Show Notes

In this episode, Manuel Martinez talks with Nidhi Nayak, an Enterprise Support Lead with extensive experience across data warehousing, cloud architecture, and technical leadership.

Born and raised in India, Nidhi shares her journey from studying mathematics to becoming an engineer, and how her passion for problem-solving drove her career choices. She walks us through the multi-stage interview process she navigated as a recent graduate in India, including how she prepared months in advance for campus recruitment.

Nidhi discusses her progression from an ETL developer to various technical leadership roles, explaining why she chose to broaden her knowledge across multiple technologies rather than specializing deeply in just one area. Her approach paid off as she moved from on-premise systems to cloud architecture, ultimately achieving all 12 AWS certifications.

Throughout the conversation, Nidhi offers practical wisdom on:

This episode provides valuable insights for both early-career professionals looking to map their path forward and experienced practitioners seeking ways to expand their impact beyond technical expertise.

Listen to the full episode to hear Nidhi’s thoughtful advice on continuous learning, strategic career planning, and finding opportunities to grow even within comfortable roles.

#CareerDownloads #TechCareers #CloudArchitecture #WomenInTech #CareerAdvice #ProfessionalDevelopment #AWSCertifications

Transcription

Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to really understand and uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me a coworker. Her name is Nidhi Nayak. So we’re no longer on the same team, but we did spend almost a year together, kind of interacting. I understood the different things that she had kind of had experience in. She was really kind of a lead in the group that I was a part of. She helped kind of guide and direct me in certain areas when I had certain difficulties. I looked at her background, I thought it was pretty interesting. I’ve seen her kind of give internal presentations and I thought she would be a good guest to kind of uncover and learn more about. So with that, go ahead and plug in and download the knowledge and I will introduce Nidhi. So welcome Nidhi.

Nidhi: Hey Manny.

Manuel: So I really appreciate you coming on and being open to sharing your experiences.

Nidhi: Of course, thank you. Thanks for inviting me.

Manuel: I know that we’re here in Austin, we’re here for a team gathering. So I mean, I was glad that when I reached out and you were open to kind of talking about this. So if you don’t mind just to start off, just give me a brief summary of kind of tell me what your role or current position is and just a summary of some of your roles and responsibilities so that people understand kind of what you do now.

Nidhi: So hey, everyone like, currently I’m the enterprise support lead. So as an enterprise support lead, you are not just only the technical account manager, like you’re handling your customer, but then you are working with the people. So like we are, there is a pool of TAM, the cluster of TAM, whom you are managing. So managing in the sense like mentoring, so if they have any questions, they will come to you. So you need to help them with those. Taking care, like if they are on a vacation, so making sure that they have proper coverage, so those tasks. And apart from that, for my own personal interests, I’m also like working on a couple of internal projects and also contributing towards the technical community field so that I can stay in touch with the development and my technical skills. So yeah, and I really enjoyed working on this role.

Manuel: If you don’t mind telling me kind of where you grew up and eventually, you know, what got you interested in technology, like everybody’s has different, but at some point, there’s something that called you towards that field. So if you don’t mind just kind of sharing.

Nidhi: Sure, so I born and brought up in India. So I’m from the state Madhya Pradesh. So I did my schooling there. And during my schooling, I decided to become an engineer. So I have this aspiration since my childhood. And as I started growing up, I have more interest towards the maths. I like to solve those problems, those logics. So that’s how I took that as my career path. And then I came to know, okay, I can do the engineering. So I’d take the entrance exam. I passed it and like that time in 2020… 2002, basically. So everything was revolving around computers, IT. So I thought of exploring my career in that technology. So I did my bachelors of engineering from India in information technology. And that’s how I started my career. And then I got my first job in India. That was with Data Consultancy Services. And I joined as an assistant system engineer. And that’s how my career started over there.

Manuel: As you started your career, right? So going through and understanding that you, you know, had your bachelors, what was the process or the experience like for you coming out of college? So I know for most people, and I’m one of those ones that similar to you, I went to college and went for management information systems. But for me, trying to land a job right out of college, it was difficult. I thought, I have a degree. People are just gonna come after me, but they were also looking for experience. So what was that process like for you over there in India?

Nidhi: I, as I mentioned, I like to do those problem solving logistics and how the process there works is like company first screen you through their like quantitative analytics skills. So first you have to like go through that process. Like you will get a paper. You have to solve it in a certain amount of time. If you qualify for that, then they will call you for the technical interview. So I was like during my engineering time, so whenever I’m having those summer breaks or winter breaks, I used to solve those problems from my third year itself. And I started preparing myself for like the campus interviews. So I was, I like I solved problem like quantitative, then there was logistics, verbals, non-verbals. So I used to get those books and start working on that. And like once I started, I really kind of enjoying those things. Then like I just to prepare for an interview, right? Like you need to have certain skillset, like how you are going to talk, what you need to talk. So I did a crash course there. That crash course helped me to like excel in the GDPI so that I can appear for the interview. And that’s how like I prepared myself. And on my fourth year, I started like finding the campus jobs, like where like we can just companies are coming. They are like examining that a candidate, candidate qualifies, then you will move to the another round, like the group discussion rounds. And then once the group discussion is done, you will be moving to the personal interview rounds. So there are like technical personal interviews, HR rounds. So I prepared well ahead before reaching to that stage that helped me in my career path.

Manuel: So is that pretty common down there to go through multiple stages like that? Because I know here, again, it’s very company dependent. Some people have multiple interviews, some have one, some do a screening, some don’t. So is that commonplace?

Nidhi: Yeah, so for like recent college graduate, that’s a common process because like they are hiring in like bulk. So like, and people are appearing. So like more and more number of people are appearing over there for interview. So they need to screen the candidates so that is the process of elimination. So suppose if like thousand candidate appears for the writing exam, maybe like 600 qualifies, then the group discussion comes. So in group discussion, maybe only 200 qualifies. Then the technical interview in the HR may be like 100 or 150 qualifies. So that’s how they screen the candidates.

Manuel: So that’s the process there. And that’s why you were able to sign up for the crash course because this is a commonplace thing where people go through and help coach you.

Nidhi: Yeah, so yeah, like I talked to the people who were already faced those like my seniors and all. So that also helps in getting the guidance. So I was checking with them how they prepared, how they landed into the job and then the internet, right? Like you can search those things. So like that time it was not that active, but still there are forums where people share their experiences that helps me to prepare myself for that.

Manuel: Awesome, so then now you go through, you land your first role and you mentioned that you enjoyed kind of the research and the preparing part. So then what was kind of, how did you feel once you landed the role and actually started doing the hands-on practical work?

Nidhi: I feel I really enjoyed that. So it’s not like whatever you are studying in college that you ...

Show Notes

In this episode, Manuel Martinez interviews Taft Singletary, a Senior Technical Account Manager with three decades of experience in telecommunications and technology. Taft shares his path from growing up in North Philadelphia to becoming a respected cloud professional.

Starting with his education at DeVry University and early career at RAM Mobile Data, Taft worked on cutting-edge technology including the first prototypes of BlackBerry devices and Palm Pilots. He details his progression through roles at Cox Communications, Comcast, Scientific Atlanta (now Cisco), and beyond, sharing honest reflections on career transitions and leadership challenges.

Throughout the conversation, Taft offers practical career advice: surround yourself with high achievers, build meaningful professional relationships, and take strategic control of your career path. His story highlights how combining technical expertise with people skills creates opportunities in the rapidly changing technology landscape.

This episode provides valuable insights for technology professionals at any stage looking to grow their careers and navigate industry evolution successfully.

#CareerDownloads #TechCareers #CloudComputing #Telecommunications #ProfessionalDevelopment #MentorshipMatters

Transcription

Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode, I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to try and uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me a coworker. His name is Taft Singletary and his background is in communications and telecom. So we did have a brief conversation when we first started working together and he kind of mentioned some of his background, I shared some of mine, and I thought it was a really interesting kind of how he ended up moving in here and some of the experiences and his expertise. So I figured I would bring him on and just really kind of dig in a little bit deeper and share that story with the rest of you. So I will go ahead and introduce Taft. So thanks Taft, I appreciate you coming on and being open and willing to share your experiences.

Taft: I appreciate it, man. Thanks for inviting me. My first time on a podcast, but I do appreciate the mission that you’re trying to accomplish and yeah, can’t wait to share. Just my, you know, everything that I’ve done and hopefully it’ll help others. And again, hopefully it’ll just maybe motivate others to maybe look more into tech, follow their passions, things of that nature.

