer, he is now Staff Operations Engineer for Zendesk. He specializes in automating large clusters of Linux systems. Metrics and monitoring are his other passions. He is an expert in this field and regularly speaks on this subject. Jeff was also a featured panelist for the MontoringScale Live community panel. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (00.49) – Can I ask you to tell us more about the metrics and monitoring that you focus on and speak about? Jeff starts by pointing out the only way to do effective system administration is to have access to good software data. You need that data to be gathered automatically. Over the years, Jeff has focused on making sure companies are able to collect the data they need to be able to scale things and optimize what they are doing. (1.26) – So, you are following the principle – if you can’t measure it you can’t improve it. Jeff agrees but explains that it is a little more than that. He says if you can’t see what your system and software are doing, you are already broken. You just don’t know it yet. (1.44) – Can you please share a unique career tip with the I.T. Career Energizer audience? Jeff’s advice is not to share your salary with your new employer. This is because they will simply offer you a percentage over what you already earn. If you want to make sure that you are paid the market rate, keep your salary history to yourself. Let it be known that you want to be paid a certain percentage over the market rate and let them negotiate from there. In fact, in the US in Massachusetts employers are no longer allowed to ask future employees how much they earn. The authorities are recognizing that being able to do this gives firms a huge amount of power over prospective employees. Continuing to base what they pay on what previous employers is only making pay gaps worse. (4.16) – Can you tell us about your worst career moment? And what you learned from that experience. Interestingly, the experience Jeff shares turned out to be a combination of the best and the worst moment of his career. It happened when he was working for the petition site change.org. They help campaign groups and people to put pressure on government and corporations, using petitions, to literally drive change. About four years ago they were involved in using petitions to stop the dog eating festival in Yulin, China. The data involved was huge. So much so that it uncovered a bug in their Galera MariaDB Cluster. The error caused every node to go into data protection mode. When all your nodes go down like that you do not have a cluster anymore. Instead, you end up with four separate servers. In their case, there was also a fifth arbitral process in place to break ties. The nature of the problem meant that their 4th server was serving virtually the whole site while they worked on the bug. Fighting to keep the site online at a time when they were getting four times more traffic than normal was a challenge. There were other issues too. On the one hand, existing on a few hours sleep and working in a highly stressed environment, was awful. For any engineer that time spent fire-fighting keeping the system going knowing that you could not fix it yet, for five straight days, was a nightmare scenario. But, it was also one of the best times. The strength of the team he was working with shone through. Plus, he learned a huge amount from getting the system into working order. That learning carried on for weeks after as they forensically examined what had happened. He delved into areas of the system and technologies he had barely touched before.  (11.12) – What was your best career moment? Deploying the first piece of code he had a hand in writing into production was a real highlight for Jeff. He had just moved from the ops side to DevOps, so he knew it had the potential to make a big difference and help a lot of people because they were able to make it Open Source. For change.org having the ability to store the stats in Cassandra was very helpful. It is a no sequel database format, which means that it is highly scalable. Exactly what they needed, at the time, although now they have moved on to using DataDog. But, when Jeff wrote and deployed the code it was a step change. At this point, Jeff reminds the audience of the value of Open Sourcing something you wrote in terms of energizing your IT career. Being able to do this demonstrtes to a prospective employer that you are good at what you do. So, good that you are confident enough to put your work out there so others can use it. To this day, Jeff mentions it to hiring managers. They are still impressed by it. Coming up with a fresh idea and being able to take it to the point where it is available for general use proves you have a good skill set. Learning code is a lot like learning how to play the guitar. At first, you can only play one chord and you struggle with that. You think you are never going to get it. But, you persist and practice your chords. Before you know it you can play a song. (19.38) – What excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? To use a cliché “software is eating the world.” It is everywhere, which is really exciting because the possibilities are endless. Now, anyone can easily put a product out on the internet using the products Amazon provides. When Jeff was working in the field of systems administration you had one manager for every 50 servers minimum. Now AWS and Google Cloud are available, one person can manage huge scalable systems. Nowadays, nobody asks you what is the biggest environment you have managed? They just want to know that you are familiar enough with the software so you can run the system. Of course, this shift means that you do not need as many system administrators. But, fortunately, these days, as one door closes, others open up. No matter how smart the devices and tech are, end users will always need some sort of support. The robots that are used to