In the latest episode of Uptime with DCK, we investigate the skills crisis facing the data center industry with Nabeel Mahmood, an experienced IT executive, keynote speaker, and one of the hosts of the Nomad Futurist podcast.

We look at data center culture, and approaches to attracting a new generation of talent into the wonderful world of mission-critical infrastructure.

According to Nabeel, the main main challenge for the industry is awareness – data center degrees are still few and far between, and industry professionals are too busy with their job of connecting the world to spend time on extolling the virtues of a data center career.

Long term, trade schools for data center engineers might hold the answer. But in the short term, data centers could try to capture some of the workforce that left their jobs in recent months as part of a social phenomenon dubbed ‘the great resignation.’