Manuel: So if you don’t mind just kind of to start off, just give me a brief summary of kind of what your current role or position is and then just some of the roles and responsibilities of what you are in charge of today.

Taft: Yeah, so I’m a senior technical account manager. I have multiple customers and my job is really to just help them maximize their cloud, their complex cloud journey. And they’re all in different phases of their cloud journey. Some are recently starting, some are just well-advanced. And my job is to really help them excel at operational components, their usage, their cost, seeing around corners for them from a security perspective, really just being a technical consultant for them and just making sure that they are maximizing, I’m gonna say their cloud investments. And that’s ultimately what my job is.

Manuel: If you can now kind of give us a brief summary of kind of where you grew up and kind of what eventually got you interested in technology, so everybody’s different. Some people early on, some people later in life, but just kind of what sparked that eventual interest and that want to kind of pursue that area.

Taft: Yeah, so I grew up in Philadelphia, a very poor section of Philadelphia, North Philadelphia. And we didn’t have a lot. And this is, I’m a little older now, so this is 80s time period. So internet hasn’t really jumped off yet. And there’s really only certain things that you can get into from a technology perspective. And for me, it was movies. It was, I was very attracted to movies like Star Wars and the old series Star Trek and all these things. And it was just, hey, being able to beam somebody onto a planet and just the Star Wars is all this electronics and it was just great. I just, I really just love that. But at the time, like I said, there wasn’t… you had some computers, Commodore computers and kind of basic stuff. You had Atari systems. Everything was kind of really basic, but I was into all of those things. To the point where my mom just left me alone. I would get on my Atari, kind of like the kids do today. But I was just into technology, walkie talkies, anything that had any sort of, to me, tech. I just was like focused intently on it. So I graduated high school and I was actually going to go into Air Force and that’s a total another story. I got talked out of it. But there was a recruiter for DeVry University. And at the time, DeVry University had a telecommunications management program. And I was really interested in it. It encompassed computers. At the time, telephone was really the, the telecommunications medium. But it was electronic engineering. So we put together circuit boards. It was pretty much everything. And it was low cost. Because again, I came from, my parents couldn’t afford to send me to, I’m going to say like a regular college. But more importantly, a lot of regular colleges didn’t have that broad of a program. It was really computer programming. And this one was computer programming and everything else like I mentioned. So I decided I’m going to go there. And I ended up going off to DeVry. Got a bachelor degree in telecommunications. And again, I was able to really chart my career. And it was early on. And so I could go into computer programming or I can go into just pure electronic engineering. Or if I wanted to stay in telecommunications, I can get into the telephone side. And there was plenty of telephone companies out there that were looking for engineers to do, just basic communications sort of things. So that’s where I got started. And then when I graduated, I ended up moving back to Philadelphia with my uncle. And you’ll find my uncle come up a lot. He was the one that, he was pretty successful, but more in a traditional, he was like an accountant. But he pushed me hard to excel. Like I would come home with D’s and he would literally like just go crazy. I’m like, what are you doing? You have to get A’s, you don’t understand it. And now I get what he was saying. Like again, at the time as a young black male, I didn’t understand him, but he’s trying to tell me you have to be excellent. You can’t be just good, you have to be excellent. So again, you’ll find out he’ll probably come up a lot in our conversation, but he really didn’t want me to go off and do computers. He thought that was too edgy too this. So I kind of bucked the trend with him and said, no, no, no, I’m gonna go do this. Cause that’s just where I wanted to be. So I graduate, I’m back living with him. I mean my mom and dad in North Philly, but I didn’t want to go back to the hood hood. So I’m with him. (both laughing) And I was literally about to start work at a Radio Shack. I had got a job offer at a Radio Shack and I get a call from RAM Mobile Data. So RAM Mobile Data, they did a national packet switching network that included wireless. And it was really kind of the first kind of two way radio type of communication that included data. You had telephone, but actual data. And so they offered me a position. It was for $29,000 a year. I thought it was like the best thing ever. (both laughing) And so I’m in Philadelphia, I moved to North Jersey cause that’s where they were based at. And I was a lab engineer in which allowed me to start from the ground up. So I was building equipment, I was upgrading, we call them cell towers and cell switches, upgrading cell switches, doing packet analysis, all these different things that I thought was just the coolest thing possible. It was amazing.

Manuel: So, and you mentioned like when you were in college, you’re getting exposure to like, it sounds like a number of different things. So was communications, after you graduated and you mentioned Radio Shack and eventually this company called you, were you, was communications the area that kind of called your attention more? And were you like putting in applications everywhere? Was this, what was that process for you kind of moving out and saying, okay, this is where I think I wanna go. Like I get you pick technology, but what made you decide communications and apply in that realm?

Taft: That’s a good question. So at DeVry, one of the things they have you do is before you get your bachelor’s degree, you have to do an internship somewhere. And in Jersey, they only offered an associate degree. So you had to move to one of four locations to actually get a bachelor’s degree. So DeVry University had locations in multiple cities. I chose Kansas City. So I actually moved out to Kansas City for my final two years. And my internship happened to be with Sprint, which was based in Kansas City. So my internship, we would wire, they would send us telephone jobs and we would actually wire, let’s say like an office building with telephone. It was all telephony wired, went down to like a PBX switch. And it was all voice, but it was all communications. And that started getting me into a twisted pair and punching down and dialing, making sure that, okay, this is working, testing it. And so that was really what kind of sparked my interest in, man, I like to focus on the communication side. Because again, I could have did computer ...

Show Notes

In this powerful episode of Career Downloads, Manuel Martinez sits down with Asal “Vox” Gibson, CEO and founder of Cyroot and president of Cyroot Academy. Vox shares her extraordinary career path that began as an immigrant who didn’t speak English and worked in exchange for groceries.

Vox takes us through her journey of determination and growth: becoming a RadioShack store manager at just 20 years old, transitioning to automotive sales, building a successful career in financial services, and eventually working in defense contracting with top security clearance.

Throughout the conversation, Vox reveals the values and mindset that propelled her success: an unwavering work ethic, hunger for knowledge, and willingness to start from scratch in entirely new fields. She explains how each career transition taught her valuable skills that built upon one another, creating a foundation for her current roles leading both a cybersecurity company and a nonprofit providing free education to military personnel.

Key moments include:

This conversation offers practical wisdom about career advancement, the importance of being teachable, and finding purpose through helping others succeed. If you’re looking to transform your career or seeking inspiration on overcoming obstacles, this episode delivers actionable insights from someone who’s mastered the art of career reinvention.

Listen to the full episode to hear Vox’s complete story and learn how she’s now helping others find their own path to success.

Episode release date: April 1, 2025

#CareerDownloads #CareerTransition #TechLeadership #CyberSecurity #VeteransSupport

Transcription

Manuel: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to really learn more about their experience and their background to try and uncover any actionable advice that you can uncover as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode I have with me Asal Gibson, also goes by call sign “Vox”. So there’s a, sounds like there’s a pretty interesting story around that so I’m excited to dig into that. So I met Asal at a networking event. I didn’t get much of a chance to kind of interact with her, you know, started to look at her LinkedIn profile, saw a lot of what she was posting, what she was doing. I looked at her background and felt that she would be an amazing guest to kind of bring on and just learn more about kind of what she’s done throughout her career and, you know, anything that she might be able to impart onto others. So she teaches part-time, she’s been a project manager, she also has started a non-profit, she’s, you know, was in the military, still helps out the military. So there’s a number of different ways that this conversation can go and I’m actually really excited because this, I just have the feeling that this is probably going to be a two -part series at some point. So with that I will go ahead and introduce Asal. Hi.

Asal: Hi.

Manuel: I appreciate you coming on and taking the time to kind of share your story and your experiences. So to kind of get started, normally what I ask people is kind of what your current role is and I know that you have multiple different ones so you can name them all, pick a couple and then just kind of a brief summary of some of the roles and responsibilities just so that people can get an understanding of kind of who “Vox” is today.

Asal: Sure. Yeah, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. I’m the CEO and founder of Cyroot. We’re an IT and cyber security company born and raised here in Las Vegas. And I’m also the president of Cyroot Academy. It’s a non-profit arm of our company where we provide education at no cost to our military and veterans in the community. And about the teaching, I’ve been teaching for going on three years. I taught cyber security for two years at UNLV and a couple other universities. And now I’m on a faculty in a business school where I teach business classes and IT project management classes.

