From Classroom Dreams to Sales Engineering Leadership with Clinton Lee | Ep043

Clinton Lee’s career journey reads like a masterclass in adaptability. What started as dreams of becoming a teacher transformed into a successful path through IT infrastructure, customer-side technical roles, and ultimately sales engineering leadership.

Currently serving as a Director of Sales Engineering, Clinton shares the pivotal moments that shaped his career, from his first encounter with VMware technology to learning how to overcome introversion in customer-facing roles.

Episode Highlights:

Early Career Foundation Clinton’s path began at a technical certification school where he learned Windows, Cisco networking, and foundational IT skills. His willingness to take on any challenge—from teaching classes to running cable—set the stage for future growth.

The VMware Turning Point Working at Toyota, Clinton witnessed his first vMotion demonstration while servers were being pinged. That “magical” moment sparked a passion for virtualization technology that would define his career trajectory.

Transitioning to Sales Engineering Despite initial reservations about sales roles, Clinton made the leap to VMware as a vSAN specialist. He candidly discusses the challenges of being an introvert in a customer-facing position and how he developed the energy and presence needed for success.

Leadership Lessons From individual contributor to team manager, Clinton shares insights about developing people, the importance of genuine relationships, and why helping others succeed became his driving motivation.

Key Takeaways for Listeners:

• Technical expertise alone isn’t enough—learn to solve business problems
• Network authentically and build genuine relationships
• Great mentors can change your career trajectory
• Feedback is a gift—always ask for it and act on it
• Leadership skills can be developed with intention and practice

Guest Bio: Clinton Lee is a Director of Sales Engineering with extensive experience in virtualization technologies and team leadership. His career spans customer-side IT infrastructure, technical consulting, and vendor-side sales engineering across multiple industries.

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 their experiences, to really understand what they’ve done to be able to kind of manage that career over time. So I’m pretty excited about my guest today. I have Clinton Lee. So he, I know I’ve talked about this in the past, about me working at VMware. He is a big part of kind of how that happened. So, you know, we’ll touch on that, ask him a couple of questions and, you know, get to learn more about his specific career path. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Clinton.

Clinton: Hey

Manuel: How’s it going?

Clinton: It’s awesome, it’s awesome to finally be on here, Manny.

Manuel: It’s been a while, so I know we kind of touched base a few times, you know, outside of the podcast. So I was pretty excited to, you know, have you on, talk about your journey and then just kind of that intersection of how we, you know, came across each other.

Clinton: Yeah, I’m super excited to do it for sure.

Manuel: So if you don’t mind, kind of tell us what your current role is and just a brief summary of some of your roles and responsibilities. And then eventually we’ll kind of work our way towards that.

Clinton: Yeah, so I mean, you’re, I mean, this is probably not going to be anything new for you or maybe some of your listeners, but I’m a director of sales engineering. So I manage SEs, you know, they’re called solution engineers, systems engineer, sales engineers, like all kinds of names for what’s basically the same function, which is the technical, you know, in the weeds counterpart to your salesperson at a tech company.

Manuel: And now if you can kind of tell us, you know, where you grew up and then kind of what was your first introduction into technology and then, you know, kind of work us towards your, you know, eventually career path.

Clinton: Yeah, so I’m born and raised in Southern California, like all around Southern California. Some people identify as like, I’m from this area. I’m from that area. I’m from all the areas. (laughing) My parents moved a lot, fortunately and unfortunately, from a very young age, I moved around a lot. And then, you know, it’s funny, I’ve seen people answer this question about technology, how they got into it, and they have these like really cool stories about like all this stuff that, where they, you know, they did this or they did that. I don’t have any of that, but I was a latchkey kid growing up, so I watched a lot of TV, I played a lot of video games, and those are the things I cared about. I watched a lot of movies and cartoons and whatever. Those are the things I cared about. And, you know, as I got older, and, you know, the internet started becoming more of a thing, and I just was like getting access to those things that were interesting to me, but doing them like online was what I wanted to do, right? So, you know, like I said, I played a bunch of video games. I grew up in the 80s, like Nintendo kid, and just like, I remember the first time I played like a game online, I was like, wow, this is like the future of gaming. And so I got to college, and I mean, I grew up, we had dial-up, right? I mean, we had like put the phone on the modem dial-up, you know what I mean? I don’t know if you remember that, that makes me feel old. And I got to college, and it was the first time I saw broadband, right? It was the first time I saw high-speed internet. Like I plugged my computer into the dorm. I didn’t even have an ethernet card yet. Like I still had the, I feel, there’s gonna be young people who listen to this, and they’re gonna be like, what is this guy even talking about, right? But like, I had to go to like Fry’s and buy the ethernet card, because my computer didn’t have one, because we didn’t have high-speed. So I had to buy one just so I can get onto the LAN at my dorm, and it like changed everything, right? Like ESPN, I don’t know, actually ESPN didn’t exist then, ESPN.com didn’t exist then, but like different message boards or whatever that at home would like load like super slow. Yeah. Like, you know, I got to college and it was like, boom, like those things would load like so fast. And I’m like, that’s what I wanna do. So yeah, I went and I started trying to figure out like, how do I do this? Like, what is this, number one? And you find out, oh, like that’s networking, like cool, I wanna do networking. How do I do it? And then I immediately found out like, not at my college. In fact, I was encouraged to like drop out or go to a different school, right? They didn’t have M.I.S. majors, they didn’t have anything like that.

Manuel: And at that college, so what was your original intention to go to school for? If you remember.

Clinton: I mean, I went, I started as an engineering major.

Manuel: Okay.

Clinton: So I graduated with an electrical engineering degree, but I went to college because I had to go to college. So I didn’t have a choice. And when I got there, I was like, well, and people, like I was always good at math and science when I was a little younger, maybe like sophomore, junior in high school, I wanted to be a teacher. And my parents were like, no. (laughing) My parents immigrated to this country a year before I was born and they just worked. Like I mentioned, I was a Latchkey kid, they were working all the time. And so when it came to like sending their kid, they didn’t have college degrees or anything like that, sending their kid to college, it was like a big thing. And so, very kind of stereotypical Asian parents, they were just like, no, like you’re not gonna be a teacher. We’re not spending all this money to send you to college to be a teacher or like, you gotta go do something that makes a lot of money. And so I was good at math, I was good at science. So I was like, I’ll do engineering.

Manuel: And you said that you eventually ended up completing that degree. And as part of that process, did you kind of start to do internships? Some people did internships, some people like me waited until they graduated and then decided, okay, I’m gonna start looking for jobs.

Clinton: Yeah, so once I found out that they really didn’t have any kind of major at my college, right? So there was no MIS at my school. And so I kind of resigned myself to be like, okay, I guess I’m just gonna be an engineer. What’s the closest thing to networking that we have at this school at UCLA? And they’re like, well, you know, you can do computer science. And I was like, I’m not doing computer science. It’s not who I am. And they were like, well, like in electrical engineering, they talk about like signals and signal processing and stuff like that. And so I was like, okay, I’ll go look into that. That’s how I switched from originally I was an aerospace engineer. And I was thinking about going to civil engineering, ended up in electrical because I thought that’s the closest, that’s gonna be my path to getting into networking. And so my internships were all electrical engineering internships, right? And I did manage to get one with, at the time it was McDonald Douglas, but it became Boeing, where like part of the internship was around like an internet working lab. Like that was really exciting to me. And like literally it was like two days of my summer internship. And so that didn’t work out. But it did make me realize like, I can’t do this for my career. Like I can’t do it, right? It just not what didn’t fit what I wanted to do. And so the internship thing didn’t work out other than to make me really realize like I didn’t wanna be an electrical engineer.

Manuel: So then you decide, I don’t wanna do this.

Clinton: Right.

Manuel: Obviously they kind of, your parents were kind of pushing you towards, hey, something’s successful. So what were the steps that you decided to take to say, okay, this networking or this IT field seems interesting. What did you pursue next? Did you decide, okay, let me just start looking for those types of jobs.

