From Data Center Newbie to Network Engineering Pro with Allen Tyson | Episode 004

Description: In this episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez sits down with Allen Tyson, a seasoned network engineering professional, to discuss his fascinating journey into the tech world. Discover how Allen transitioned from aspiring teacher to tech expert, and learn valuable insights on skill development, career pivots, and the importance of continuous learning in the fast-paced tech industry.

Key Topics:

• Allen’s unexpected entry into the tech world through a data center job
• The power of curiosity and self-directed learning in career growth
• Strategies for skill acquisition and knowledge retention in tech
• Transitioning from technical roles to management and back again
• The importance of humility and asking questions to accelerate learning
• Tools and techniques for personal knowledge management
• Balancing technical skills with people management in director roles
• Finding passion and fulfillment in your tech career

Quotes: “If you’re not humble to be able to want to improve, if you think you know everything, then when it comes to getting feedback, you don’t want it and you’re certainly not going to go get it.” – Allen Tyson

“Your stress should be the people you work with… If when the drama of the people goes away and you’ve got that work, whatever that work is, and you look at it and you’re like ‘I don’t want to do this,’ then there’s a problem.” – Allen Tyson

Resources Mentioned:

• GNS3 and EVE-NG (network simulation tools)
• Anki and SuperMemo (spaced repetition software)
• Roam Research, Logseq, and other Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) tools
• “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” (book)
• “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” (book)

Connect with Allen Tyson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allen-tyson-9067b45/

Call-to-Action: Love the show? Subscribe, rate, and review Career Downloads on your favorite podcast platform. Don’t forget to share this episode with a friend who’s looking to level up their tech career!

Tags: #CareerDownloads #TechCareers #NetworkEngineering #ContinuousLearning #CareerDevelopment #TechIndustry #PersonalGrowth #SkillAcquisition

Manuel: Hi everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each week and each episode I come and I hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn a little bit more about their career, their journey, tips and tricks that they’ve learned along the way. And today I’m very excited, I have a good friend of mine is Allen Tyson and with that welcome Allen.

Allen: How you doing? Hey good to see you man thanks for having me. I know you talked about it and you know it’s off the ground you got an awesome space here so thank you. I’m looking forward to it.

Manuel: Yeah it’s it took a little bit of work but it’s definitely I think it’s something that will be really beneficial to you know people in our industry and just looking to get into it. Maybe who are curious or if they’re looking to either get into tech which again we’ve talked before tech is very broad.

Allen: Yeah definitely.

Manuel: So having different perspectives from different people that do not only have different backgrounds but also are in different roles. Even if you and me had gone through the same the same path right hey we went to the same places where our experiences are going to be very different right. So I’m very excited and even if people who are already in the industry maybe they pick up some tips for their current role or if they’re looking to make a role a role change into something different.

Allen: Yeah and I think that’s one of the things that we kind of talked about too is you know when we were first getting into tech and just kind of figuring some things out there really wasn’t a platform like this right. I mean there really wasn’t you know a way that you could kind of say okay well let me see what somebody else who’s successful or you know who’s had some level of success like what have they done, but more importantly like what are the things they wish they didn’t do right. So we kind of have that ability now you know to kind of share some of those things and I think just like you and I were talking a little bit you know offline there’s so many more tools and resources that you have today to just scaffold and just be so much more successful so much quicker, but a lot of times people don’t you know, know about those things. pefully, like we can chat we can share some of those things and kind of put people in a better position than we were when we kind of first got started you know.

Manuel: Exactly so let’s start off and just kind of give me again it doesn’t have to be very in depth but just give me a little bit of background of kind of where you grew up and how you kind of slowly started and got interested in tech.