Manuel: I know we’re going to probably get into it at some point, but I really want to, I am very curious now. So I’m curious how the call sign name “Vox” came about. So I don’t know if that’s something you want to dig into now, or if it’s something that will kind of come up along, you know, the conversation.

Asal: Yeah. So I’ve had that call sign for 10 years. In the aviation community, you normally get a call sign. I think it started as a security thing. You go by a nickname or call sign, not your full name. Now I was never a pilot, but I hung out with pilots and, you know, I just went by the name Asal. And they start giving me different call signs. Like if I was being picky about the coffee, I’m like, this coffee sucks. They’re like, finicky, that’s your call sign. And I would get annoyed. I’m like, I’m not finicky. Okay. But this coffee sucks. And then they gave me the call sign “Big E” because I was the most extroverted person in there because I would come in and say, good morning. And no one would say good morning back. And they’re like, you’re way too extroverted. So I went by a “Big E” until, um, a person said, Hey, you can’t call her the “Big E” that’s the big enterprise ship, you know, in the Navy. Like, um, so I went back to being called Asal. And then I was presenting a project to the CEO and people in the company saying, Hey, we really need to recruit people out of college and give them a chance, sponsor their security clearance and bring them into the defense contracting instead of building ridiculous requirement for entry-level jobs. Uh, so I started getting, Oh, some attention for that. Like, where did that come from? So, uh, the CEO, uh, and a commander thought, well, “Vox” would be good call sign for me because “Vox” means the voice of the people. And, um, I wanted to take a second to think about it, but you can’t think about it. And if you don’t like it, it will definitely get stuck. So he basically, the boss said, we’re calling you “Vox” from this point on, but no one knew that outside of my office. And when I left the Navy, went to work for the Air Force, they said, Hey, you have to deploy to the Middle East. And I’ve never been deployed. I was never trained as military personnel. You know, I was civilian. So I showed up there and on day one, ironically, it was the first ever in my life. They said, do you have a call sign or anything you go by? And I’m like, why do you, why did you just ask me this? Cause no one ever asked. And I said, “Vox”. Uh, so it, it became a thing, uh, you know, serving the Air Force for a couple of years. Uh, just everyone called me “Vox”. And when I came back stateside, I had so many friends from the military. So it, it just, uh, it kind of became more real and never went away.

Manuel: Well, and based on kind of conversations we’ve had and a lot of what you’re doing, it almost, it sounds like it’s very fitting, right? “Vox”, the voice of the people. So, you know, I’m interested as we kind of dig into your journey and, you know, so that people can understand kind of that parallel and where this goes.

Asal: Yeah, absolutely.

Manuel: So now tell me a little bit of kind of your background, kind of, you know, where you grew up and, you know, eventually kind of what led you into technology. If it was later on in life, it was early. Um, you know, if it, if it was later on, then just, you know, we can get to there eventually just so that people understand, you know, just kind of the foundation of what led you to where you are now.

Asal: So it’s a little bit of a complicated story. I grew up in the Middle East and came to the United States in 2001. Didn’t speak any English, came here with my mom and my sister. We didn’t have any money. My parents separated and everything that you could imagine could go wrong, went wrong. Uh, for example, we were supposed to arrive on September 12th, 2001 and we got held up and couldn’t make it, you know, until, uh, September 24th, you know, of that year. So it was, it was a difficult transition to get here. And my first job, I worked for food. I worked for groceries. And when people, you know, hear that, they say like everybody works for food. I said, no, I actually worked for food as I got paid with groceries for my family. I, you know, I didn’t have any skills or language and I walked four miles to go to the store. I opened at 8am and worked till 11pm. And the store, you know, owner would say, you know, take whatever grocery for your mom and your sister. And that’s, I did that for six months. I made my first dollar when I was sick. I was so burned out. I was getting very little sleep and he would like do, you know, he would like take my hours, calculate them. And he would look at the groceries I picked. And he looked at me that night and I was so drained. And, and he said, you owe me $7 and 50 cents. And I said, okay, why do I don’t have any cash? As you know, I’ve never had cash, uh, but I’m happy to work an extra hour. Uh, so I think he felt bad. So he said, you know, I’m going to give you a couple of dollars to take the bus. You don’t have to walk home tonight. So he gave me two bucks. And that was the first two dollars I ever made. Actually, like it was the first time I s...

Show Notes

In Episode 28 of Career Downloads, Manuel Martinez interviews Dalien Ahiekpor, Senior Technical Account Manager at AWS, who shares his transformation from tech-curious teenager to cloud professional. Learn how winning a PC at a summer tech camp sparked Dalien’s interest in technology, why he chose computer science despite early struggles with programming, and how he navigated from network engineering to his current role.

Dalien reveals the six-month job search that tested his persistence, his unconventional approach to landing his dream position, and the profound impact mentorship had on his career trajectory. He offers practical interview advice for standing out among candidates and emphasizes taking ownership of your career path.

Whether you’re looking to break into tech, transition to cloud computing, or find effective mentors, this conversation provides actionable strategies from someone who’s successfully navigated the journey.

#CareerDownloads #CloudComputing #AWSCareers #TechMentorship

Transcription

Manuel: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn about their background, their experiences, to really uncover any actionable advice that they’ve used to manage their career that you can go ahead and implement and use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me a co-worker. His name is Dalien Ahiekpor and we work together. We looked at his background. He’s very passionate about mentorship and also like early career growth. So I thought he would be a great person to kind of bring on and I won’t dive too much deeper and I’ll let him kind of explain a lot of that for us. So with that, welcome Dalien.

Dalien: Hey folks, thanks so much for having me.

Manuel: No problem. I appreciate you coming on and, you know, being open to sharing your experiences for others and, you know, you know, helping somebody out who could probably find value in this.

Dalien: Absolutely.

Manuel: So if you don’t mind to start off, kind of tell me what your current role is and just a brief summary of, you know, what are some of your roles and responsibilities for kind of what you do in that role?

Dalien: Sure. So as Manuel alluded to in the beginning of the call, I’m a senior technical account manager at AWS. We’re colleagues. I’ve been working at AWS for a few years now in various roles. As mentioned, most commonly or most recently, the senior technical account manager role are commonly referred to as TAM. As a TAM, we’re really responsible for, we’re seen as the customer advocate on the account team. So we’re an extension of enterprise support where we really quarterback a lot of the operational concerns that a customer might have, any issues they have with services, escalations, helping them understand a strategic initiative for their company and how we can help with that. That’s what we do here at AWS Enterprise Support.

Manuel: So now, if you wouldn’t mind kind of telling me a little bit about some of your background and, you know, kind of where you grew up and eventually what kind of led you into, you know, wanting to pursue technology?

Dalien: Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up in Toledo, Ohio, Northwest Ohio area, not too far from Detroit, if you’re familiar. Born and raised there. Went to college there as well, University of Toledo. Go Rockets. And I got into tech. That’s a very, that’s a good question as, you know, when I was growing up, one of the most profound conversations I remember having relatively young, probably a freshman in high school. I remember a conversation I had with my father and my parents both graduated. They’re, you know, graduate college graduates. They actually met in college and I was probably around that age, probably, you know, it was expected to go to college coming from the family. But I didn’t really have a defined destination or what I was going to be going for. And so my father went for business. I was kind of defaulting towards that as a lot of college majors do. But understanding, and from a conversation I had with my father, he mentioned that, you know, I went to school for business and it did me well, but especially where he went into entrepreneurship, college was, you know, you don’t need a degree to be an entrepreneur. So if you’re going to pay for college and to do something like that, get something that we can specialize in. So he didn’t necessarily direct me towards technology or computer science, but he mentioned being a specialist, getting something that you can specialize in a particular field. So that conversation kind of resonated with me as I still remember it today, quite vividly. And later on through my hight school career, as I was getting educated, I, my mom signed me up, you know, as good mothers do, you know, push you towards things and support you on your way. And she signed me up for a tech summer camp. I think it was my junior year of high school. You know, I didn’t want to necessarily go, but you know, they said there’d be fun things to do. And, you know, mom was pushing me towards it. So I agreed. And actually the first day we went into that camp, it was, we were building, you know, gaming PCs. So it was my first hands-on experience with computers and technology. And, uh, through that initiative, actually we raffled off the computers that we worked on and lo and behold, I actually won the raffle. Uh, so I was able to get, come home with a nice build, which was my first own personal computer, which I cherished for many years. Still have it. It doesn’t necessarily get any use today, but it’s kind of sitting in the closet. Uh, but, uh, definitely a cherished heirloom. Uh, maybe I’ll pass it down to my kids one day. They’ll see it as a dinosaur. But, uh, uh, that was definitely something that intrigued me as going through that bootcamp kind of got me interested in tech and then getting in the computer, setting it up, understanding the different components, file explorer, going through file paths. Um, yeah, it really intrigued me and, you know, kind of got me prepped into, uh, computer science. Once I had to pick a, declare a major, it was kind of the de facto, I was doing a lot of computer stuff, gotten to gaming a little bit, uh, in high school and college. So it was just kind of the natural progression was interested in it. So I’m like, Hey, I’ll just make it a potential career.