Clinton: Yeah, I wish I could say I was like really enterprising. I really wasn’t at that age, but I was like, okay, well, I’m gonna go try and find a job in this space. And the kind of easiest thing, at least from what I could understand was like getting into consulting, right? So going to work for a consulting firm, they’ll teach you this stuff. I had some interviews with some companies and the positions that, like when I started talking about like, I really wanna get into like networking, they started talking about, well, what do you know about networking? And my answer was like, nothing. And they’re like, well, you know, we do train people, but we typically train them on like, I mean, for whatever reason, the companies I was interviewing with were like not wanting to train me to be a network person. They wanted to train me to be like more of a database person or like different other services, right? Versus like networking. And they were like, but if you wanna get into networking, you need to get certifications. And so I said, okay, that makes sense. Although it didn’t make sense at the time cause I didn’t know what a certification was. And so I was trying to figure out like what to do next. Thankfully, my wife, my current wife, who back then was my girlfriend, had a cousin who did go to school and did have an MIS degree and was going to go do some like tech certification stuff at like a local networking focused certification school.

Manuel: Okay.

Clinton: So I talked to him about it and he told me about the program that they had and it sounded really good. So I was like, okay, this is what I wanna do. Super intense, very fast pace. And my goal coming out of that was like, all right, like I’m gonna get my CCNA, I’m gonna get my CCNP. I’m gonna go be a network guy. So that was my start. And then I get there, everything’s great. I love what I’m learning. They want you to learn like not just Cisco stuff, but like they make you learn Windows and they make you learn like, get your A plus and all of this stuff, right? It’s like, you gotta learn all the basics, right? So I enjoyed doing all of it, but I was really excited about going and being a Cisco person. And then fortunately for me, they liked me enough where they offered me a role there. And I was super excited. Unfortunately it had nothing to do with Cisco. They’re like, we need a Windows person. And so like, I was like, but I wanna be a Cisco person. And they’re like, but we need a Windows person. And I was like, okay, but I also need money. So I ended up kind of getting into the Windows stuff and helping them write curriculum. And in fact, I ended up teaching some classes, which was really cool. And yeah, just that was the beginning of my career. I turned into a Windows guy.

Manuel: So then it was the place where you were taking all the certification courses. They’re the ones that ended up hiring you on.

Clinton: Yeah, that was my first job.

Manuel: And was it, did you stand out in the class? Did they kind of announce it to the class?

Clinton: No, no, no, no, not really. I mean, I did well, but they ended up, there were a few people that ended up getting jobs there. And I mean, I think the way that they positioned that program was like they really wanted people who were gonna go out and do well. And so we had a lot of really, I mean, like a lot of the people I still keep in touch with today are in like some great positions throughout the industry. Like SEs, VP of IT, CIOs that just like they came out of this like small little tech school. So it’s kind of crazy when I think about it. But yeah, I wouldn’t say I stood out really.

Manuel: But that’s pretty cool that the fact that they, it’s almost like they’re building a pipeline there, right? So, hey, we’re gonna teach these people and then hire some of these people on. And then do you think, especially at that early in your career, being new to it, just barely learning a lot of the Windows and then having to go through and teach that, does that help you cement the knowledge and learn it a little bit better? Because that’s been my experience, but I did that later on in my career, not so early, just, hey, I learned it and now I gotta teach it.

Clinton: I wasn’t a teacher from the get-go, but for sure having to teach something, especially having to teach something to someone who’s not already familiar with it was a very, I mean, it just cements your knowledge, right? I have an SE on my team and he says like the ideal way to learn material is you have someone teach it to you, then you have to teach it to someone else. And when you can do that, then you know you really know it, right? So, I mean, he has like, I think he, I don’t know anything about being a pilot, but it’s like, see one, do one, teach one is like kind of a pilot thing, I guess. And so he’s like, that’s the ideal way to for you to really know that you’ve mastered material. So it was helpful when I kind of in an emergency situation might have to teach something, but yeah, I would say it definitely does help.

Manuel: So now you get into the Windows realm.

Clinton: Yes.

Manuel: And are you, I’m assuming you’re just taking care of the environment there for them, like the people, the PCs that people are learning and studying on?

Clinton: Yeah, I mean, it is a tiny place, so everybody does a little bit of everything. Okay. So, they were like, hey, we wanna teach this class on ISA server, ISA server, right? It’s like, okay, that’s cool. Clinton, go learn it. (laughing) Everybody’s like, all right. You know, that was like literally, I would like learn it and go and play with it and deploy it and tinker with it. And then, you know, then I became the person who knew that technology. And so when we were implementing it at the location, it’s like, well, like Clinton, he’s the ISA server admin or whatever, right? So, it was fun. Like, I mean, it was truly just like such a small startup be like everybody does everything. Like so many of the people that I worked with there, like, I mean, you just kind of, he’s just all struggling just to survive, right? And you’re doing whatever it takes. And if that meant I gotta teach a class, it means I gotta teach a class. If that meant I gotta go run cable, make cable, whatever, like that’s what you do, right?

Manuel: That’s pretty cool that you had that, I’m gonna call it kind of like a cohort, right? So, you’re learning together. And then even though you’re working together again, you’re still kind of working and learning alongside them. And then the fact that you still keep in contact and know a lot of those people is, it’s a good thing because I’ve noticed that it’s like a shared experience, right? You know, people that go through like bootcamps together in the military, right? You kind of reference that like pilots, like there’s that shared experience. You have that shared experience of like, hey, we’re learning this together and then moving on. How long were you there? And with that, so I’m gonna say you specifically and then kind of the majority of your group.

Clinton: Well, so I mean, a lot of the people who took the training went on and got jobs and did other things, right? I ended up being there for about two years, I think, working there and unfortunately the company closed. They just couldn’t make it work financially. And so, yeah, that was about that time.

Manuel: And then they closed down and did they close down and that was kind of, okay, now I gotta go find a job or did that happen after you decided to kind of move on?

Clinton: Yeah, they closed down. So they shut their doors and I, one of my colleagues that I worked there with and that I had gone through the program with, we started thinking about like doing a consulting company together. So we kind of talked through that a little bit. That was like, I was like, oh, finally I get to go be a network guy. It didn’t really work out. Like we did it for a little bit. I mean, he ended up kind of making his own way out of it and he’s been pretty successful in his own right, like staying on that path. But I’ve never been a huge risk taker, like for whatever reason, like that’s just not, maybe it was how I was raised or maybe it was just something innate to my personality. I was like, I need a job. So yeah, at that point I was like, I did that for a little bit. I helped him out. We did some work together, but then I was like, very quickly I was like, I need to go get like a real nine to five job. So that was what I did next.

Manuel: And then that process of finding the nine to five is that trying to think, because we’re around the same age and same timeframe. So remember the first couple of times, I think it was like monster.com is when I was kind of doing some of that job search and or looking at just companies locally in my area.

Clinton: I mean, it was definitely, there was online searches. I’m pretty sure I talked to recruiters. And I’ll be honest, man, I don’t remember exactly. I don’t think it was through a recruiter. I think I found it on just like a job search website, whatever it was, whether it was monster back then or something else. And yeah, so this specific job, like I think I just applied and then they brought me in like my resume, we had a phone call, I had a phone call with the recruiter. They were like, yeah, come in, come to the office and come check us out and we’ll do some interviews.

Manuel: And what was that interview process like? Because it sounds like the first one, they just kind of, I don’t know if you interviewed when you had gone through for the one where you had gone through and learned all the certifications like that little rinky. No, no, not really. No interview, they’re just like, hey, come on in.

Clinton: They’re like, we have a job, you want it? No, it’s like, no, I want a networking job. And they’re like, well, this is what we have. And I was like, okay, I’ll take it.

Manuel: So that was it.

Clinton: Yeah, no interview process there.

Manuel: So then how did you prep for your first interview?

Clinton: Yeah, I don’t really remember. I’m trying to think. So I’ll say this, I can’t remember the exact details, but I do remember seeing the job description and seeing some technologies on there and then trying my best to like, A, understand what the technology even is. Because my experience was pretty limited. I mean, I had been in IT for like a couple of years in some degree, but it wasn’t like I was in this giant corporate enterprise where you have all these, you know, like you work at a big company, there is some benefit to that in that you get exposed to a lot of different technologies. You work at a small company, the benefit is there’s not as many different technologies, but you learn them really well because you have to do all of them, right? But I came in and I remember seeing things like, you know, like Backup Exec, for example. And I had never actually worked with Backup Exec, but I kind of knew what it was because it’s part of like, it’s kind of like Windows Backup, right? They’re almost, I think they’re actually kind of the same code, right? And so things like that, and so I just tried my best to like learn about those things and research those things and be able to speak intelligently about some of that stuff. But, you know, like there were things like Checkpoint firewalls and Cisco VPN concentrators and things like that. Like those are things I never touched in my life. But I knew firewalls, I knew what VPNs were, and so I just tried to understand how those technologies worked with regards to the things that I already understood.