Allen: Yeah, so I was born originally in Ohio and I kind of lived there for a few years but I would say like you know my my hometown where I grew up is in Colorado. I grew up in Aurora, Colorado I’m kind of went to school there you know went to some college there got my certs there and for me tech wasn’t really where I was focused at. So you know my sister you know is one of my heroes right you know my sister Cynthia and she kind of went to school and got her PhD and I wanted to be a teacher. So that’s the direction that I was going I was going to school to be a teacher and I was working for a cable company just to be able to get the school benefits to be able to go to school. I mean and back then I mean I hate to admit it but I didn’t know a lot about printers and I could put paper in and you know I just was not like a tech guy. So I worked you know in customer service to be able to do that to be able to go to school. There was a job that actually paid more money in a data center. Knew absolutely nothing about data center didn’t know anything about computers or any of that. But I knew that if I got the night shift job I could go to school during the day and I talked to the manager there and I said look I don’t know a lot about technology I’m applying for the job because I’m internal if you give me an opportunity I mean I will definitely learn it. I want to be a teacher here’s what some of my goals are and he’s like okay and getting into the data center exposed me to like computers and exposed me to technology and then I was able to find out like what a router was and what a switch was and that just kind of ignited you know like this desire to learn more about tech. And then from there it’s sort of like deviated away from wanting to be a teacher. I started getting more into tech started learning more about it started getting more certifications and figuring some of those things out and then that led me to like navigate to Network Engineering and then being a Senior Network Engineer and then you know being in the Director role for a while and wanting to get back into Engineering and then working for like some major ISPs and you know working here in Vegas. So it ended up kind of being a roundabout way to find something that I was really passionate about but I had no idea because originally I wanted to to be a teacher because that’s something that I loved and sharing things was something I love and I think I kind of got that from my sister too. So yeah it was a very different journey for me when it came to tech I wasn’t one of those people that just grew up and always wanted to know how stuff works I was like way on the opposite.

Manuel: So but did you always have a natural curiosity like just in general? I mean I know not for tech like hey how does this work but just were you a curious person? Did you enjoy challenges? Like what what really kind of sparked your interest in technology once you got exposed?

Allen: Well I mean I always liked learning right I always liked learning new things and you know neuroscience and meta learning. Which are some of the things that we’ve talked about before were always like hobbies because I always found it like fascinating that how do you acquire a new skill and once you acquire that new skill how do you maintain it and then how do you make sure you don’t forget that new skill. Which leads to things like how does space repetition work and how do we forget. So those type of things were always interesting to me and I think I gravitated towards those more on the cognitive side because it was related to teaching. So I was thinking about like if I had students like how would I reach them. How would I make sure I’m part of that information to them so a lot of experimentation and because of that when I got into technology it was some of those same things. Like okay well you know how does this work? I mean when you click Enter here what happens or when routes need to go out to the internet like what do they do? You know how do they operate? And so that curiosity I think was just very important and I think that’s definitely something you have to have no matter what it is you know that that you’re learning. One you need to be curious about it you know. Two you have to be interested but if you’re not interested in it it’s it’s very very hard to acquire the knowledge it’s very very hard to you know maintain it you know. And I don’t want to go off you know like too far on a tangent but you know you have to have some kind of way to keep yourself engaged in whatever it is. You know that you’re studying that you’re trying to learn that you want to become good at if you can’t keep yourself engaged you know in it and understand how you learn then you know ultimately you’ll do yourself a disservice. And you may find out you may think well I’m I’m not really good at this and it may not have anything to do with you not being good at it, it’s just you’re approaching it in the wrong way right.

Manuel: And definitely in this industry, right. As much as things change, right because I’m sure you know similar to me when you first got in technology is way different than when we first started where it is now, right. There’s no such thing as cloud and you know things of that nature. So when you said that you were going to be a teacher, right and you’re going to college did you end up finishing or was tech just so exciting to you that you ended up leaving school? What was kind of that path?