Manuel: And with that, so as you’re kind of, you know, you get introduced to it, I’m assuming it was pretty, you know, I remember the first time I built a PC, right. And it was kind of like, Oh, you have something tangible that you put together, you work. Um, you know, it starts to work and you’re also, you know, mentioned you’re digging around and file explorer. So it sounds like you were very curious, at least at that point. And is that something that you had like a natural curiosity to kind of learn more about things? Or is it really like, this is so new and interesting that, okay, maybe I want to dig into it a little bit deeper?

Dalien: Yeah, well, so I guess it’s kind of a little bit of both. So it was kind of, it kind of stemmed from an understanding of, you know, once I got this computer, what can I do with it? I didn’t have my own personal computer. We had like a laptop, uh, uh, you know, cheap laptop that we had in the house. It was the family computer, but it wasn’t running anything, you know, other than RuneScape couldn’t really run any, uh, big games on it. So once I got this computer, um, it was just like, okay, what can I do with this? What’s, what’s capable? What kind of programs can I get without, uh, implicating myself? You know, I may have to get, uh, very creative in terms of how to get some of these games and different softwares. Uh, so it kind of got me interested in like, okay, how do I use this machine to the best of my abilities, right? I got to build with nothing on it other than windows. How do I actually turn this into something that I’m going to use regularly, um, in for school, for recreation? How am I going to leverage this machine that I was fortunate enough to win? So that kind of got me just interested in, all right, what’s capable? What can I do? What’s available? How do I set these things up? Cause then once you start running into issues, you know, I didn’t necessarily have a place to go to get things fixed or I didn’t have money to pay for someone to come help me fix my stuff. So a lot of YouTube, a lot of grinding and, you know, through trial and error, I was able to, you know, come up with something that was like, oh, this is actually pretty interesting and how it works.

Manuel: So then now you get into college and, you know, you declare, you know, computer science major, were the classes that you took, do you think that they kind of helped continue to build that informational, you know, database or knowledge base that you had and, you know, kind of continue to move forward? Or was it like, you know, all right, this is cool. This is interesting. It’s helping me kind of understand, but I still really don’t know what I’m going to kind of do with it.

Dalien: Yeah. So I’ll say it was kind of rough. My first couple of years in computer science, almost like deterred me from going into it as a full-time career. A lot of my early classes in the computer science field were on programming, you know, different languages. You’re learning some of the more basic languages. I had an assembly class that, so to this day, I don’t know how I passed, but a lot of different, different capabilities that I was not familiar with or comfortable with. So early on in my career or in my college days, it was, it almost made me pursue somethin...

Show Notes

In this episode of Career Downloads, Manuel Martinez interviews Jason Smith, who shares his remarkable journey from a 20-year career as an Air Force jet engine mechanic to becoming a Technical Curriculum Developer at AWS Training and Certification.

Jason discusses growing up in a small Ohio town, his initial career working for a sewer rehabilitation company, and the moment that sparked his interest in joining the Air Force. Throughout his military career, Jason gained valuable skills in leadership, communication, and training that would later prove instrumental in his tech transition.

Using the military’s SkillsBridge program, Jason secured an apprenticeship with AWS despite having zero prior knowledge of cloud computing. He candidly shares his struggle with imposter syndrome, certification challenges, and how he overcame them through persistence and collaborative learning.

Key topics covered:

Whether you’re a veteran looking to transition to civilian work, considering a major career pivot, or simply interested in tech career paths, Jason’s story offers valuable insights and practical advice for navigating significant professional changes.

#CareerDownloads #VeteranSuccess #TechCareers #AWSCertification #CloudComputing #CareerTransition

Transcription

Manuel: Welcome, everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez, and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their career and really try to uncover any actionable advice and tips that they’ve used as they’ve managed their career so that you can go ahead and use and implement as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me Jason Smith. And I met Jason at my current place of employment at AWS, we happen to be working a conference together, kind of started, you know, just getting to know each other and learn a little bit more. And, I felt that he had a very interesting career path where he kind of, you know, fell into technology. And, you know, I’m excited to kind of dig a little bit more into that and have him share, you know, his trajectory and ultimately what landed him into the role that he’s in now. So with that, I’ll introduce Jason Smith.

Jason: Thanks, Manny.

Manuel: Appreciate you coming on and taking the time to really kind of share your story and your experiences to, you know, hopefully, you know, inspire or be able to help others along the way.

Jason: Yeah, glad to be here. I actually feel a little honored that you invited me to do this. So yeah, I appreciate it.

Manuel: So kind of what I’ve been doing with the guests is if you just kind of briefly tell me what your current role is, and just a brief summary of kind of what your roles and responsibilities are, and then we’ll kind of take it from there.

Jason: Yeah, so currently, I work with AWS Training and Certification. So my role is a Technical Curriculum Developer. And I work primarily on instructor led training. So what that means is any of the courses that you’ve, so there’s, there’s, there’s going to be some courses on like Skill Builder, if you’ve heard of that, AWS Training and Certification has a platform called Skill Builder, and they deliver. So now they deliver digital training. So I believe like AWS JAMs are held on there where you can, it’s kind of a simulation to you try to solve a challenge, you know, that we could do hands on keyboard. They also offer like digital instructor led training. And, beside that, they offer instructor training. So that some of that is virtual. And then some of that could be like hosted on site where a trainer comes to your, you know, place from employment, if you know, large corporation wants to deliver training, but it’s all focused around getting, getting learners comfortable with the cloud services that we offer. So some of the trainings I’ve worked on, uh, have been primarily around machine learning. So develop curriculum for my first class I worked on was, um, it, it actually got shelved. So you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t even hear about it. So it, there was a shift in priority, uh, with, with the training I was working on at the time. And then, so I guess my first course would be Amazon SageMaker Studio for Data Scientists. So that teaches learners primarily focused towards data scientists, uh, to use Amazon SageMaker, you know, for kind of from start to finish through, through the whole machine learning process, even from formulating a business problem through all the way through processing the data and everything you can do with Amazon SageMaker as a service. Uh, so, and that course went through a development cycle and then it gets, you know, it’s, it’s packaged and ready for trainers to deliver to, to learners. Uh, so I, I’m behind the scenes working with, uh, other developers, sometimes instructional designers, uh, sometimes learning experience designers, working with the subject matter experts. Like we worked with the, a few, uh, uh, a few, uh, like solutions architects, senior solutions architects, uh, to get one, you know, like real world scenarios, make sure we’re, we’re offering like, Hey, this is how people are using the technology. Uh, so work with, with those as well as like globally delivery instructors, all to create, you know, a well, a well packaged and, and, and high quality, uh, training for our, for our learners. So yeah, that’s kind of my role right now. And right, right now, uh, I’ve worked on several courses for instructor led training, but actually now I’m working on a, uh, a cloud ops, uh, role-based training and that’s a digital offering. So I’ve been primarily instuctor led training, but also work in the digital space as well. So.

Manuel: No, and that’s, that’s pretty cool. And when we first kind of talked and you kind of told me what the role was, and I think the interesting part is, and, you know, we’re going to dig into that now is kind of how you ended up in that role, you know, especially with your, your experience and your background. So with that, um, if you kind of, now we’ll kind of take a step back and tell me kind of where you grew up and then eventually kind of what got you interested in the technology, whether it was like early in life later on, and then we’ll kind of, you know, follow your career trajectory to where you’re at now.