automate tasks still need to be maintained. There will always be a geek working in the background. There are still plenty of opportunities for those who want to get involved in the industry. The list of possibilities is endless, which is also exciting. (23.34) – Phil comments on that the fact it is impossible to predict what will happen next. Jeff agrees this is exciting. Ten years ago he thought Linux branded zones which are sometimes called Solaris Containers would be huge. But, Docker came along and totally changed the landscape. Set up properly, with all of the right permissions in place it is safe to give junior system admins access. Plus, you can guarantee that everything will work once it goes into production. Even more surprising was seeing the GPU becoming big again. In the IT world, you can never be sure what will happen next. (25.32) – What drew you to a career in IT? Jeff has been a computer geek since he was a kid when his dad bought him a BC286 from ComputerLand. Jeff loved using it from the start. It had a 640k ram, 10 times more than they used to get to the moon. At the time, Bill Gates said that was all the ram anyone would ever need. When it broke it was too expensive to have it repaired. So, he learned how to do it himself. He loved solving puzzles, so when he realized he could do it for a living, he leaped at the chance. Jeff is on the spectrum, so without IT, he is not sure where he would be today. Being able to work in the industry opened up the chance for him to earn good money and find work easily. (26.06) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? It came from his dad who insisted that Jeff learn a trade. He was an auto mechanic. When he could no longer physically do the work, he switched to teaching auto mechanics. Jeff did not get much formal education. But, once he realized he wanted to work in IT he approached learning how to do it and building his career as if it were a trade. From the start, he realized that he would only master it if he practiced. Repairing someone’s PC is not dissimilar to fixing someone’s car. In both situations, the person handing it over to you does not really understand how it works. So, they have to trust you to do it for them. (27.38) - Conversely, what is the worst career advice you've ever received? Someone once told Jeff to stay at least a year with each company. There will be times when things will not be working out. In that situation, staying the year just does not make sense. If you are learning something and have no problems with the work environment, by all means, stay at least a year. If not, don’t be afraid to move on. Of course, during the interview, you will find that hiring managers will ask you why you left so soon. But, there is no need to be worried about that. Just be honest. For example, they just weren’t a good fit or I was just not learning anything there. It is best to prepare a good answer prior to the interview. Jeff was fired once. At the time, he was suffering from depression and it was affecting his work. He has been hired twice since then. In both interviews, he disclosed what had happened and still landed the jobs. (29.40) – If you were to begin your IT career again, in today’s world, what would you do? Jeff says he would go to a code boot camp. Some of the brightest people Jeff has worked with have done attended coding camps like Hack Reactor and Hackbright Academy. It is a great way to get into coding. Unless you are involved in developing leading-edge technologies like AI or neural networking you don’t really need a computer science degree. For many people, it turns out to be a waste of education. Even with a first class degree in all likelihood, your first job is going to be something like working on a mobile API or website. (32.44) – What are you currently focusing on in your career? Right now, Phil is building his online presence back up by using social media. He is also planning to speak more again. But, top of his list is getting more involved in educating others. He wants to mentor more. Jeff only learned to code in 2011. So, he is still developing his DevOps skills. (34.42) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? Jeff is autistic so he has had to actively learn people skills. For example, looking someone in the eye when having a conversation does not come naturally to him. In fact, he still can’t quite do it, but has learned that looking at someone’s forehead is close enough. Focusing on and honing these skills has enabled him to progress within the industry. Today, he is better than most people at things like navigating a crowd or public speaking. (37.40) - What do you do to keep your own IT career energized? Jeff finds taking on side projects keeps him energized. Often it is his non-IT interests that determine what he does next. For example, he is currently learning C# because that is what the Unity game engine uses. This feeds into his desire to start his own video games company. He is a big gaming fan and is especially proud of being listed on Marvel Heroes as a member of the senior technical operations staff. He does not like sitting on his laurels. Constantly challenging himself keeps him interested and energized. (41.37) - What do you do in your spare time away from technology? Jeff plays the guitar and bass. He used to play in a punk band, but now mostly creates and records as a solo artist. Jeff is also a big video game fan who enjoys role-playing and strategy games. (43.07) – Phil asks Jeff to share a final piece of career advice with the audience. Get a mentor, someone who can guide you and help you to work out what to do next. He also advises the I.T. Career Energizer audience not to be afraid to apply for jobs for which they are not fully qualified. Hiring managers do not expect you to have every single skill that is on the list. Jeff’s suggestion is to apply if you meet around half of them. He has never met the full criteria asked