Manuel: Okay, and that makes sense, right? And just not, just doing a little bit of research and then applying what you do know to what they’re asking or what you think is parallel or pretty close to what they’re looking for.

Clinton: Yeah.

Manuel: And sounds like you eventually probably did get that role. And you mentioned Backup Exec, you know, firewalls. So was it a little bit more networking?

Clinton: Yeah, I mean, like this was a small kind of healthcare company down in Orange County. And they had specialized IT people, but I was, let me rephrase that. They had a lot of specialized IT people for the functions that actually made money. Makes sense. So they had like reporting people, they had database people, they had like a web front end people, like a lot of those people. But when I came in, like I was literally the only IT guy. And it was partially because they, I think they had just gotten rid of the former like IT person and that manager. And so they were trying to hire for a manager and for like a person who’s gonna actually do the work. And I mean, at a company that’s small, it’s like, even if you’re a manager, you’re still doing the work. So yeah, initially, when they brought me in, they were like, we were hoping to actually hire the manager first, but we liked your resume, so we wanted to talk to you. And so that’s kind of how it started. And then, yeah, I got the job and like, I had to learn a lot in a very short period of time. There were things that like, I guess I’d never even thought about before as being IT, like phone systems and stuff, right? But yeah, it was, I had to learn it all. And I definitely had to learn Cisco networking, very, very, I will say, the theoretical, I mean, I got hands-on experience during the time where I was learning Cisco stuff, right? Like that was really cool, but like actually putting it into practice on Cisco routers and switches in the corporate office, in the data center, like totally different. And I just had to learn it on the fly.

Manuel: And are you still, like, are you studying? Did you set up a home lab? Is it really like, I’m just gonna use production as my learning environment?

Clinton: More or less the second, I was doing a lot of studying. I mean, they gave me like the ability to buy whatever materials I needed. But yeah, I was too busy with work to really be able to go and study too much beyond just, like, what do I need to do tomorrow? Okay, tomorrow I need to do these things. I don’t know how to do those things. So let me go learn. Like I’d go home and I’d crack open the book or I’d go online and try to understand something, right? And it was like, all right, well, you know, cause they had this whole laundry list of things that needed to get done. And I was the person that could do them. Like, well, and I couldn’t do them, but I was a person who was assigned to do them. And so like, I had this whole, like this was right when I first started, right? Like they had just kind of like let go of these two people. And I was the only person they hired to come in to do things. And they’re like, well, this was their checklist of things that they do every day. And I’m like, okay. So I just started going on a checklist and like learning. Right.

Manuel: And I’m sure at the time, it might’ve been a little bit stressful, but now looking back, how beneficial do you think it was to just kind of be forced in there to do it without having somebody to guide you? Again, everybody’s experience is different. So I felt pretty lucky that I had somebody that early on, like my first role, somebody that kind of guided me through like, hey, you know, what do you know? What do you not know? And they may be very comfortable saying, hey, I don’t know this. They would let me go as far as I wanted to or could, just so that I could, they didn’t want to just give me a step by step. Sure. Right? It’s kind of developing that critical thinking and really the guy’s name. And it’d be great if maybe at some point I can bring him on. His name is Greg. And when I first became a PC technician, he was like, hey, do you know how to tone a network cable? Like, no, I’ve never had to do that. Okay. And he would kind of explain it and, you know, but ask me questions along the way. Like, hey, what do you think you need to do? And he was like, hey, here’s the tone. You pop this side in, it’s going to send a signal. And here you just touch the cable. Okay, well, and then what? And he was like, well, you know, kind of explain the process, but he kind of allowed me to ask questions. And he was, if you don’t know, it’s okay. Like, that was the big thing is like, oh my God, I have to know, or I’ve got to go figure this out on my own. And he was like, if you don’t know, it’s okay. Just let me know. He was, I’d rather you just tell me, hey, I don’t know. And I will either try and find a way to guide you. Like, he wouldn’t just give me the answer or, you know, kind of let me fail and figure it out on my own.

Clinton: Yeah, I mean, it was definitely, I mean, definitely a blessing. I think it set me up very early on in my previous role too. It’s like, oh, we want to develop a class on ISA server. Like, here’s a book. Here’s a book, here’s a CD, right? Go to town. And I wasn’t that stressed about it because I kind of didn’t know well enough to know. It’s like, this is just like, okay, this is just a job. I just figured this is how things are. You just have to learn stuff on the fly. And it’s actually true, right? Because like, you know, it’s very rare that you start your career in IT with a specific technology and your career in IT with that same specific technology. Probably only people who, maybe some networking people, but even then they’ve probably evolved a lot, but like mainframe people. It’s probably the only thing I could think of, right? Everybody else, it’s like, you start, you learn this, and then you learn this, and then you have to learn this because you’re company bought this. So I think it prepared me well for my future. At the time, it was just, it was just a situation. I didn’t know any better. I mean, and I was young, so I had all the hours in the day and I, and I, it was interesting, right? Like, it’s not like I was dreading going home and wanting to learn, like having to learn this. It’s like, oh, this is cool. I get to learn how to configure a Check Point firewall.

Manuel: Nice. And how long did you do that in that role before you, I don’t know if you outgrew it, or you just decided, hey, I think I’ve picked up enough skills to try and do something else.

Clinton: Yeah, so, you know, eventually they hired my manager, who’s a fantastic manager, someone who taught. I learned a lot from him. And then they kind of rounded out the team. And then like this thing called VMware, like became a thing. And this was, I can’t even remember the years, but I know the version, right? That’s how you might, yeah. Same. Your brain file works the same, right? We go and someone’s like, oh, like, there’s this thing called VMware. And we went to a customer site and they showed us vMotion, right? While they were pinging. And I just was like, I kind of sat there. And even though it’s like, I mean, at that point, my career is only like whatever, three, four years old, maybe four years old. Even I knew like, that’s magic, right? Like, what is this? This is what I want to do. So, you know, we talked internally about like, can we afford to do this? And at that time, I mean, VMware’s big value prop was just like, save you money, you know? Like, and so we consolidated, we had a small colo and we consolidated like over 100 pizza boxes to like, maybe like, I don’t know, eight, 10. I can’t remember the exact number, like HP, like DL’s, right, the 4U boxes. And then maybe they were Compaqs back then. I don’t even know. And yeah, like I got to be part of that, right? So we hired a consulting company to come in and build it, but I got to learn about it and it was 2.5.2, ESX 2.5.2. And like, that was it. Like, I went from being a wannabe network person to a have to be Windows person to like, I am going to be a VMware person. So whatever I’m gonna do, like this is the thing that I want to build my career around. So yeah, I mean, I kind of helped build that environment up and I helped run it day to day. I mean, by that point we had other people on the team and they had different functions, but I was the VMware guy. And just kind of immersing myself in it, like first time ever really, really doing command line stuff. I mean, like in Windows you do some command line stuff, but like getting embedded into that. And so that was huge. And then at that point I was like, I’d be open to doing something different. Like then I like the consulting brain kind of turned on. I was like, oh, like I can be one of these guys and go in and consult and deploy VMware at places. And then a friend of mine who I met through the school, he was working at Toyota and he said, hey, we’re gonna build a VMware environment. You wanna come help build it? And so I went in and I interviewed for it, for like it was a contractor role, but like for me it was just like, oh, I get to go build another VMware environment. And super exciting to be able to do that at like a company like Toyota.

Manuel: You’re right, I mean, it’s a very similar story. So mine, I was in public sector and my first experience was actually with Workstation.

Clinton: Me too.

Manuel: Okay.

Clinton: Yeah, the first time I ever saw VMware was GSX and Workstation.

Manuel: And Workstation. Yeah, and that to me, I thought that was really cool, just the snapshot technology. So we were, it was a Novell shop and what we had to do is deploy again with Windows packages. So what we did is we would set our snapshot, we would install whatever software we were gonna install and then basically end the snapshot and then whatever software Novell had would package that up and then we would just revert back. So we were back to like our clean image. And I did that and just the fact that I was like, man, I can, I remember playing around with it. Like, what can I, what files can I delete within Windows to basically mess this up and then revert back to a snapshot? And I was just like, this is the coolest thing ever.