Jason: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I’m from a, I’m from a really small town, uh, in, Ohio. So, it’s Camden, Ohio. So that’s where I spent, uh, so I give it…not to get too personal, but so I’m from a divorced family, you know, statistically, a lot of us are right. Uh, so there was, I either lived in Westerville, Ohio, like I lived in Westerville, Ohio, which is right above Columbus, Ohio, like, like Northeast, uh, just a few miles outside of, uh, Westerville, Ohio. Outside of Columbus, Ohio. Sorry. And I spent, uh, like kindergarten through sixth grade there. And then sixth grade through the time I came in the air force in Camden, Ohio, which is a village. So I think the population was probably around 800 at the time when I went through sixth grade through, uh, graduated high school there. Uh, and then, so that’s, that’s where I’m from. So, and if you’re all right, the claim to fame, like the, maybe the closest thing around there, I don’t know if you remember Ben Roethlisberger. Okay. So Oxford, Ohio, my grandparents lived there and that’s where Miami of Ohio is. And Ben Roethlisberger went, he was the quarterback there. So that’s kind of a claim to fame for, for Miami of Ohio. But yeah, so like growing up, uh, I wouldn’t say I ever really had an interest in technology other than like when I got a Nintendo, you know, I was about the extent.

Manuel: So video games is primarily like your exposure to it.

Jason: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was probably my exposure, but I was more of like outside riding my bike. And like, as soon as I could get my like driver’s license and a car, I got a car, like I was just kind of doing things all the time. But, uh, I guess it’ll be fast forward to like after high school, I went to, I went to a, uh, like a small bachelor’s college actually for a few years. And then, uh, uh, and then I got distracted with the, with the girl and got married and started having kids. Uh, so started working in a, uh, so I’ve had a, I’ve had a kind of a wide range of jobs. So I actually worked for a sewer rehabilitation company before I came in the air force. So anywhere from, and you could make the joke, it’s a crappy job, but anyway, uh, but, uh, so I worked for them like two, two and a half, three years before I came in the air force. Um, like they like cleaning, cleaning old lines, repairing, testing, testing new lines. So we did the kind of a wide range of everything. So one, one thing that kind of, and I tell that because one day on a job at, uh, if you’re familiar with, uh, Sharondale, it’s right outside Cincinnati, the GE. So GE, I’m sure everybody’s, so we, we had a job where we were working on sewer line at the GE plant, like where they’re doing jet engines. And so like growing up, my dad worked on, uh, he was a jet engine mechanic, but he was not, not a jet engine mechanic. He was an airframe mechanic. So he just worked on the airframe, not the engine itself. And I kind of saw that kind of growing up and then, uh, working...

Show Notes

In this episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez interviews Adam Lopez, President of CMIT Solutions Las Vegas, a managed service provider specializing in cybersecurity for small to medium-sized businesses.

Adam shares his fascinating career path that began without a formal tech background. Starting as a slot machine technician at Las Vegas casinos, he developed an interest in the databases behind gaming systems. Through curiosity and initiative, Adam built project management skills that propelled him through increasingly senior roles.

Adam’s journey demonstrates that career growth often requires stepping outside your comfort zone—sometimes even taking a step back to ultimately move forward. His story offers valuable insights for technology professionals at any stage of their careers.

Whether you’re just starting in technology or looking to advance to leadership roles, Adam’s practical wisdom on building transferable skills, managing teams, and navigating the industry will help you chart your own successful path.

Listen to learn how being open to unexpected opportunities and having the courage to take calculated risks can lead to a fulfilling technology career.

#CareerDownloads #TechCareers #ProjectManagement #CyberSecurity

Transcript

Manuel: Welcome everyone. So my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to really learn more about their career and how they’ve managed it over time to really be able to uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode I have with me Adam Lopez and I had met him at a networking event. So this was for SIM, so the Society of Information Managers. We had connected on LinkedIn. I had seen his kind of his career path and found a lot of interest in kind of the trajectory that he had. So I asked him to come on and he more than graciously accepted. So with that I’ll introduce Adam.

Adam: Hey thanks for having me, Manuel.

Manuel: I appreciate you coming on and kind of sharing your career trajectory.

Adam: Absolutely.

Manuel: So what I’ve been doing with my guests is if you just kind of give us a brief summary, just kind of tell us what your current position is and kind of some of the roles and responsibilities.

Adam: Yeah, sure. So currently I am the president of CMIT Solutions. We are a MSP cybersecurity company. So we predominantly do it in the cybersecurity space, but we also do MSP, which is your help desk for small to medium-sized businesses. Typically our market is small to medium-sized businesses, but we also do government as well, as well as enterprise, you know, just depending on the level. We are a franchise that’s been around since the 80s. Kind of funny story about the franchise. CMIT used to stand for Computer Moms in Informational Technology. So it was a mom that started the business and she used to go around and fix people’s computers. And so when I heard about the story, I love the story. I love the everything about that. And I was like, how do I get involved? So now, you know, now I am the president here in Las Vegas and it’s been great. You know, I work with a lot of the same people you guys work with as well, as well as I work, you know, with the casinos in town, a lot of the small to medium-sized businesses that just don’t have that understanding of what cybersecurity is. Like, you know, most small to medium-sized businesses don’t understand they need it until they’re breached, right? Kind of scenario. So those are the kind of things that we do. And then I have a team here of system administrators, network engineers, technicians, help desks that are locally here that help support me in my business. So most of the time, you know, it’s a lot of going around to understand what businesses are needing, keeping a pulse on what’s going on in cyber because it’s changing daily, if not hourly. And then also, you know, managing a team. You know, I have a huge team here that I need to make sure that, hey, they have things under control that they’re running on. I fully trust my team. I’m very happy that I have a good team. But again, to get to that point did take some time.

Manuel: And now, just to kind of work our way up to that. So if you just kind of give me a brief summary of kind of where you grew up and eventually what kind of got you interested in technology. Like everybody has a different point in time that kind of where that bug or that desire to kind of learn more started. So what was your introduction?

Adam: Yeah. So, you know, didn’t come from a tech background. My father was a welder. Mom was a home caretaker for elderly people. So didn’t have a lot of tech. So my first tech thing was a Super Nintendo that I bought myself. I had to work for it and pay for myself. And then I just kind of got involved with it. I saw, you know, started some cool stuff around the house, like building some these little circuit boards that you used to make. And you used to make lights go bright and dim and stuff like that. You remember those? And then my famous story is that back in the old days, when I was a kid, they had cordless phones. Remember the ones they pull out? So I had this, I got one from the thrift store because back then they were expensive. So we got one from the thrift store, you know, being thrifty as we were. And I’m going to make this thing work. So, you know, I started taking it apart. And it’s always taking it apart. It’s the easy part, right? Putting it together. So I’m taking this thing apart and not knowing nothing about electricity. I’m like, oh, I need to splice this wire. And so instead of using my finger, which I didn’t, I used my teeth with 120 volts plugged into the wall. And, and, you know, I learned that way about electricity, but also I learned, it was kind of funny. That’s how I got my, you know, kind of, it excited me. I was like, technology is this cool kind of scenario. So it’s kind of drove me. So I’ve always had that on my mind kind of scenario, what I wanted to do. I went to school for something totally different. I went to school for hospitality management at Las at UNLV, which is the feeder part. So I grew up in San Diego, you know, went to a feeder school out there called Mesa, Mesa Junior College. So, you know, got my two year associates there in hotel management. And I’m like, what do I do? You know, UNLV has one of the best hotel programs in the nation applied. I got in, I’m like, wow, that’s cool. So started that journey through UNLV. You know, not to say I put tech aside. It was just like, you know, in my day, tech wasn’t big. This was very early, you know, of the 2000s before Y2K, all that stuff. So tech wasn’t a huge thing back then. So the emphasis was more like, hey, you got to know about tech because, you know, if you’re gonna be a hotel manager, you need to know that we have terminals that people need to check in on. We have credit card machines, stuff like that. But it wasn’t the emphasis. It wasn’t the bread and butter of the career. So, you know, I kept that in mind and said, okay, how do I leverage this? So funny enough, I graduated. What do I do? I got a part-time job at a casino working as a technician. So I kind of said, I want to work on the slot machines to make sure they work correctly. So what we do, go through there, clean them out. You know, if they were broken, if they didn’t accept bills, we’d come in there, clean them out, make sure they work kind of scenario. So I worked for a small casino here in town, eventually led me to Caesars Palace here in Las Vegas, which was a fun job that I got to work at. But in this technology realm, but I noticed that I said, hey, I thought to myself like, okay, these slot machines are great. They’re built on really old Linux technology. Like this career doesn’t seem like it’s going to go anywhere. Like, you know, I don’t know. I don’t see the future. So I started understanding, okay, all these slot machines feed into a centralized database. Now this database is huge, right? It collects all the data for all the slot machine. Every time you put a dollar in, every time you put your card in, all that data and analytics then kind of compresses. And then they create the marketing programs off it. Like I need to get in there. So I started reverse engineering and said, okay, well now I know this job will probably not be here forever because technology will take that over. So where’s that next leap? And I started tracing that back and says, the database is where I need to be. So I started learning about databases. So on my own, just trying to say, hey, what does all this stuff does? So it’s a very simple SQL database, right? That collects all the data. And then they use report generators to report the stuff out. Nothing super complex. So, and again, you know, my background, not super technical, right? I grew up through more of the project management, project delivery role and the product delivery role rather than the technical hands-on keyboard. What I knew I was good at...