for, yet has still been hired many times. On your application spend time explaining why you are a good fit for the job in the cover note you provide. Often, you will land yourself an interview. Thirdly, Jeff explains that effective networking is key when it comes to developing a successful IT career. When you are looking for work, often, your network will introduce you to people who are hiring. BEST MOMENTS: (1.36) JEFF – "If you can’t see what your system and software are doing, you are already broken. You just don’t know it yet." (2.11) JEFF – "Never share your salary history with a new employer. Instead, ask for the market rate plus a percentage." (15.18) JEFF – "When you’re passionate about a project you do your best work." (21.58) JEFF – "End users always need technical support, no matter how smart the devices get." (22.27) JEFF – "You will always need the geek behind the scenes." (28.48) JEFF – "Don't stay in a situation that isn't good for you or for the company you are working for." (32.04) JEFF – "For the programming side of the industry, code school is one of the best ways to get your foot in the door. " (39.48) JEFF – "Don't get comfortable, keep seeking out something harder.”   CONTACT JEFF: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Th3Technomancer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrpierce/ Website: https://almostinteresting.net

GUEST BIO: My guest on today’s show is a Senior Cloud Advocate for Microsoft.  He conducts “science experiment” Hackathons with industry-leading organizations to test theories and create Proof of Concepts utilizing Microsoft cloud services.   Previously he has been awarded Microsoft Most Valuable Professional 4 years running for evangelising mobility products and solutions through public speaking engagements and other efforts.   EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Anthony Bartolo. He has been working in the tech industry for just over two decades. Initially, he worked within the communications sector as an IT manager and a general manager. Later, he became an Applications Specialist, Partner Engagement Manager and B2B Sales Manager for an electronic learning provider. In 2013, he re-joined Microsoft in the role of VP, Business Developer. Within 3 months he became a Sr. Technology Evangelist. Today, he is a Sr. Cloud Advocate for Microsoft. Anthony is a Data & AI, IoT and Identity & Security specialist with a thirst for knowledge. For 4 years running, he was a recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award. Over the years, he has spoken at numerous conferences and has been involved in many significant projects. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (1.10) – Can you give us a bit of an understanding of what your role as a senior cloud advocate is? Around 70% of the role is listening to those who are adopting Microsoft technology. The other 30% is sharing what is going on. What the advocate learns while listening to users is relayed back to the engineering team. Hackathons are a great way to learn how people are using the tools and what issues they have as well as what they would like. Anthony learns how it’s being governed, implemented and secure. As well as how the resources are being made available. Often, they also share ARM templates and best practices through GitHub.  (2.11) - Presumably, that involves subsequently talking about the hackathons and the results you're obtaining. Anthony confirms that is the case. He explains that the resources that have been created via hack quests are also frequently shared. He disseminates a lot of new information during public speaking engagements and via all kinds of tech forums. (2.41) - Prior to Microsoft, what were you doing? Before working for Microsoft, Anthony worked for Canada’s largest telecommunications company – Rogers Communications. Later, he worked helping customers to adopt the first iteration of smartphones into their tech infrastructure. At the time, those smartphones ran on Windows Mobile and they were using Server 2003 Service Pack Two. He was heavily involved in improving security for these devices. Prior to that, he was involved in doing something similar for PocketPC devices and Blackberry. (3.45) – Can you please share a unique career tip with the I.T. career audience? Anthony’s advice to IT professionals is to make sure that they are part of the business. They need to have a seat at the table with the decision makers. This ensures that you understand the direction the business is moving in and have a say in what happens next. When you do that you become proactive instead of reactive. If someone proposes something you can weigh-in and help those who are around the table to understand how viable it is from a tech point of view. You can point out the pitfalls, come up with ways to move things forward and manage expectations. Instead of having to find a duct tape solution to implement something that was decided upon without your input you can come up with an elegant one and build that instead. (5.57) – Can you tell us about your worst career moment? And what you learned from that experience. In the days of Server 2003, the company Anthony worked for ran into an issue because someone had found a way to store MP3’s on their server. Somehow they had managed to stash thousands of them away in the bin file. Naturally, the end result was that the server ran out of space. When that happened, nobody got their emails. At the time, everyone had access to everything. Surprisingly, there was only a single universal admin key which the whole team used. Eventually, using a traceroute they were able to find how the individual was getting access and close them down. But, it was a complete mess and very stressful. It starkly demonstrated just how vulnerable the systems were. Within 90 days they had come up with a security plan and had started to implement it. They were very lucky to have discovered the