Clinton: Yeah, I remember those days. Workstation days and the GSX days were really cool.

Manuel: Yeah, and I remember talking to a friend of mine and then he said from there, it was, hey, we actually have servers and he showed me vMotion similar to you. And I was like, and this is, I think they implemented it through version three. And I was like, I wanna do that. Then eventually moved over there. So then you go in to Toyota and start deploying their VMware environment. I’m assuming that Toyota, it’s gonna be a much bigger environment than just the 10 servers.

Clinton: Yeah, I mean, it was, although it’s, I mean, in the interim amount of time, like however long it was since I deployed it at my previous job. And then when I got to Toyota and we started trying to deploy it there, like technology just kind of, you know, the number of CPUs and all of that stuff just continued to grow. So yeah, the Toyota environment when we originally stood it up, I can’t remember. It was probably like not that many more, maybe not including like the lab or anything like that, maybe like 20 servers. And at the time they were like Sun with Intel processors. Yeah, maybe 20. Okay, so I mean, way bigger, but then from a compute standpoint, it was way bigger, right? Even though it was 20 to eight or 20 to 10, just the amount of compute was not double. It was like quadruple probably.

Manuel: Right, and probably the amount of servers that you have running on those 20 is probably even way more.

Clinton: Yeah, I mean, by the time I, I can’t remember exactly, but by the time I was like no longer really hands-on in that environment, like there were clusters that had well over like 100 something VMs running per host.

Manuel: So you deploy that and then do you continue to just kind of be the VMware person? And then you mentioned that you kind of got that, hey, I want to do a lot of these installs for other businesses, or did you just kind of decide to stay there in that consulting role with Toyota for a while?

Clinton: I was brought on to do VMware, but like there wasn’t a VMware team. It was, there was a server team and within the server team, there was like a Linux, Unix and Windows. And so I had to do other stuff, right? There were a lot of things for us to do. A lot of us on the team. And so, you know, I started to get assigned to different projects and do pretty well on those projects. And so eventually after some number of years, they made me a full-time employee. And yeah, I mean, I was super happy that they’re in that role, even in the contractor role, it’s great. Like I really liked being there. It’s a great company to be at. I mean, I’d be there to this day if they didn’t move out of Southern California. But yeah, that was just kind of the progression of my career. So I went from a contractor to an individual contributor as an employee. And then eventually like I managed that server team that I was part of. And then that server team kind of, we grew functions. So we took on like end user computing into that team. And then we kind of created like a virtualization team there. And so yeah, that was kind of the capstone of my career at Toyota was by the time I left, I kind of ran the compute team.

Manuel: And what was that experience like of going from being an individual contributor, right? With your peers to then eventually managing it. So I’ve had a couple of people that have gone through that. A lot of times, sometimes you’re going in as a manager to different roles. So I know sometimes it can be a challenge to be a peer. And then now all of a sudden, their direct reports.

Clinton: I guess it wasn’t as difficult because I’d been there for a while. I mean, almost everyone on that team had been there for a while and we were all pretty friendly and we were all pretty, most people on that team were pretty just like normal and kind to each other. It’s not always the case in IT departments, right? But yeah, I wouldn’t say I saw a lot of challenges. I don’t mean, you’d have to ask the people on the team if they thought I, if I was a challenging manager or not. But yeah, it was pretty seamless. And again, being a contractor for five years, then becoming an employee and then being an employee for maybe another year before I became the manager, it was pretty seamless. But I wouldn’t have expected anything else. We had such a low key, chill group of engineers, like very, not demanding or hot tempered or anything like that. So, everybody got their work done. It was good.

Manuel: And what made you decide to be a manager? Like what call to you to say, “Hey, I wanna take on this type of leadership role.”

Clinton: Well, I mean, back then, I mean, I guess it would depend on the company, but like back then in a corporate environment, like that was the only place you could go. Like there was definitely, you could be an individual contributor for up to a certain point, but if you wanted to kind of climb the corporate ladder, you had to get into management. Fortunately, like the people who were my leadership there saw something in me that thought that I would make a good manager. And people have said that to me. Like, “Oh, you’d be a good manager.” And I think it comes from like, “I like people.” I think it’s important to like people, right? Like not just like technology, but like people. And I like learning about people and connecting with people and understanding people. I mean, and that helps being a good manager, right? And so that, it was pretty natural. I mean, it’s never easy, but it was something that I kind of gravitated towards just out of just my own personal nature, I guess.

Manuel: Nice. And I can see that, I mean, just a little bit, even though I was never a direct report, I can also see, liking the people and then also the development factor. And I don’t know if that comes in, if that’s just natural to you or if that comes from also teaching early on in your career, but kind of that development like, “Hey, how do I help you?” Like there’s just that part of it as well that I can…

Clinton: I mean, I like seeing people be successful. And I don’t think I ever think, they talk about like what motivates people. Some people are really motivated by that. And I wouldn’t say that’s the case for me. I’m much more of like a puzzle, problem solver type of person. Like you just say like, “What’s the thing that drives how you work?” Someone’s like, “I like to solve problems.” That is like what makes me feel really like, oh, like releases the serotonin or whatever. But I love seeing people succeed. And if I can be part of that and help them, I always try and do it. And so, I mean, it definitely like reflects the way that I think about how I do my job as a people manager. But yeah, I don’t know that that was ever something that I thought about when I got into management, but certainly even when as an individual contributor, like if I could help someone, I would, right? Like it’s because I like doing it. It’s enjoyable.

Manuel: And then from Toyota, kind of what transpires and what do you kind of, what happens to move on to the next role?

Clinton: Yeah. So I think I could confidently say, if Toyota didn’t move out of Southern California, I’d still be sure. I loved being there. I love the people that I work with. You and I talked about, right? We’re talking with a mutual colleague and he said, like he has three things that he considers. And it’s like, do I love the people that I work with? Do I love the work that I do? And it’s like, those things were definitely in place. Even though it wasn’t like the most highest paying company that I could be at, and I’m sure I could have made lots more money doing something or else moving around, right? Cause that’s the thing, right? You move to get a raise. I had no interest in doing any of that. But Toyota decided to move. And so a lot of people over the course of my career at Toyota, whether they were being genuine about it or not, were like, you’d be really good in sales. You should go into sales. Specifically the SE role. Like, oh, you’d be a great SE. And there were a couple of folks who kind of tried to recruit me in the past. And I was always like, nope. Like, I had no interest. And part of it was just like, I’ve had some pretty not great salespeople that I’ve had to deal with in the past. And I just kind of thought like, I don’t know, whatever. Like, maybe I was on my high horse or something, but just morally I was like, that’s just not a profession I have any interest in doing. But there was one salesperson who I would consider a friend and he was like, well, do you look at me that way? And I was like, no, like you’re great. He’s like, well then go just go be a great sales engineer. Like, you don’t have to be bad. Like just because there are bad people in sales doesn’t mean salespeople have to be bad. You can be whatever salesperson you want to be. Now, obviously there are things like sales cultures and company cultures and all that stuff. And like, sometimes it’s really hard to be a certain way when a culture is a totally different way. But he’s like, you can figure that out. Like if you go somewhere and they’re not a good fit for you culturally and you determine that and you get out of there and go somewhere else. Right? And so with Toyota leaving SoCal, I was like, well, now’s the time. I guess I’ll give it a shot. And so I gave a shot and I interviewed with VMware.

Manuel: And was the idea of, it sounds like, you know, hey, I’ve had bad salespeople similar to when I kind of first thought about that role. Did you think that a sales engineer role or even just being on that side was kind of more like that use car salesman type of mentality or?