Allen: So and I think that’s where things really kind of diverged because you know when you think of when you think of like school and you think of like learning something. You know kind of like in a in a classroom type of structure you know school is is is designed to help you reach certain goals by a certain point right. So there’s a lowest common denominator there which means that even if you want to go much further. I mean there’s things that you can do to do that but you still have to kind of follow a syllabus and a course, right. Things are different now with different universities where you can take like as many credits as you want and do some of those things. But back then it really wasn’t that way and so it got to the point where it’s like well in the tech industry things became much more skill focused. Which is I am much less concerned even now when I sit on interviews where I do those type of things I’m much less concerned about maybe how long you went to school. I’m much less concerned about you know what certifications you have even though those things help. I’m more concerned about do you have the skills to be able to do this. A lot of interviews you know like when I worked at Switch over at the data center you know a couple other places we would give people GNS3 simulators. Which is here’s GNS3 configure BGP in this way, configure iBGP between these two links, configure eBGP on the edges and let’s get routes flowing back and forth and here’s your here’s your IP Addresses to do that. So if you have certifications great if you don’t have certifications great what really matters is being able to perform well in that lab right and so that requires personal study that requires putting together your own equipment and that’s where things kind of diverged. Because it’s like well you move to an industry that is that is more skill based where you have to produce results and to do that that takes a lot of time that takes more study and that’s why I kind of diverged and I said well I’m going to focus on some of the certifications. Focus on and because in certifications in and of themselves just want to make that point like super clear that they to me they don’t really matter that much, right. What a certification does is it helps you study and it helps you learn the skill that you need to do X. So if you approach certifications in that way not just how do I quickly get the answers and figure out how to pass, but if you approach it and and say well I need to understand all these things to be able to do a job. That’s where certifications really help and so when you do that that takes time, it takes energy, it takes effort, it takes understanding how you learn, it takes like this whole kind of matrix of things. That you know we may have an opportunity to talk about today, if not you know maybe later. But um it it becomes a different environment because the things that you learn on a degree path are things that are required for you to get that degree. That may have absolutely nothing to do with your career later and may be things that you never look at again. But when you’re going down a certification path those things are relevant because at some point you’ll have to leverage some of those things in your career, right. So you kind of have to decide um which direction you want to go and I kind of veered this way because it’s a more you know production-based type of job. No one’s going to ask me to tell them what I learned about Marcus Aurelius in an interview right. [Laughter] When I was going to school, maybe I don’t know if there’s the who knows right but this is very rare. But someone will say okay so can you sign in to this you know particular router? Can you bring up a BGP neighborhood? Can you put some route filters on it? And can you enable route dampening? Because we need to do that, right. That’s a skill that you learn that you’re going to have to produce. So that’s why I say it becomes very different very very different.

Manuel: Yep and I agree with you because I have seen a lot of people that go through and get a certification and they’re like hey I have this cert I should be able to get this job. Well do you know it? Right. You start asking especially in an interview and I think that’s where people who are maybe newer to the industry or newer to certifications they get those and they expect you to know. I had a similar situation and I had a discussion with somebody else where coming out of college, right. I had I actually went and got an MIS degree right Management Information Systems and I was like cool I got a degree everybody’s just gonna be flocking towards me. And again it’s very skill-based they’re like cool you have this degree where’s your experience. What do you know how to do? And I’m like well I built my own computers, I’ve done basic stuff. And they’re like well thanks try again but again I started studying for the certifications like A+ and really understand. And say oh okay these are the types of things that I need to know this, is how this works you know together and pulling apart my own PC. Okay hey oh okay this is how this communicates. What happens if I do this? So that that curiosity. Now as you’re kind of going and studying for these certifications what are what’s kind of your process? To not only learn what you need for the exam but also pick up those skills? You know you mentioned GNS3 which is a simulator.

Allen: Right.

Manuel: Is that you know I know that you, sounds like they gave you the opportunity to learn in that data center. Is that how you picked up at least initially was it just all hands-on? Did you kind of build your own lab at home? Kind of how did you really get?

Allen: Yeah and I’ll try not to geek out too much about this right because I know some stuff that we like talked about because I’m really passionate about. Like you know not only learning and neuroscience but you know PKM tools right and this is something you know that I know we’ve kind of shared.

Manuel: PKM tools are?