vulnerability the way they did. It could have been a lot worse. Someone could have easily gone in and stolen all kinds of information. Now, nothing like that would be possible. Security is a priority, although there is still room for improvement. For example, it is not uncommon for people in an IT department to share an admin key. This is the IT equivalent of leaving a key under the mat. Anthony goes on to talk about password management as an example. He explains that there should always be a proper audit trail in place for this process. Someone who wants to access that system should have to get a token from their manager. That token should only allow them into that part of the system and only for a limited amount of time, say 30 minutes. Putting this sort of system in place greatly improves security. He also points out that IT professionals have to be careful to follow the law when it comes to data security. Particularly when dealing with personal data. A lot of today’s security best practice came from the early days of mobile devices. Examples include the use of tokens to ID people and multi-factor authentication. Something that Anthony was involved in developing, at the time (11.33) – What was your best career moment? Anthony’s greatest hackathon success is designed to help with the problem of child exploitation and children going missing. One of the teams worked out a way to harness the power of Azure Functions to find missing kids. It includes the ability for a child to use the #hfm hashtag to immediately alert their parents and other carers that they are in trouble. Once triggered their whereabouts is captured and sent to those who can help them. Data that the police or parents may find helpful in seeing what is going on is also captured. Information like a recent photo, relevant social media data and location history are all instantly available to be shared with the police. If a child goes missing and cannot send the signal at a touch of a button the parent can also trigger this data aggregation and give it to the police. The technology was developed with the input of the Missing Children Society of Canada (MCSC). They work with the parents of the 45,000 children who go missing in Canada, every year. As well as assisting the authorities. The technology the hackathon team developed is very powerful. This is because, currently, 80% of the abductions that take place are initiated using social chat and messages. So, picking up and following the breadcrumbs that have been left on social platforms is a powerful way to narrow down what has happened and find the children quickly. Anthony and Pierre Roman were able to provide the knowledge to make the system secure and access to the infrastructure needed to run it. Working collaboratively with the developers, end customer and law enforcement provided a superb solution that ticked all of the boxes. It worked and importantly complied with all of the relevant privacy and security regulations. As a result, it was a solution that could actually be implemented. Plus, they were able to share it via GitHub. So, it is now being picked up and used throughout the world. Being involved in a successful project that is making such a huge difference is definitely a career highlight. It clearly demonstrates the power of collaborative working and the cloud.  (14.51) – Can you tell us what excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? The fact that the skills of IT professionals are so transferable is exciting. The Cloud is enabling us to accomplish so much more. Cloud technology makes everything possible. Organizations of all sizes now have the power to deploy their solutions globally. When it comes to tech the sky is the limit. It is amazing to see how quickly IT pros adapt to new technology. Take IoT security as an example. Not so long ago a consumer could buy a smart light bulb that could change color. It sounds great, but initially, if they installed that bulb into a fixture in an organization’s workplace that created a security risk. There was no meaningful security built into that device. Shadow IT was a huge issue. Today, people like Anthony are using the knowledge they built up to secure physical hardware to change that. Importantly, IT professionals are immediately picking up those solutions and running with them.  (17.00) – What drew you to a career in IT? Anthony blames the movie Back to the Future for giving him the tech bug. He was 13 when Doc Brown inspired him to come up with something new. From that point on he started to strip things down. He was forever imbedding motors in lego cars. Fairly, quickly that evolved into an interest in IT.  (18.01) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? Don’t be a know it all, be a learn it all. There is no way you can ever know it all. When you attend events, make friends with others and learn from them. Anthony loves sharing what he knows at conferences. He always comes home having learned so much. Keeping an open mind and being interested in what others are doing is a great way to learn. Taking this approach is a great way to grow your IT career quickly.  (19.08) - Conversely, what is the worst career advice you've ever received? Someone once told Anthony that end users don’t count. They thought that IT professionals always knew best. The emergence of smart mobiles made it clear that way of working would never be viable. They gave the power back to the consumer. (19.55) – If you were to begin your IT career again, in today’s world, what would you do? When Anthony first started his career he just focused on learning about the products and tech. He had no interest in what the company was trying to accomplish. Anthony focused on learning about the products and the infrastructure, not the client’s needs. What they were trying to achieve. Now, he turns everything on its head. His initial focus is on the client’s and the end-users’ endgame. He sees everything far more holistically.  (21.17) – What are you currently focusing on in your career? Anthony’s current focus is on engaging with IT professional audiences. He wants to know where their pain points are, what is working for them and what is not. One of his aims is to smooth the transition from physical architecture to the cloud. He and his team disseminate solutions for the issues that are discussed with them in many different ways. Including posting on ITOpsTalk.com and fielding questions at conferences. Understandably, the team can’t answer every question. But, that is not a negative thing because it gives them something meaningful to dig into and research. By taking this approach Anthony and his colleagues have learned loads. It is a great way to find out what IT professionals are thinking. All of that information is shared with engineering too. It helps them to understand and take account of the issues their end-customers are experiencing. This approach has changed things radically. Now everything is much easier to deploy. (22.56) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? Before working in IT, Anthony was a car mechanic. Even today, the skills he learned doing that work stand him in good stead. It is where he picked up his problem-solving skills and first learned to take a methodical, logical approach to things. He was working as a mechanic when the first ECUs were introduced. Plugging the car into a laptop to work out what was wrong was a fascinating experience for him. He was able to fully appreciate what a big leap forward it was. (24.14) - What do you do to keep your own IT career energized? Constantly learning about new things is something that Anthony finds energizing. He loves to dabble. At the moment it is IoT that he is enjoying the most. Recently he had the privilege of working on a project with the Canadian Coast Guard. Together they worked out how to get drones to spot lifejackets in the water when a ship is in distress. It is a difficult thing to achieve when the drone is a long way offshore with no connectivity. The drone has to be self-aware. It has to spot the life jacket then carry out a heat or iris scan. That data is then crunched to work out how close the individual is to hyperthermia, so the rescuers can prioritize their rescue efforts. All this needs to be done using tech that is small enough to fit on the device, the equivalent of a Raspberry Pi. (26.03) - What do you do in your spare time away from technology? Anthony is a keen quarter-mile competitor (drag racer). He regularly competes at the Cayuga track in Ontario. Recently, he has also taken up mountain biking, which he is really enjoying. Whenever he can he visits Huntington Beach in California. He loves surfing there. (26.38) – Phil asks Anthony to share a final piece of career advice with the audience. Anthony’s advice is to never think that you should not be part of the conversation. For too long, IT departments have been seen only as a cost center. You need to grab your seat at the table, get involved and have a voice. It is vital that you understand the organization you are working for, as a whole. If you do not know where the business is going you will never come up with effective solutions. At the end of the day, you want to be an enabler of technology. Not just a one and a zero. You are not just a cost centre. Your work should be actively moving the business forward. BEST MOMENTS: (1.22) ANTHONY – "As a senior cloud advocate, my responsibility is 70% listening and 30% sharing." (4.48) ANTHONY – "Make sure you're part of the business. Get a seat at the table with the business decision makers." (17.49) ANTHONY – "If you can think it you can create it." (18.11) ANTHONY – "Don’t be a know it all. Be a learn it all." (20.32) ANTHONY – "Learn more about the why. Understand why you are implementing that type of tech." (26.53) ANTHONY – "Never think that you shouldn't be part of the conversation." CONTACT ANTHONY: Twitter: https://twitter.com/WirelessLife LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wirelesslife/ Website: https://www.itopstalk.com

GUEST BIO: My guest on today’s show is an aspiring tech polymath, a coder, a speaker and a teacher.  She joined Atos’s rotational graduate scheme in 2016 under the Technical Consultancy Stream and was awarded Graduate of the Year in 2018.  She is also a Course Instructor for Code First: Girls.   EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s podcast is Shaquilla Johnson. She is just starting out on her IT career, yet she has already been able to have a big impact. In 2016, she joined Atos’ graduate scheme. Shaquilla went on to win the 2018 Graduate of the Year award. She is already speaking at conferences and running courses at Code First: Girls. Shaquilla is an AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner and is currently taking more courses. For the past three years, she has been working on her own tech blog. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (1.06) – I wanted to start by asking you about Code First: Girls. So, I understand you got a bit of a background in there before you went into the instruction side of things? Around 2015, while at university, Shaquilla took an introductory coding course through Code First: Girls. It was quite basic. But, still covered beginner’s web development, simple HTML, CSS, Get and UX design. It gave her a good insight into the world of tech and careers within that industry. At that point, Shaquilla realized that a career in tech was for her. So, she cancelled her audit and tax related applications and looked around for something IT related. She applied for a technical graduate scheme at a tech company that provided IT services. In 2016, she secured a place on the Atos graduate scheme. She has taken more courses and is now at the stage where she is able to volunteer and help others. Something she really enjoys doing. For her, paying it forward is