Clinton: Uh, yeah, I guess I was just naive, I think. You know, and I mean, sales engineers, while we have the title, like whether the word sales is in your title or not, you are selling, but it’s not quite the same as being the salesperson and owning the number, right? So I didn’t understand that at all at that time. And also, you know, like I said, I grew up watching a lot of movies, you know, movies like Wall Street and all of those things and all like Glen Gary, Glen Ross, I don’t know if you know that number, but like, you know, and I definitely, when I was pretty early in my career, went to a timeshare and got the hard sell. So like there was, I just never had that great feeling about being a salesperson, right? And so it was never a consideration for me for a long time, but just having that conversation with that salesperson, not even a sales engineer, a salesperson who I would say is an authentic, great human being who does the job the way that I, if I was a salesperson, I would want it to be done. Like just that, that was enough for me to go, I’m gonna give it a shot. Like, you know, like life is telling me that I have to do something different, so I’m gonna try something different.

Manuel: And then so you interview at VMware, and it sounds like up until this point, right? So most of these roles, it’s kind of, you’ve been pretty fortunate to have pretty good people to work with, you’re learning a lot, but it’s almost like–

Clinton: Great leaders and managers.

Manuel: Right, and it’s now you’re, it’s more forced, right? Cause they’re closing, that something’s happening and saying, well, I guess it’s time to go do something else. Yep. So what made you choose VMware? Was it, again, your experience with that? Hey, I know the technology.

Clinton: Yeah, it was a natural fit because of how well I knew the technology from a hands-on standpoint. I mean, despite being a manager, I mean, even at Toyota, like as a manager, I still got my hands dirty all the time. And just like, I loved the technology, right? And I’d go to VMUGs, I’d go to all kinds of stuff. Like it was just a big, I mean, like my career was built on it, right? So it was a natural fit. I mean, there were definitely other companies that I would have considered, but that was the first choice.

Manuel: So it’s your first choice, you go through and you just started looking for sales engineer positions and applied, or kind of what was that process?

Clinton: Yeah, well, I started with talking to the people from the companies that I was interested that were selling to Toyota, right? So number one, when I was at Toyota, I mentioned I got recruited by different companies. Not heavily recruited, but just like a salesperson might come and talk to me and ask me like, hey, you ever be interested in doing this? Or sometimes an SE manager or whatever. And so I had some contacts, and so I just started reaching out. I would talk to my Microsoft salesperson or my Microsoft TAM, or my VMware TAM, or whoever. Just the people that I worked with on a day to day basis. A, I wanted to learn about their company and whether they’re happy and what are they like doing and how is the SE role and all those things. But B, just to let them know, like I’m interested, right? None of that went anywhere. I tried and I remember specifically there was an SE manager at VMware and he had mentioned to me like, “Ah, like yeah, you’d be great at VMware.” And I’m pretty sure I reached out to him. He’s like, “Well, I don’t have anything right now.” He’s like, “Okay, well, let me know when you do.” Because it’s not like Toyota shut down or they’re moving tomorrow and I need a new job. Like I had time so I could be a little more flexible. And I think literally there was just on a job website, on the VMware website, there was just a role open and I applied for it. I feel bad because if somebody did refer me, I don’t remember. (laughs) I might’ve like went and saw it and then given the referral to somebody. You know what I mean? But I don’t even think that’s the case. I think I just applied. And yeah, I mean, that kick-started that process.

Manuel: And then, so kick-started the process, you go through and what was the interview experience like? So I remember mine and from a sales engineer role, they’re a little bit different. Anytime I’ve been in like a consulting role, a sales engineer, it was very different than when I was interviewing as an individual contributor, even as a manager, right? It was like you sat down and it was just instantly an interview where they were verifying your tech skills. And in a sales engineer role, they’re also checking more on your people skills, those soft skills.

Clinton: Yep.

Manuel: So what was that, if you kind of remember, what was that experience like?

Clinton: Yeah, after the recruiter, I talked to the hiring manager and I mean, she basically just kind of was like, “Hey, you’ve never done this before. Why do you think you’d be good?” Just to your point, I think she probably saw my resume and like saw all the VMWare stuff on there and was like, “Well, technically he can probably do it.” Plus he’s a manager, so he probably has at least some people skills. But let me, you know, like a lot of her questions were less technical in nature and more to your point, like who am I as a person and like what am I all about? And then she set me up to talk to her SE and another two of her SEs. And they did like a little bit interview and a little bit like explaining to me the job, right? Because again, right, I’ve never been an SE before. And so it was really great. And then, yeah, and then I had the interview with the rep and then there was like a final like panel, I think. I think that was it. Okay. Yeah.

Manuel: So you go through that whole process and sounds like potentially it was successful and they brought you on as an engineer?

Clinton: Yeah, I mean, it was successful in that I went through, I did the panel, I did a presentation, you know, I presented, I still remember I presented on, I don’t remember what it was called back then, but vRNI, it was like Arkin, right? When it first got acquired and like it went as great as I could hope for it to go. And the manager was like, hey, just letting you know that the req actually is on hold right now, but we should expect it to be open in a couple months. And they were hiring ahead of, I was going to be backfilling one of the people who’s on that panel. And so, yeah, I was like, okay, this is great. And they’re like, we’ll let you know. It might be like a month, right? So like, we’ll be in touch, but you did great. You’re like, you’re our first choice. And then like a month later, the hiring manager was like, hey, so that role actually got moved to another part of the business, right? Like it got moved from a SoCal role to, I can’t remember where, somewhere else.

Manuel: Somewhere not close enough.

Clinton: Yeah, well, exactly. And so I wasn’t moving out of SoCal for Toyota. Definitely wasn’t gonna move for some brand new job. And so that was it. And I was like, okay, well, back to the drawing board. And the hiring manager then called me and was like, would you be interested in this other role? Because if so, I’d love to just pass your resume over. I’m like, sure. And so at that time it was vSAN. And then the director for the vSAN role was local, was in SoCal as well. And so she set up a call and we had an interview. And then that was the role I ended up getting. So like, I don’t know, maybe I don’t believe in karma. I mean, like I just do things because I think you should do them, but maybe, right? Maybe me helping people is helps with people helping me. There’s no reason she needed to, she could have just been like, I want this guy for myself, right? But what she told me was like, I want you to be at VMware, even if it’s not on my team. So I’m gonna pass your resume over to this person. I’m gonna tell her to hire you. And she did.

Manuel: Do you think at that time also, it was more also a culture thing, like in the way that they hired, like you said, hey, even if it’s not with me, I think I would want you here at VMware.

Clinton: I don’t know. I guess I never thought about it. I just think the person, I don’t know, you might not know her because you might’ve joined SLED after she left, but her name’s Terri, you know Terri?

Manuel: Frohmiller, yes.

Clinton: I think she’s just a great person.

Manuel: Yeah, she is.

Clinton: Regardless of what culture, like regardless of what company she would be at, whether it’s VMware or some terrible sales culture, I think she’s the type of person that would just do that. So maybe that culture helped her to become that person. I don’t know, but like she’s just great. So I think she just did it because she’s great.

Manuel: The reason I ask is just similar to your experience, and this is gonna sound very familiar to you. So I had, same thing, I think I had my TAM when I was at Allegiant had mentioned it. I was like, hey, have you ever thought about being in a TAM role? And I was like, well, no, not really. Like I don’t know much about it. And, you know, kind of similar to you. Not recruiting, but just kind of like, more like planting the seed. Like, hey, you’d be interested. And then when I started to kind of consider moving to VMware, I think the first one that, God, I’m trying to remember who it was specifically, but they had posted about it on Twitter of all places. Like, hey, we’ve got this role and it was for like sales marketing. And that person, you know, I didn’t end up getting the role, but again, had a connection with that person. And they’re like, hey, you know, if you see anything else, let me know. And they were very much willing to help, similar to my TAM. And then kind of fast forward a little bit, when I decided to apply to VMware for a sales role, it was actually under you, because again, my SE at the time, so Dustin had said, after I applied for, by that time, I think I had applied for three different VMware roles. Because at some point I was like, I want to work here. Yeah. Especially after visiting the campus and just meeting a bunch of people, I’m like, seems like everybody’s good. And that’s why I say the culture. It’s like everybody wanted to help. When he kind of brought me on and it was, sounds like a very similar situation. Like you’re like, hey, Terri did this for me. You kind of did the same thing. So I was just kind of wondering if you felt it. It was a culture.

Clinton: I mean, personally for me, I don’t, like for my decision, was it had nothing to do with VMware? I just thought you should be there. You’re good. Like, and it had less to do with VMware and more to do with you. You know what I mean? Like, if that’s where you wanted to be as a company, I would do whatever I could in my power to support that. Versus me thinking about, oh, VMware would be a better place if it had Manny. That’s true too, but it was more the other way around. Like, I really like Manny. Like if he wants to be a VMware, he should be. So let me see if I can, any way that I can. Not like I, like you had to get the job yourself, but if I can just say a nice word or whatever, like I’m more than happy to do that.