Show Notes

In this episode of Career Downloads, Manuel Martinez sits down with Fernando Reyes to discuss his remarkable journey from church multimedia volunteer to Systems Technician II at Clark County.

Fernando shares how his technology journey began with a Windows 95 computer his father brought home, which sparked an interest that would later flourish when he volunteered at his church’s multimedia ministry. What started as helping with video recording evolved into a full-time position where he spent 11 years developing skills in production, IT support, and technical troubleshooting.

Throughout the conversation, Fernando reveals how he strategically navigated career transitions with a clear end goal in mind: working for Clark County. Despite having no formal IT education or certifications, he built his technical expertise through hands-on experience, YouTube tutorials, and guidance from mentors who recognized his potential.

Listeners will gain valuable insights on:

Fernando also discusses the importance of character, loyalty, and commitment in building a successful technical career, as well as his future goals to develop his own business while continuing his work with the county.

Whether you’re starting your IT career or looking to make a strategic career move, this episode offers practical advice on career planning and professional growth that you can apply to your own journey.

#CareerDownloads #TechCareers #ITJobs

Transcript

Manuel: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where each episode basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background, their experience, and really how they manage their career over time to be able to kind of pull out any actionable advice that you can go ahead and use as you’re managing your own career. So for today, I have with me Fernando Reyes and we’re going to talk about his career journey, which I think is pretty interesting. We’ve had some conversations before and he really had a goal in mind, like an end goal, and he just consistently worked to being able to get there. So he didn’t know what was going to happen in between, but again, he was okay with kind of being able to move back and forth and really adjust over time. So I think it will be a good experience and a good story for everybody to kind of listen to. So with that, go ahead and plug in and download the knowledge and I will introduce Fernando.

Fernando: Thank you, Manuel. Thank you for having me.

Manuel: Of course, no problem. Glad you were able to come make it and kind of share your background.

Fernando: Yeah, of course, of course. Thank you. Well, like you said, you know, it’s been a couple of years with career in mind and goals in mind. As you know, as we get older, we start thinking, hey, what do I really want to be at? So about, you know, five, six years ago, I decided to have a goal in mind. I saw a position I liked and now I have that position, but it was not as easy as I thought it was going to be.

Manuel: Yeah, it’s usually, it ends up that way.

Fernando: Right, right.

Manuel: So if you wouldn’t mind, just kind of, everybody can get an understanding of who you are. So if you just don’t mind telling us what your current position is and it’s just a summary of, you know, what your roles and responsibilities are.

Fernando: Sure. So I am a Systems Technician II. That’s the formal position. I’m a glorified desktop technician, basically giving support to end users with, you know, their computer and anything related to technology, printers, conference rooms, anything else like that. And yeah, that’s basically what I do for Clark County. I work for the county. Yeah.

Manuel: And now we’ll go ahead and we’ll kind of start and get a little bit of history about your experience and your background. So if you wouldn’t mind kind of telling me, you know, kind of like where you grew up and then eventually what got you interested into technology?

Fernando: Yeah. So I’m from Mexico, originally. I was born in Tijuana, born and raised there. And my dad introduced me to technology pretty early on. I remember one time he just arrived and got us a computer. It was a Windows 95. That was my first contact with technology as in a computer. Right. And I remember that I always liked, you know, electronics. I think we had LP radio and I would mess up with stuff and I would open the electronics and my dad would get mad because I would just try to fix everything. I think that was my first touch with technology. Finally, he got us a computer to my brothers and my sister and myself. And he just teach us how to use Lotus 1, 2, 3 and printing. And then, you know, came PowerPoint. And I remember he had a, he had us for school encyclopedia. It’s called Encarta. That was back in the day, like with just a couple DVDs and you just put them in, research information to use it. And that’s what I think that was basically my first encounter with technology. And I was fortunate enough to, that my dad provided that instrument and allowed us to learn. And, but, you know, as I grew up, I didn’t really get that much guidance. I said, oh, you can have this as a career. And I think I just went for what I thought was okay. You know, I like, I like animals and I like the sea and stuff like that. And, and I decided to go to college for biology. And that was like, you know, my choice. And so I moved to another city. I started going to college and, and then I moved here and to Vegas. I think it was 2007 on December. I remember I arrived here and, you know, I’ve been a Christian my whole life. And, and I, as I started going to church here, they told me, hey, would you want to help out with the, with the multimedia ministry? That was the, the, where the cameras, the recording, the sound, the lights and all that stuff. So I really got into that. And after I started that journey, I, I, I, they gave me the opportunity to, to be there more time, right. To a point where I was hired by my church to work for them. And I was there for 11 years from that point. And it was just, you know, everything just kind of fell into pieces and I was given opportunities and I, I didn’t say no.

Manuel: And so then when you got that computer, it wasn’t, it was kind of more of a tool, right? It was a tool for you guys to go be able to do your homework, to be able to do research. So it wasn’t like, hey, here’s a computer. And, you know, like you said, start trying to forge a career out of it. It was really like, Hey, this is probably the future. Right. And it just kind of really did not fall behind at that point. Cause Windows 95, that’s around the time. I think we did 95 or 98 is around the time when we got our computer at home. So, you know, again, it was just like, now you can do your homework, you can do your assignments.

Fernando: Yeah, that’s exactly it. And that’s exactly what my dad said. He was very into looking to the future. And my dad was like, Oh, this is going to be the future. So you guys should, you know, take advantage of this. I remember one time he, I got in trouble because I, I took my assignments. I wasn’t elementary at the time. I took it on a paper and printed the paper and the teacher didn’t want to receive my, my paper. And my dad had to go and talk to them about it. But, but yeah, he, he saw the future and, and, you know, he gave us that tool, but that’s about it. You know, he didn’t tell us what you mentioned. Hey, this could be a career for you or anything. Cause he was, he, he, he is an accountant and he, you know, he didn’t really give us any more advice about that. And my mom, you know, same way he, she supported us and he, he supported us as well, but not, they didn’t really give us like a, like a guidance. Hey, you should do this. You just want to choose something, go to college, I’ll pay for it. And that’s it, you know? Um, but yeah, until I got here is where I kind of shifted and I started thinking, Oh, where do I, what do I really want to do? And that’s where everything kind of started to fall, fall in.

Manuel: And so him being an accountant. So then my guess is that’s probably where he saw it, right? Cause he’s probably using the computer at work to kind of do, like you said, Lotus one two, three and all that, like being able to do Excel spreadsheets and kind of manage it forward. So then biology, and then you ended up coming here. So then as you’re kind of picking up all the multimedia, right, it’s not, it’s not a PC, but it is a lot of electronics. So it’s, it’s technology. So when they hired you on, what types of things were you doing from there? Was it just kind of basic setup where, you know, if you kind of just walk me through what you, the different skills you were picking up in that role?

Fernando: Yeah. So I, there was one, uh, one coworker I had, which basically not my boss directly, but he, he was an authority and he, he, uh, he teached us a lot of me and another, another person, another coworker I had at the time, but I was mostly at the beginning helping with recording during the live services, record, be in the mixer, like, you know, to move the cameras and make sure everything is recorded to a DVD. At the time it was still recording to DVDs. We had a little machine and a little mixers with the screen, with the multi views and everything like that. And that was the b...

Show Notes

Career Downloads Episode 24: James McDuffie

In this episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez welcomes James McDuffie, Senior Technical Account Manager at AWS, for an insightful discussion about building a successful career in technology. James shares his unique journey that began at age 8, running network cables through Silicon Valley office buildings for his father’s ISP business.

Key Discussion Points:

Notable Quotes:

Guest Bio:

Follow us on all the social media platforms.