important. (3.44) - So, do you take time out to do that? Shaquilla explains that she mainly works as an instructor in the evenings. Usually for 8 weeks at a time. Code First: Girls runs courses throughout the year. So, the instructors are able to fit when they volunteer to run the courses around the rest of their lives. (4.30) - I presume you're going to be sticking to that and continuing for a while. Shaquilla confirms she has no plans to stop working as a volunteer instructor. (5.19) – Can you please share a unique career tip with the I.T. career audience? Her top career tip is to always remember that you are in control and act that way. Your managers, peers and mentors can all help you to progress. But, ultimately you are the one that is in control, the person that always has your best interests at heart. Occasionally, companies will lie to you to get you to work for them or things will not work out as expected for another reason. When that happens, you owe it to yourself to have a conversation to try to change things or move on. (6.55) – Can you tell us about your worst career moment? There have been times when the morale of the team she has been working with was very low. Something that happens a lot when things are not going to plan. (8.27) – So, did you learn about how to deal with that stress? Shaquilla said she has been able to use those situations to learn more about handling stress. She is now more resilient and now understands how to use her mind to deal with the situation effectively. It has taught her to pause and rationalize what she is feeling, so she can find her way through the problem. (9.12) – What was your best career moment? your greatest success, so far. That was winning Graduate of the Year in 2018. The award came at the end of a packed 18 months. A period during which she was involved in several large projects and became an instructor at Code First: Codes. Her work during that time and winning that award has really opened doors for her. It has also helped her to grow her network. (10.34) – What excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? The fact that there is always something new on the horizon is something Shaquilla finds exciting and stimulating. There is always something new to learn and understand. The fact that in a few years we will be using tech we have not even thought of now is really exciting. Shaquilla cannot wait to see how these things shape the world. Unlike many of us, Shaquilla is not afraid of change. She is not fearful of automation. It will change things drastically, but, there will be other techs we can use to create new products and solutions, things that will likely blow our minds. (13.57) – What first attracted you to a career in IT? Shaquilla was drawn to IT in part because it is such a fast paced environment to work in. It is the industry that will lead us into the future. So, be authentic. (14.17) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? Be yourself, your best self. If you try to create a persona and become a caricature, a fake version of yourself, people will easily see through you. (14.43) - Conversely, what is the worst career advice you've ever received? To date, Shaquilla does not think she has received any bad advice. Just things that she has felt were not relevant, or appropriate, for her personally. (15.07) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? When Shaquilla attended university, she decided to study physics. If she were to start again she would study computer science instead. (15.44) – What are you currently focusing on in your career? This year Shaquilla wants to do more technical speaking. To date, she has spoken mainly about career decision-related topics. She wants to start to deliver more technical speeches. To get there, she is broadening the work she is doing and actively looking for courses to take that will broaden her experience. (16.37) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? Shaquilla says that is definitely empathy. Taking a caring approach is always best. Try to put yourself in that person’s shoes. Often, the reason you are not getting a positive response is nothing to do with what you are doing. Usually, there is something going on in the background of the other person’s life that you do not know about. Listening to and getting to know someone better helps you to build a better working relationship with them. It takes time but is well worth the effort. (17.33) - What do you do to keep your own IT career energized? Seeking out new challenges keeps Shaquilla engaged and enthusiastic. She still finds doing this nerve-wracking. But, she does not let that stop her. Fairly quickly, she gets excited about trying something new. at which point it starts to become enjoyable. (18.14) - What do you do in your spare time away from technology? Shaquilla loves to cook, in particular, baking. She also enjoys eating out, trying new foods and drinks. Fortunately, she lives in London, so has access to an amazing range of cultures and food to try.  (18.42) – Phil asks Shaquilla to share a final piece of career advice with the audience. Her advice is to never stop learning. The saying – we are all students of the school of life” is definitely true. BEST MOMENTS: (5.20) SHAQUILLA – "No one will look out for your career interests like you will." (6.00) SHAQUILLA – "At the end of the day, the best career decisions will come from you." (09.09) SHAQUILLA – "Once you get control of your mind, and learn to rationalize handling stressful situations becomes much easier.” (14.19) SHAQUILLA – “Be authentic, be yourself, be your best self." (18.07) SHAQUILLA – "You learn the most when you're kind of forced to make it work.” (18.49) SHAQUILLA – "Never stop learning." CONTACT SHAQUILLA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/shaquillaevelyn LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaquillaevelynjohnson/ Website: https://shaquillaevelyn.com/