Manuel: Before we move on to the next portion of, you know, now you’re getting hired and kind of talking about that role. The one thing, and I don’t know if I’ve ever asked you about it, but one of the things that, it’s probably one of the two times that this has ever happened and I think yours was the first one is after I had interviewed, so for those that aren’t aware, I interviewed for a role with you and didn’t get it. And one of the things that I asked was, because I think by then we had had a couple conversations, you know, pretty decent relationship in the four or five times that we had spoken, I asked for feedback and I was like, hey, again, not saying like, hey, why didn’t I get it? But it was more, what could I have done better? What is something that you think I could work on? Because again, now my mindset is I’m gonna go get here one way or another and you provided the feedback. Is that something that you do often? Do people normally ask for feedback?

Clinton: I try, and I try to do this for as many people as I can. It’s hard. So there are definitely different ways that different hiring managers like to recruit. My wife tells me I like to do everything the hard way. Like for example, like when it comes to math, right? You know, they have like math shortcuts. Like I never wanna do any of the shortcuts. I like wanna understand how the math works. And it’s like, if you understand how the math works, you do all the hard work, then later it’s easier, right? And so when it comes to recruiting, I always kind of take the hard path. I wanna talk to as many candidates as I can because I don’t ever wanna like miss one. And I just wanna like, just selfishly, like I just like to meet people and hear what their stories are and see if there’s a good fit there because you never know, right? And in the case of hiring for that role, I talked to a lot of people, a lot of really good people. There were people who did not get as far as you got. And we had like some of the, in my mind, like some of the most talented potential SEs get eliminated even before they got to the spot that you got to. But that said, I always try to offer it to candidates, right? So there’s two things that I do. Well, let me just take a step back. I try to talk to a lot of people. I try to do a pre-interview call. Um, and whenever I tell new recruiters that I work with, cause like recruiters these days, they have like this thing where like, we only wanna interview this person three times. It’s like a new thing because like, especially in tech, right? Like I had to do a bunch of interviews at VMware. You had to do a bunch of interviews. You hear about like, I don’t know, Google or Amazon. I don’t know which one, but like you have to do eight interviews and all this stuff. But there was like this trend where they were like, we wanna limit how many times that this person has to interview with us and we want them to, it’s kind of like the candidate experience needs to be really good. So I was like, okay. But here’s the problem. I like to do a pre-interview call with every single candidate that I’m gonna talk to. And the recruiter would be like, why? I was like, I want them to A, feel free to ask me any questions they want without any pressure of their being, like them being interviewed. I hate interviewing. I hate being interviewed mostly not because I don’t wanna like show that person what I know and why I’d be a good fit. But because it’s an interview, right? Like it makes me feel like nervous and not unnatural. And then they gotta ask me questions that are like unnatural, right? Like that wouldn’t normally come up in a conversation. And that’s the worst way to meet someone for the first time, right? So I will tell my recruiter, like I get that you only want to interview this person three times or whatever that number is. I would like to have a call with them. I would like to offer them the ability to have a call with me where we just talk. We just meet, we don’t talk about work, but they can ask me anything they want about VMware, anything they want about the job, anything they want about myself, because for me, I wanna hire people who don’t wanna leave their jobs. You know what I mean? Those are the good people, right? I wanna hire someone who’s like highly coveted. And so it’s just as important for me to be the right fit and for VMware to be the right fit for that person as it is for them to be the right fit for the job. And so that’s my thing, right? So I always have that pre-call, offer that pre-call to every single person that I talk to. And then I always offer to have a post-call if they want it. I’ll give an email, I’ll usually send an email, say, “Hey, we thought you were great. “Hare some of the stuff that made you “maybe not as great as this person or that person.” And if you wanna talk, I’m happy to have a conversation. So I try to do that. Not that many people take me up on it though. They usually just read the email, I’m like, “Oh, thank you so much for the feedback.” And that’s it.

Manuel: That’s interesting, because I would think that, especially now, a lot of times I’ve heard, oh, they just said, thanks, you didn’t qualify, and then that’s it. So maybe, and again, this is a while ago, so I probably got that email and I took you up because I was like, okay, this is an opportunity for me to figure out what I can do better. And again, it wasn’t like, how could I have beat that person? But it’s just, what can I do? What should I work on? And that was extremely valuable to me because one of the things that you mentioned is, and I think from that point on, it really changed the trajectory of my career. And the reason I say that is your big thing was, hey, in this presentation, I’m gonna try and paraphrase and remember as much as possible, but–

Clinton: We’re both getting old, man.

Manuel: It is. But it was pretty much, you got too technical too fast. They asked a question and it was probably a lot of the engineering and having that technical background that I answered the technical question. And I got very technical and that was your biggest feedback is, hey, when you’re answering questions, because I remember the, it’s kind of like a role playing at that point for the scenario, the VP’s and C’s, suites, and like a light bulb came on. They don’t care about the tech, it should have been like, how do I solve business problems? And from then I was like, oh, and I remember going back and reworking it and with Dustin at some point, I was like, hey, I’m just curious, can you, can I do mocks with you and I would do that? And sure, it was a progression. It wasn’t like, oh, the light bulb went off and I just automatically switched it. But from then on, I saw the value and every time, well, we had two jobs since then, but just the conversations I had was very much, oh, you have to tailor the conversation to who you’re speaking to. For sure.

Clinton: And I think one thing that probably would have been helpful to you is if you would have been applying for a specialist role you know what I mean? Because those people need to almost always, they’re more like very targeted technical conversations. Whereas the core SE at VMware, like you have to be technical, but you’re much more like an architect, right? You’re more like bigger picture solving business problems, not so much like get into the weeds, right? And so I think, like had I been a hiring manager for like a specialist technology SE function, it probably wouldn’t have been an issue. And also, like I said, man, like the quality of candidates that we had lined up for that role was pretty high, like really great people.

Manuel: Now, and I think honestly, I’m grateful that it was that one, right? Because again, I’ve learned and I’ve been able to help and teach others similar to you, right? Like, hey, I wanna help you be successful. And even in my current role and even doing this, learning how to communicate better and speak at different levels has been phenomenal. So now getting past all this, how you get in here, you start your SE role, what was that experience of kind of becoming now an SE?

Clinton: We talked a little bit about this, about some of the struggles I had. I don’t think I understood who I was as a person until I became an SE. And in that people talk about introverts and extroverts. And when you think about introverts and extroverts, you think about the really quiet guy who sits in the corner, doesn’t talk to anyone. And the really chatty gal who’s like going around, life for the party, talking to everybody. But it’s, you know, there is gray, right? And I didn’t think I was either of those, but what I kind of came to find out was just like, being a sales engineer was exhausting. It was like, I was like, I think I’m an introvert. I didn’t realize this, right? And the way it came about and maybe, you know, maybe not like an extreme introvert, but maybe slightly introverted. It was having to, you know, one of my sales mentors or it might’ve been my director was like, when you’re presenting, you just need to be yourself, but you need to be a little bit more. You need to bring a little more and more energy, bring, you know, be a little bit more lively, be a little bit more engaging. And she kind of compared it to like, when you’re presenting, you’re this way, but when I’m just chatting with you and you’re having a good time, like you’re this way. It’s like, what’s Clinton like when he’s had a couple drinks? Like, well, I’m more like that. I’m actually a little louder. And like, she’s like, that’s what I want. Like, you need to take that energy and bring it to your meetings. And so I tried doing that. And I would be like, after like a couple of calls, after a couple of customer meetings, and I was a specialist, right? So I was, you know, I was kind of at the beck and call of all of these reps in Southern California. Like, I just would be done, right? I’d have a couple of meetings and I’d be like, so just my brain was like fried because I was not used to just that engaging and that conversation and all of that stuff. Like, that was just really hard for me. And so I kind of learned a little bit about myself and I struggled through that. And then just like the fake it till you make it, like I never believed that people change. I never believed that. Like, I was just like, you are who you are. But like this job taught me like, oh, I can change. And I just, I kept doing it and I kept doing it. And it like, I would be better and better, not just in my presentations, but like I’d feel better afterwards. And, you know, whereas like, you know, maybe early on, like by noon, by my third meeting, like I was done and people could tell I was done, like by, you know, like six months, a year into the job, it was more like, you know, by the end of the day, I was like, I felt great. And you know, that energy, like the energy that I used to expend by having to do that in front of people, I wouldn’t say I created energy. It still was an expenditure of energy, but I would, it would be, it would come much more naturally to the point where like my wife would comment. She’s like, you didn’t used to talk this much before. Like this kind of banter with people, like, you know, you do it, especially if you’re out and you’re having drinks and whatever, like you get a little, you know, like in that social environment, but she’s like, yeah, like you talk so much more now. I’m like, it’s cause it was, it was the job. Like the job forced me to have to do that. And then I just kind of became that person.

