In my last two posts, A little About Myself and Decisive Direction I spoke a bit about who I am and where I found my direction in life. Today, I want to finish off the three part story with how I started in my career, and eventually landed a role that could not possibly fit me better. This is how I found my way, and hopefully by reading my story, it can help you write your own.
When I first arrived on campus at Texas Tech University with my love of technology in hand, I thought for sure that I knew what I wanted to do. I Immediately started out as a computer engineering major without giving it a second thought. That was until I actually began taking the classes and meeting the people that would be my peers for seemingly the rest of my life.
Now, the classes themselves were nothing I couldn’t handle, but I did notice that I didn’t fit the mold of those around me. My very distinct personality differences were painfully apparent. I began to wonder if I was going to be able to actually persist day in and day out in an industry with people who were quite a bit different than me, even though we had similar aptitudes and interests.
I decided that it would likely be best for me to make a change. I looked at computer science, and a few other technical disciplines before speaking with a friend who attended a different school (while playing a video game, naturally) when I asked him what he was studying. His answer was MIS (Management Information Systems), and after speaking with him about it I decided that it might actually be the correct path for me.
Now, if you have read or seen the movies from the Divergent series then you might understand that the meaning behind the term at a high level is that you do not fit into any one single group. You, by nature, are a generalist, not a specialist. This is the way that I most definitely am, and is in many ways what Management Information Systems is scholastically. Myself and my classmates affectionately referred to ourselves as social nerds.
You see, not only was it hard to funnel us into one particular discipline, but even the universities themselves struggle with the placement of MIS. I cannot tell you how many times I have overheard or been apart of a discussion trying to figure out where it is best to place the MIS major. Should it be in the engineering school or the business school? Should it be somewhere else entirely? Should they create a different school altogether?
The major, by nature, is divergent. Hard to place, and define. This was perfect for me, and I loved every second of being involved in the program.
When the time came to start looking for internships and later jobs, I found that the professional world also struggled to define this individual. I was able to apply for, and get interviews for jobs asking for engineering degrees, computer science degrees, management degrees, marketing degrees (specifically technical marketing). Every kind of analyst you could imagine, I fit the bill for: Business analyst, systems analyst, industry analyst, analyst analyst… you get the idea.
I had no real decision made on what I wanted to do, but at the time I had the idea in my mind that I wanted to be a technical project manager as my end goal because I absolutely loved that class in school. So I set out to find a job that would eventually lead me towards project management.
With the exception of my internship at Ernst and Young LLC where I worked in the IT department, and a bit with the infrastructure group, my first real taste of corporate America came in the form of Tyler Technologies, where I would be what they called an “Implementation Specialist”.
Essentially I would learn their software products, travel around to different client sites, and help implement the software, as well as, train their employees on how to use it. It paid well for a kid right out of school, and I had a knack for public speaking. Taking those things into consideration and the fact that I would get to work right along side the project managers, it seemed like a perfect fit.
Unfortunately it wasn’t, and I learned that things do not always work out the way that you want them to. A life lesson that would teach me what I valued in a job, career, and/or workplace. That is not to say that Tyler Technologies isn’t a great company, they are the job everyone wanted, and I was the one to get it. However, at the time, it just wasn’t the right fit for me personally. I still have many friends over there who love it, and I wish both them and the company as a whole all the best!
I left the company after only about seven months and went to work for HPE as a Business Analyst helping support Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Managed Services (BCRS). I had no idea what any of that was at the time, but it would end up being one of the greatest opportunities of my life.
In my early days at HPE I handled things like procurement, and asset management for the managed services group. Being the young kid on the team I was often tossed a wide range of different things to help out on, but the specific reason I was hired was to help with process improvement. I was asked to look at the things we were doing and try to give a fresh perspective on them.
As time went on I found that the internal processes for quoting hardware took far longer than they should in a company that specializes in data center infrastructure. I had a knack for the hardware side of things, so I decided to get my hands on some of the internal tools and see if I could perhaps build configurations and quote them myself.
As it turns out, checking my work against the specialty group inside of HP, I could! Going forward, I would handle all of the infrastructure configurations for the team of Solutions Architects that worked in the BCRS group, and I loved it. When you take that and combine it with my procurement capabilities and asset management. I took a process that might take a 2 or 3 weeks to complete, and turned it around in a matter of days (sometimes hours).
I received some good recognition for those efforts, and eventually was nominated to help lead a process improvement group internally. Unfortunately the group never really truly took off, but I like to think we got a few good things done while we were working together.
Now for the really interesting piece…
One day I was asked if I could fill in on a call for one of the Solutions Architects who was double booked. I didn’t need to speak, but really just needed to take down the technical requirements of the customer. I of course agreed to help and set off to join the call.
This half hour call turned into nearly two hours long due to an argument about a few different technologies. I will not go into the details here, but I decided to chime in with how I would approach the issue, and to my surprise… everyone agreed with me!
Word quickly got around to my boss, who got in contact with me to tell me my role had changed (without my input, which was the best move of my career. Thanks Mark!). I was now a Solutions Architect! To which I replied, what does that mean exactly? Little did I know this would end up being the absolute most perfect role for my personality. I have never been more fortunate in my life than in that moment. I had finally truly found what I wanted to do with my career.
The next six months to a year were pretty tough as I adjusted, but I had a wonderful friend and mentor to help guide me down this path. I could never repay him for all of the help he gave to me in my early days as an SA.
Fast forward to today, and I am nearing the beginning of my seventh year in the industry, and still love what I am doing. Most of my time was spent at HPE, but the previous two and a half years I have had the great opportunity to work for a smaller company in Unique Digital, where I met some of my closest friends, and some of the brightest people that you could ever ask to work with.
Like with all good things (and this blog post) the time has came to move on, as I will be progressing my career into a more senior level role at another company that will have it’s own set of challenges and experiences, but that I am very much so looking forward to the new endeavor. (At a minimum this has already happened, and I am either still there or have progressed further onward!)
I am going to have the opportunity to see many more technologies and hopefully bring some high level discussions in future blog posts with all of you because of it (finally something industry related). This marks the end of who I am, how early decisions guided my path, and how I got to where I am today.
I hope that the recurring theme is apparent in these posts. Finding your way is much less about your skills, but rather the people you choose to surround yourself with, being able to recognize yourself and where you fit, as well as, getting a bit lucky along the way. I know I sure have!
Now that you know who I am, and where I come from it is time to start pumping out some worthwhile content for everyone. Some of this has already been done, as I am the co-host on a new YouTube video series called SEV Ops (Short Educational Video Operations), which I would encourage you to check out, and comment on. Feedback on any and all content is always welcome.
I really appreciate you for sticking it out this far, and look forward to what is coming next…
Best,
Russ
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