Connect with James:

Connect with Manuel:

#CareerDownloads #TechCareers #AWS #SoftwareEngineering #TechnicalLeadership

Transcript

Manuel: Welcome everyone, so my name is Manu el Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their career, their background, and their experience, to learn how they manage their career over time, with the ultimate goal to really be able to uncover actionable advice for you to go ahead and be able to use as you manage your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me James McDuffie, so he and I currently work together, we’ve had conversations in the past, similiar to what the one we’re about to have today, and I’m very excited because he has had a very unique and interesting career. I like a lot of the things that he’s done, the way he approaches learning and kind of his career trajectory, so again, plug in and download the knowledge. So thanks James, I appreciate you coming in.

James: Yeah, happy to be here. You know, we’re down here for re:Invent and might as well make it a double trip.

Manuel: Right, take advantage of the time here.

James: Exactly.

Manuel: If you don’t mind kind of just telling me what your current roles and responsibilities are, and just kind of a summary of what that is, and then eventually we’ll work our way up to that place. Sure, so my current role is a Senior Technical Account Manager for Amazon Web Services, like yourself, and a part of that role is just helping some of our largest enterprise support customers in their deployments on the cloud. So I like to think of it as TAMs are kind of unique in my opinion on the AWS side because we’re less of just someone that’s there to help manage support cases and much more there to be operational architects on the existing infrastructure that you have. So you have solution architects that are very focused on building out new technological solutions, whereas you and I are much more engaged on large migrations and, you know, making sure that they’re running as optimized as possible. Are they right sizing correctly? Are they modernizing correctly? What’s their strategy to do that? What’s the security posture across their organization? So it’s really just, I would like to say an executive level consultant to some of the largest tech companies on the planet because that’s really what it is. I think it’s a very fun and engaging role because every company kind of has their own challenges and you kind of play it by ear to understand what their problem is right now and not only are you trying to be very tactical to solve their current problems, but also very strategic to prevent these problems from ever happening again and then to make sure that they’re architecting fundamentally to prevent those types of problems from ever occurring in the future across any of their newer, you know, future products and strategies. So, you know, it’s a very, very rewarding career path, I think, but one that I was quite, I never thought I’d be in a role like this just because of, you know, we’ll probably talk about in a little bit, but what my background came from on the software engineering side, I never thought I’d be in this type of a role, but it’s fun and I enjoy it. So it’s a great opportunity for me to continue working with some of these large scale customers.

Manuel: Perfect. And now we’ll kind of get into, you know, your background and we’ll lead into what eventually got you here.

James: Sure.

Manuel: What I’ve been doing with guests is really just kind of start off if you just kind of give me a brief summary of kind of where you grew up, your background and eventually what kind of got you interested into technology.

James: Yeah, so my dad was a software engineer starting off in his career and so I was born in LA here in, you know, just over the hill in California. And early on, my dad tried working for a bunch of companies and he kind of just decided the entrepreneurial route was his. So he started his own company and we had an ISP. So, you know, he had a bank of 144 modems in the closet and we had a T1 line into our house and he kind of needed help doing things. My dad was a big guy who was 300 pounds, six foot two, just, you know, just a very massive man and, you know, strong, tall, broad shoulders. And he couldn’t get into a lot of places. So as his, you know, eight year old, seven year old kid, he’d be like, Hey, you want to run some wire for me? And so I, you know, I started working for my dad at a young age, not as an employee, but more just hanging out with my dad. And I would run networking cables and electrical cables and, you know, I got to use all the punch down tools and stuff. And so he ran that business for a number of years all the way until I got into high school. But during that time, I did a lot. We were in the middle of the Bay Area, you know, a lot of the buildings back then weren’t built for technology or internet. And so whether it was AMD or Intel or Silicon Graphics, SGI, they needed their buildings wired. And so they brought my dad in and my dad’s like, Hey, I can’t climb up in that rafters. Do you want to just pull these wires for me? So, you know, I was eight, nine years old pulling wires in rafters at large companies in Silicon Valley. And that’s kind of where I got my interest in it, because I was always around tech in totally different varieties of ways. I remember my neighbor, you know, because we’re in San Jose, and that’s where kind of we grew up in LA, then we moved to the Bay Area. And in that was like 1988, we moved to the Bay Area. And so I was going through middle school and elementary school and stuff. And my next door neighbor, he did a computer upgrade. And I think he was upgrading to like a 286. So he had a 286 motherboard that he was getting rid of. And I bought a 286 motherboard off him for like 20 bucks or something, right? Because he just wanted to get money off it. So I brought it home. And I was like, you know, I was playing with my dad, dad’s old Commodore and all those computers, because we had tons of them, because my dad was in tech. And my dad asked me, what are you going to do with that? I was like, I’m going to build a PC. He’s like, you’re going to build a PC with a motherboard? You don’t even have a processor. I was like, what’s a processor? Cuz I didn’t know. You didn’t know what a CPU was back then as a kid, right? And so he took me to Fry’s Electronics, and he helped me put together my first computer. And, you know, for my birthday, I had a 286 Compaq with all custom built parts with Windows 3.11 for, you know, Workgroups installed. And it got me super excited. I remember the first time, I don’t know what it is about memories, but you have like the smells and the senses all kind of locked into your memory. I just remember sitting at the desk in my room with my first PC, just absolutely flabbergasted that I had my own computer, right? And so that was super exciting to me. And over the next several years, I just, you know, my dad would install servers for people, you know, he was running his ISP, so it, you know, helped his customers install s...

Show Notes

In this episode of Career Downloads, Manuel Martinez sits down with Pradeep Pulipati, founder and CEO of Tropoleap, a cloud AI and cybersecurity company. Pradeep shares his remarkable journey from discovering ham radio in ninth grade to becoming a technology leader and entrepreneur.

Key Discussion Points:

Notable Quotes:

“Art of the possible and fail fast, recover fast – those are the two cornerstones for how I go about my life today.”

Connect with Pradeep:

Connect with Career Downloads:

#CareerDownloads #TechCareers #Leadership #CloudComputing #AITechnology

Transcript

Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background, their career, and just the different things that they’ve done to kind of navigate their career over time to really be able to pull out actionable advice for you to go through and use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me Pradeep Pulapati and he has a very interesting background. We have crossed paths through a VMware User Group. I’ve kind of seen some of the different areas that he’s been involved with and, you know, we’ll get into kind of what he’s doing now. He’s ventured on into his own business. So I think these are all things that are really interesting and, you know, will be valuable to people. So with that, I’ll introduce Pradeep. So hey Pradeep.

Pradeep: Hey, hey Manny.

Manuel: Appreciate you coming on.

Pradeep: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Manuel: Of course. And really, so what I’ve been doing with all of my guests is if you can just to start off, give us your current role and some of the, you know, just a summary of the responsibilities and then eventually we’ll kind of lead into how you got there.

Pradeep: Yeah, absolutely. I’m founder and CEO at Tropoleap. We are a cloud AI and cybersecurity company. It’s been about close to 18 months since I started this company and have been working in the gaming industry, have been helping clients outside of the gaming industry, both in healthcare, financial services, so on and so forth.

Manuel: So now let’s kind of go back and we’ll kind of lead into what eventually led you to kind of, you know, opening your own business, but really give me an understanding of kind of some of your background, like basically where you grew up and then eventually what kind of got you interested into technology.

Pradeep: Sure, yeah. I come from India, the southern part of India called, it’s a state called Andhra Pradesh and I’ve come from a city called Vijayawada, very close to Hyderabad, which is the kind of the Silicon Valley of India, so to speak now. So I think my first love with technology was when I was introduced to ham radio. So I was actually, my dad actually got me into ham radio when I was in my ninth grade. So that was my first passion for wireless technology. I was just amazed by how interestingly you can communicate between people across the world using the satellite because if I’m in ninth grade, that was ages ago, there were no cell phones. The only way to communicate with another person is your landline, right? Seeing that at home and going to a place where now this person is using satellite to communicate to another person that’s on the other side of the world was really unimaginable. That’s what got me very interested in wireless communication. That’s my first love with technology, I would say.

Manuel: And then, so how long did you use that ham radio and is it something that you still kind of continue today or eventually just with all the responsibilities eventually kind of fell?

Pradeep: Yeah, like anything else, when I came to the U.S., one of the hurdles was for me to re -certify because as a ham radio operator, you have to go through an exam, like two exams back in India to certify and the wireless planning commission of India will give you a certificate saying you’re authorized to use the ham radio because as a ham radio operator, you can get on to bandwidths that are sensitive as well. So you have to go through thorough background checks, so on and so forth before you can use it. But now I think things are a little bit more open. So like anything else, I think it kind of went back into the background as I was getting more focused on education and career. But recently I introduced my son to ham radio, so he just picked up Morse code, so he can actually go through the Morse code by himself now and then comes the electronic circuitry portion of it that he needs to learn. But yeah, I’m still trying to keep it alive in the family.