Manuel: What made you continue to do that, right? To continue flexing that muscle as opposed to, you know, like, man, this is draining. I’m sure maybe at one point, even the thought might have crossed your mind and be like, can this isn’t the role for me? Like maybe it’s not what I thought it was, but obviously you decided I’m going to keep going and improve.

Clinton: Like I didn’t, I grew up, my parents worked all the time. I grew up, I wouldn’t say poor, we weren’t, it’s not like I can ever eat, but we grew up not wealthy. Right? Like my parents worked all the time. I rarely saw them when I was young as a latchkey kid. So like in my mind, I think I always just am like, there’s that fear or that like stress of like not working. Drives like just me being a really hardworking person. And so it was never, I was never like, it was never an option for me to be like, I don’t know if I like this, I’m going to do something else. I was like, I need to make this work. And if it’s not going to work, like I’m going to do everything in my power to make it work to the point where I know for sure I can do it. And then I’ll do something else. But it was, I don’t know, I never crossed my mind to go like this is hard and I shouldn’t do something that’s not as hard. Yeah.

Manuel: Yeah, and I wasn’t even saying just as hard, but it just, the fact that it was tiring, right? And draining just makes me think that maybe you weren’t getting the joy out of it.

Clinton: Because like I said, it’s just the fear of not having a job.

Manuel: And that’s, I mean, that’s completely valid. Yeah. The other thing that I kind of brought up here and then I’m thinking about is you mentioned early on with them working a lot, you moved all over kind of SoCal. And I had another guest on recently who moved a lot as well.

Clinton: I didn’t move as much as that person.

Manuel: Oh, okay. So it wasn’t something like, hey, moving around made you feel comfortable kind of moving around within roles. It was more like, hey, the hard work and I got to, I don’t need this work.

Clinton: No, in fact, I’m like the opposite of that. Like I don’t like to do, I like to learn new things and I like to like make myself uncomfortable from a technical and job standpoint. But I actually don’t like to like switch companies. It’s not like part of what I want to do. Like I said, if Toyota hadn’t moved, I’d still be there. If Broadcom hadn’t come in and brought VMware, I’d still be there. So that was never part of my nature. My nature is very much like the grass is not always greener. If I’m happy here, like why am I going somewhere else? Like there has to be something that really pulls me to a new opportunity versus me like naturally going like, all right, I’ve done my two or three years here. Cause there’s people like that, that’s how they’re wired. They’re like, I’ve done my time here and I learned a lot and it was great and it’s time to do something else. I’m not wired that way.

Manuel: I’m one of those, I guess more wired that way, but for me it was more, I’ve come to find out now as an adult, it was more the challenge was gone. Sure. Right, it just, I found out that with ADHD, there was a lot of like, you get to a certain point, you know, you’re learning, there’s a challenge. Once that challenge, once you’ve figured out the role and what you’re doing, it was like, you got very bored. Or, you know.

Clinton: I could definitely see that. I will tell you in my six years as a manager at VMware, like I always felt like I was underwater. There was never not a challenge. It was always challenging and never felt like comfortable. Now, maybe that’s just me, you know, it could just be me. I don’t know, but like, there’s a lot, I know a lot of people who are like you where they’re like, they do something for a couple of years and they’re just like, I need a new challenge. I need, you know, like one of my friends in the industry was like, after a few years of doing something, if I start to feel comfortable, like I know I need to do something else. I need to feel uncomfortable again. Like, that’s that growth mindset, right? I feel like I have that growth mindset when it comes to learning. I don’t necessarily have it when it comes to like, wanting to go other places. I, if I’m happy somewhere, I try to stay there. Yeah.

Manuel: So you’re there in the SE role for a while, and then I’m assuming a manager position comes up and then just having your prior experience decided, hey, I want to kind of do that and move into this type of role. Yeah. And was the hiring experience similar to when you were doing the SEs? Again, they’re just trying to find out, or is it because you’re internal, they kind of know how you are as a person, and I’m not saying you don’t interview, but it’s probably a little bit different.

Clinton: I think that’s more on the hiring manager. It depends, and it also depends on if maybe there’s like candidates that they really want. I think my first time getting hired into VMware, obviously like I didn’t know any of the people who were part of that hiring decision. So it must’ve meant they’re like kind of going through a lot of different candidates. In this case, I was like a known quantity. There were, I think, other folks that were on the team, like in SoCal, that were potentially interested. So I think it was much more streamlined for that reason, and the person who was doing the hiring probably felt pretty comfortable with that candidate pool. And so it was pretty quick. It was a couple interviews. I think, yeah, just a couple interviews.

Manuel: And then from a leadership standpoint, from a technology standpoint, you can learn and watch books and pick up and learn all that from a kind of leadership manager type. Like what’s the way that you picked up those skills? Did you read? Did you just kind of watch other people? Was it, I’m just gonna figure it out and do what I think is right?

Clinton: I had really good leadership that managed and led me. And I was like, I wanna do that. And you ask questions. You’re like, well, why don’t we do this? And a good leader will explain to you, well, we’re not doing this because of this, or we’re not doing that because of that. And you start to learn. When I was early in my career, I was a very good doer, which made me a very poor leader, because I’m like, well, I can do all this stuff. I can stay an extra five hours tonight to do this. Why can’t this 45 year old person who has three kids, (laughs) it was bad, because I was young. But then you ask, you learn and you understand and you become more empathetic and you just grow over time. And so, yeah, I never got any formal leadership training, unfortunately, I never read any books. It was really just having good managers and good leaders who showed me through their actions, who taught me through their words, how they do things. And I was like, that’s the kind of person I wanna be, that’s the kind of manager I wanna be. And then obviously, you have your own kind of biases and the way that you were brought up that also informs that. And then some of it is you just learn by doing the wrong thing. Like, when I was young, I did the wrong thing. And even now, there are times I definitely, I’m sure I do the wrong thing and you get that feedback, right? Like, oh, like, this might’ve been the right thing for this person, like five years ago, but for this person, it wasn’t. And you just have to kind of evolve and change, right? As things change.

Manuel: If someone’s looking to get into like more of that leadership role, obviously you have to want to get to like people, right? You already mentioned that, like, hey, I like people. What else? Like, if I’m coming to you and say, hey, Clinton, you know what, I’ve been this SE, I’ve done these types of roles, I think I wanna move up into like a manager type position. I want to lead people. What’s something that you would recommend to me personally? You know me.

Clinton: Read the books.

Manuel: Okay.

Clinton: It’s like after becoming a manager, like, then you have, then it’s like people are like, oh, you should read this book or you should, and then those things are like, oh, like there are words for this, there are terms for this. Like how I’m feeling or the actions that I’m doing, that’s called this, like it helps. And it also does make you realize like a lot of things that maybe you didn’t do well or you could have done better. So yeah, definitely, like there’s no harm in that. If you have the time and you have like the ability and like, I mean, I can’t remember the last time I wrote a book, but like listen to an audio book, right? Do it, I would highly recommend it. If you can take a leadership course, I’d highly recommend it. I think those things are valuable, they’re not. You know, it’s not the Bible, right? Like you don’t have to strictly adhere to what, because there’s so many different ways to lead, but I think it’s valuable to understand that more so to help you figure out how you wanna do things than to like tell you what to do. And then talk to leaders, like express interest, like learn more about why they do the things that they do or just, you know, kind of be curious and ask those questions. Even if they’re not in your company or in your org, like I’m always happy to have that, I tell people, you know, I’m always happy to have that conversation about being a people manager, like the good and the bad. And it’s just, it’s my perspective. So it’s obviously not, you know, something. There’s only some amount of value because it’s just coming from me and I’m not an expert, but I’m always happy to do that. And I’d recommend you do that and talk to the managers and leaders that you’ve either worked with or seen and get their perspective.