Manuel: Oh, that’s awesome. So then, you know, this is in ninth grade and you mentioned you continued on with your education. So when you discovered ham radio, is this something that eventually kind of led you down towards looking at an IT career? Did you kind of go to college, start working?

Pradeep: Yeah, so in India, it’s typical for your parents to want you to either become an engineer or a doctor. It’s a very stereotypical thing, but that is the reality, at least back in the day. And I chose to become an engineer and I went into electronics and communications for my bachelor’s degree. And that’s where satellite communication, wireless communication and the electronic circuitry that goes into all of it really got my attention. And that was my bachelor’s, was my turning point and truly embracing the technology aspect.

Manuel: So your bachelor’s, is it you were taking classes on the technology side of it or as part of the engineering, like how did that kind of…

Pradeep: It’s a very structured curriculum. So we start off with semiconductor design, we go into electronics, then we go into communication. So there’s a lot of math in the first one and a half years, but after that, it gradually becomes more networking, I would say, is the key part. So if you ask me in a way, fundamentals for my technology career, I would say are around semiconductors and networking.

Manuel: As you’re kind of picking all this up and you’re starting to get an interest, now you’re getting the formal education at this point where you’re starting to have an idea of where you might want to take your career or did it kind of take a little while after graduation.

Pradeep: Yeah, that’s an interesting question because like I said, my original love was wireless communication. But then once I started reading about or studying semiconductors and designing or programming microprocessors, so I was writing assembly code with 8086 microprocessors. So that got me into the computer aspects of technology, from the communication. Networking wireless communication was one part, but this was the most attractive part, being able to write any program you want in an assembly language and actually see the microprocessor execute that program, it kind of gives you a thrill. And that kind of was like, well, what is next? What is the next path once you go past assembly language? So that was kind of my, I would say, path into technology.

Manuel: Was it something where you thought, okay, I want to be a programmer at that point? Is that kind of, you said, you know, that got you into technology?

Pradeep: Yeah, interestingly enough, what fascinated me more was not the program that I was writing, but this amazing piece of hardware that’s capable of understanding what you’ve written and executing. So my mind went, well, how does someone design a microprocessor? How does someone design a chip? So that led me into my master’s degree, which was about embedded systems, VLSI, so chip design and manufacturing.

Manuel: Interesting. So you were really like, hey, I n...

Show Notes

Career Downloads Episode 022: Jay Jackson Takes Us Through His Journey from Entry-Level Tech to Project Management Success

In this episode, host Manuel Martinez welcomes Jay Jackson, a dynamic figure in the tech industry whose career spans sales, project management, consulting, and education. Jay opens up about his fascinating path that began at CompUSA and evolved into a successful career in project management and consulting.

Jay shares how his early experience in video games shaped his approach to problem-solving and business challenges. He explains his innovative RAKSE framework for building a professional brand:

Key Discussion Points:

Listeners will gain valuable insights into:

Connect with Jay Jackson:

Connect with Manuel Martinez:

Follow Career Downloads:

#CareerDownloads #TechCareers #ProjectManagement #ProfessionalDevelopment

Transcript

Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode, I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to really learn more about their career. To understand how they navigated it, different lessons that they’ve learned to really try and pull out actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So, for today’s episode, I have with me Jay Jackson. So we have crossed paths on two different occasions. He has a very interesting background. He has done a number of things, different areas that we’ll touch on as we kind of go through the conversation. And I’ll let him explain that, kind of his ideas on professional branding, the different and things that he’s done, how he’s kind of navigated through different career choices and different roles. So with that, I’ll introduce Jay Jackson.

Jay: Hey, Manny.

Manuel: How you doing?

Jay: Good to see you.

Manuel: Good seeing you.

Jay: Beautiful house here, Manny.

Manuel: Thanks.

Jay: I like the setup.

Manuel: Took a little bit of work to kind of put it together, but I think overall it’s starting to look semi-professional.

Jay: Starting to, right? Yeah I like it.

Manuel: So what I’ve been doing with the guests is if you can just kind of start off, just give us your current role or position and then just kind of a summary of some of the responsibilities and things that you kind of do in those roles.

Jay: So I’ve got a lot going on. So, you know, cut me off if I’m going the wrong direction. But right now I teach at a local college, a couple of them actually. And my main role as an instructor in the Networking and Cybersecurity program and the classes I teach, I’ve taught are introduction, I like intro classes, because it’s like getting someone interested in a concept, I’ve taught introduction to Linux, Introduction to Information Systems, Project Management, Networking, and Introduction to Cloud Computing and helped develop their AWS Cloud Architect class with someone from AWS. I believe you know him.

Manuel: I do.

Jay: Great guy. [Laughter] So, I’ve done that and I’ve helped with the project management at the grad level here at local college. So that’s my teaching. And then I also consult, because teachers don’t make a lot of money, so it’s good to have that extra income, right? And consulting, I generally do project management. And that’s everything from managing software projects, which I’m doing primarily now, to implementations. I’ve done, as you know, you’ve helped me out on some data center implementations, little data center implementations. And also, if a company has an enterprise application that needed help implementing, people think that I go to Best Buy, buy software, install it, and then we’re done. That’s not how it works, right? [Laughter] There’s a lot that goes on to make the implementation successful. So we do the soup to nuts entire life cycle of the implementation. And really odd things, like every now and then I get a call saying, hey, I need to make a website, and I’ll help out manage it, or I’ll do myself, if it’s really simple. That’s because I’m interested in projects. So whatever becomes interesting, and it sounds great, and I like the person I’m working with, that’s what I’ll do. I also have a couple of companies I’m a part of, I’m a part owner of. One of them is a car dealer wholesaler. And we’re looking to, you know, technology is like evolving so rapidly now. For those people who are leveraging the newest stuff, AI, APIs, they have an advantage over those, especially legacy industries, like car sales, pretty old school. So I’m working on a project where we’re trying to leverage APIs and AI to understand the true value of a car and what it’ll take to get it to a certain level. So working on that project, and I’m also doing house flipping in Indiana with my brother, part of that, which that one’s not really interesting too much, technology too that we’re trying to, but it’s been pretty messy. So, and then I’ve decided hobby stuff that I do every now and then, like refurbish electronics from Amazon Returns at the eBay store. I still do, but I’ve kind of slowed down on that. And everything I do kind of use it as a mechanism to teach students if they’re interested. So I generally will bring a student on to help out and they get the experience and I get the energy from them, the excitement of doing something new. It’s kind of a win-win.

Manuel: It’s very interesting, like how you’re using all these different avenues. And similar to you, right? I see a lot of these businesses and when they’re not leveraging technology, I had another guest on where we’ve talked about it, like where she was working at a hospital, like she got out of tech, started working in the hospital, but she saw a lot of inefficiencies like where technology, process, procedure, like things that were used to, and especially you, you know, with project management, like, hey, here’s steps that we follow, just building a lot of efficiency and you being able to go through. And like you said, the auto industry, like, you know, most people wouldn’t think that that’s somewhere where AI and, you know, APIs would leverage, but the way that you’re doing it, it sounds like you’re trying to kind of, when you say what it would take to get there. So are you kind of understanding, hey, based on mileage, condition, what is it at now? And kind of to bring the value up for the resell, like 10 grand, hey, what are the items that would be needed based on, I’m assuming you’re using AI to just kind of do research for you, right?

Jay: Yeah, so, you know, information gathering and making decisions takes time, right? And also, you know, just to walk through it, you go to the auction, right? You see the car and you need to know the value of the car when you’re bidding on it, because you want to take the car, this is triage, right? I’m sorry, arbitrage, this is arbitrage, which I, you know, I’ve done that for a while. You take something, you add some value to it and sell it for more. And the more value you add to it, obviously the more margin you make. But in order to do that, you need to know the potential of whatever you’re getting, whether it be electronics, car, anything really. And that’s kind of hard to do if you don’t have experience in the domain. And, but the information is out there. And also, an auction is kind of a fast-paced environment. So you need to make quick decisions and very time consuming. And I have a very good friend of mine who kind of showed me the ropes, helped him open up his dealership here in 2007. And it’s a lot of work. You get there early at the auction, you have to like do a bunch of stuff. But all that’s been done forever and there’s data out there t...