Manuel: Similar to when you offering the feedback, do you think a lot of people just don’t take advantage of that or do you think it’s the other end is they just don’t know to go and do that?

Clinton: I mean, I think it’s just life, man. Like, I mean, I don’t know why I thought of this. I have someone I went to high school with, like a good friend, lives five minutes from my house. I haven’t seen him in like three years, right? It is sad. And we joke about it. When we do see each other and I’ll text them, like, dude, I haven’t seen you so long. I know we live so far away from each other, right? But it’s just life. We’re just, everybody’s busy and everybody’s busier than ever. So, I think we all have the best intentions, but you’re just trying to get your job done and do your thing and make sure your kids don’t look like trash in the morning, right? Like whatever it is. So, I don’t think it’s like people don’t wanna do it. It’s just like, it’s not at the top of their priority list. And I think that’s just always been the case. You know, like, I think if you asked any hiring manager, like would they be willing to give feedback to a candidate that didn’t make it, they’d be like, yeah, I’d be happy to do that. But at the same time, like they got so many other things to do and just for whatever reason, I always try to make it a priority. Just like if someone’s willing to reach out to me and wanna learn, I’m always gonna do that and I’ll make time for that. But the reality is I think it’s just life, man. Like people are just too busy to do some of the things that they probably should do that they just can’t make time for.

Manuel: And I’ve had recently, so I had Estela on and she’s an engineer. And one of the things that she talked about is being able to tell stories and you have to know the technical side but be able to relate to customers. So if I’m coming in and say, hey, you know what? I think I’m interested in making the switch over to, you know, an SE role. Apart from what I already mentioned is just, hey, make sure that you kind of speak at those levels. Is there anything else that you would think like, hey, from the leadership standpoint, read the leadership books. From an SE standpoint, if I wanna make that switch from an individual contributor to, you know, again, now customer facing.

Clinton: I think one thing that was helpful to me was that I presented a lot before. Both, you know, in front of people that were not like at the place that I worked, but just, I’d done a lot of presentations. I think that was really helpful because a lot of people who are in technical roles at customers, that’s not usually something you have to do. And so it does help to then get into a manager role because as a manager, you end up doing a lot more presentations. But that’s definitely something I would recommend working on that, making sure that you understand, like if you know you’re gonna have to do a presentation as part of a panel, like put your presentation together, video tape yourself, know how you sound, how you come off, know, like sometimes people just don’t know, like they say, uh, like every five seconds. One of my crutch words is, uh, like I went out thinking, I go, uh, I do it all the time. I can’t get rid of it, but I wanna make sure I don’t do it every three seconds, right? So there’s like stuff like that. Like, I mean, I think that’s really important if you wanna get into the SE role. The other piece is just like network. Like, uh, you know, if you wanna work for a specific company, go to the user group for those company things. I mean, those are, I mean, user groups are great anyway, just like, it’s like, you’re around your people, you know? And, um, but yeah, I think that’s really important because that’s part of the job of being an SE is like building relationships, like just naturally being able to build those relationships. I mean, there is SE, like there’s a million ways to do the SE job. So I’m kind of speaking from my perspective because there’s SEs who are terrible at networking, but they’re so stinking smart, right? And they’re so technical and they’re in that right role for them where like, I just need a sniper. We’re gonna call Manny and Manny’s gonna come in and he’s gonna like impress the heck out of everybody just by being so smart at this one thing, right? And you know, the guy in the back who asks the hard questions is gonna be like, oh man, we gotta buy this product. Cause Manny’s like a genius, right? There’s SEs like that, like that, I’m not that SE, you know, like I try to be technical, but really it’s more about just like, like how do I solve this problem? And so, you know, you gotta have a superpower, right? And you gotta know what that is and you gotta cultivate that and develop that. My superpower has always been like, I’m a customer. I always think like a customer, right? And it’s valuable as an SE because there are people who’ve never been a customer. And for whatever reason, they can’t do it. They can’t think like a customer does, right? And so I’ll say something like, well, you know, why aren’t you looking at it like this? Like I’d be on a call with me and my SE and the rep and my sales partner and I’d be like, well, how come you’re not thinking about it like this? And like, well, why would I think about it like that? I’m like, cause every customer thinks about it like that. They’re like, really? Like, yeah. So I feel like that’s like my kind of superpower. I try not to ever lose it. And it’s funny cause I say I can’t lose it because that’s who I am, but you could definitely lose anything you don’t use. So I always try to think about that. I always try to ask good questions to customers so that I understand how they’re thinking about stuff so that I don’t ever lose the ability to put their hat on and be them and understand their problems so I can solve it. But like lean into what you’re good at. But then also, you know, for me, you have to like make sure you’re addressing the things that maybe you’re not so good at. Cause you want to be as well rounded as possible to be able to be an SE.

Manuel: I think you brought up a good point is there’s a number of different type of SE roles, right? Like you might be that specialist and if you’re technical and you really know that, that’s gonna be again, your superpower. And maybe you don’t have to be as polished of a presenter. I mean, it still helps. You still have to kind of know how to do it, but maybe that’s not the role. Whereas if you want to be more of that presenter role and still have that technical chops, just understanding what specific type of SE role you’re applying for.

Clinton: Right. I mean, if you’re like, like to that point, right? If you’re a specialist SE and you cover a very niche product you’re probably never gonna talk to a CIO, right? So you’re probably not really thinking about business problems so much. And it’s more about like, how do I demo this? How do I know this, you know, POC this is really, really hands-on versus if you’re a core SE, you know, at a VMware or an AWS or any of these big companies, like that’s the big part of your job is like solving business problems. Like how do I take our portfolio, align it from an architectural standpoint to solve these big business problems, right? So yeah, it’s just different skill sets. You know, definitely understand what you’re good at and try to find the role that fits to what you’re good at. But also, you know, always be working on the other parts of your personality so that, you know, you can change and morph into, you know, one or the other thing if that’s what has to happen.

Manuel: Asked you a lot of questions and, you know, you gave me a lot of good information, you know, kind of told us about, you know, your experiences and, you know, different roles and moving around. Is there anything that I haven’t asked you, anything that you want to talk about, you know, a summary, just anything to kind of, as we wrap this up to say, hey, I want to talk about this one thing or?

Clinton: I wasn’t prepared for you to ask me that. Not really, man. I just, I had a really great time just talking to you. I’m like, I’m always happy to share all this kind of stuff. Just felt very like just us having a conversation. So it was great. I don’t think I have anything that I really wanted to talk about. I think I’m pretty, pretty good.

Manuel: Nice. And, you know, again, I just want to open it up and just don’t want to be like, hey, you got to give me what I want. You know, if there’s, it was just an opportunity for you to kind of.

Clinton: No, I mean, hopefully like the stuff that I talked about was valuable. Obviously everybody’s story is a little bit different, but, you know, like I think that the career that I’ve had has been very similar to yours, like a pretty common trajectory for SEs and SEMs and SE managers or directors. And, you know, we both kind of got to the same place in kind of the same way, but like also very different, right? And I had different things. So, you know, any kind of help I can give to anybody just through my experiences, I’m happy to do it.

Manuel: Yeah. And I’m thankful for that because again, that’s one of the things that I’m trying to get or trying to give as part of this. You know, hey, we were both SEs, at VMware path was similar, but different, you know, and I’ve had Rob and I’ve had a couple other people and it’s drastically different. So again, there’s no one way, sure there’s commonalities and that’s kind of on each person to find out and say, okay, you know, they’ve had a couple, he’s had a couple of different SEs, a couple of SE managers. Here’s the bits and pieces that I think are relevant to me and kind of what I’m looking to achieve in my career.

Clinton: Yeah.

Manuel: Well, I appreciate you coming on and sharing all this information with me. And it’s always just a pleasure just to kind of hang out and chat with you.

Clinton: For sure, man.

Manuel: And for everyone else, thank you again for taking the time to watch or listen. And hopefully you were able to find some valuable pieces of information that you can use. And as always continue to plug in and download the knowledge. Thank you.