Allen: Yeah so PKM tools are Personal Knowledge Management tools and you know there’s a bunch of them out there. There’s Roam Research, there’s Logseq, there’s Obsidian, there’s Tana, there’s RemNote. You know I use Roam Research, I know that you use Logseq. Different tools that do basically the same thing. You know not like an endorsement for anyone if we don’t get a kick back you know for anybody for mention of those. But people are were for a long time and a lot of people still are using legacy tools like an Evernote, like a OneNote, like a Google Notes (Keep). These tools that just aren’t really designed for linking different type of things together right. So so for me you know when I originally started I was kind of using some of those like legacy tools. To try to say okay well how do I how do I learn some of this information you know today. However if I’m picking up like new skills you know I’m using you know Roam Research and I’m taking my notes for some of these different things there. Because you know one I would say the most important thing is you have to have a repository of some kind to put your successes in, to put your failures in, why did I fail on this, what was it about this particular thing that I thought I knew that I didn’t know. You know just like and and not to use the term like life coach but you really sort of have to be your own kind of life coach. You think of a coach who manages a team he’s looking at players right to say okay you made this mistake over here if you had moved this way and done this it would have been different. If I’m studying through something and I don’t get it I’m writing that down, because I journal every day. So I’ll journal here’s what happened today, here’s what I did, I ran into this problem, I thought I had the answer. Why didn’t I have the answer? Was it over confidence? Was it something that I just didn’t understand? Okay I didn’t understand this piece. What skills do I need to understand that? So then I’ll make some notes and I’ll go and I’ll learn those type of things. I’ll put them in you know like my Roam Research kind of database then I’ll go back and I’ll say okay do I understand this concept because it’s not enough just to know how to do something you have to know how it works. You can get commands from anywhere to plug in to bring up a router. I mean you can use Terraform and Ansible to automate and build things but what do you do when it breaks right. So you always have to ask yourself when you’re learning something. Okay I know how to do this but do I know how it works? And then once you learn that skill that one small you know tactical unit then you need to go do it. So I’ve learned how to do this I understand it now I can spin up a free AWS lab for free right. They’ll give you credits to do that you can do the same thing with Azure, GNS3 is for network simulation there’s EVE-NG which is another you know type of network simulator that you can use. So you have to build like an environment where you can go through these things and run through your own simulations so that that way when you go to the real world you’re not scared and you’re not worried. Like even to this day if I have to do a network change or have to build something I model the whole thing in EVE-NG first make sure I understand it test it. Like I have a mini version and you know in the simulated software of what I do at work so that I can say. Okay what happens if this thing goes down? What happens if this breaks? Right, and then when I learn those information those new things I put those you know into Roam Research as a lesson learned. So that that way the next time I get ready to go into a project I can say okay what are all the lessons learned that I have about Juniper switches that are MX devices for the last change controls that I did to make sure that I’m not forgetting that information. Because if you go through a situation where you fail you figure out how to do it and you recover from that but you haven’t documented that anywhere then you’re doing yourself a disservice. So you have to have some sort of mechanism to be able to document what you’re doing. Document what you’re good at, document where you’re failing, improve where you’re failing and then make sure you’re getting better over time. Because we think you know, and then I’ll you know kind of jump off my soapbox kind of sit down but you know I mean. We think sometimes that we are doing better than we are we think that we are learning continuously sometimes better than we are but when you’re journaling every day and you’re documenting here’s what I’m doing you have a log. That says you know what I was supposed to study three days last week I did not and why did I not study three days last week okay well some people came over and we had dinner and we did some things. Okay, how do I make sure that, that doesn’t happen how do I make sure that I say wait a minute I still need to make sure that I’m studying every day to continue to get better right. So when you journal and you log and you keep track of what you’re doing it gives you that ability to keep getting better over time. Because you know one of my like you know I would say one of my heroes that I’ve never met right is this guy named Vladimir Horowitz. And he’s, I mean if you, if you forget anything I say like check out this dude Vladimir Horowitz is awesome. He was like probably one of the greatest pianists whoever lived I would say just based on you know what I’ve seen and some of the stuff that I’ve read. But he had this quote and his quote was like “If I don’t practice for a day I know it, if I don’t practice for two days my wife knows it, if I don’t practice for three days my audience knows it.” So you have to be when it comes to tech you have to be studying every day you have to be reviewing every day with space repetition, we can talk about that later. And then you have to be labing and you have to do those type of things maybe for 30 minutes, 40 minutes every single day because if you miss one day, then you miss two days, you miss three days, then you have dread when you get ready to go back to work on Monday. Oh man I don’t want to go back because you haven’t touched it but if you’re touching it a little every day and tech becomes a part of who you are then it’s so much easier to move forward and learn new things but you have to do it every day.

Manuel: Right and

Allen: Then I’ll stop sorry.

Manuel: No no no and that’s good um because you’re bringing up some I think some really good information and good topics. Now do you, do you feel that kind of journaling and writing a lot of this stuff down also helps with memory retention? Because I know that I’m not as consistent. I’ve gotten much better now but I was never consistent and I noticed took me a while that when I would document you know hey the process. Hey this is what I’m doing/ I was able to remember it a lot better, I had it documented so I could then pass it on to somebody else. Oh hey, I need to do this. I can go through and teach you or hey here’s this document. So that I could move on and that was one of the ways that I always was able to kind of move on to my next role is because I documented everything I did. How I set it up, why I set it up, and all that’s there but it also built an overconfidence in me. That oh I know this because again I would write it down so when I wouldn’t write it down I would always struggle to remember. Like how did I do this? And I would try and again you know find that journal, find some method to look for it, now I’m Googling you know. I’m basically I’m starting that cycle all over again. I know I did this once, I don’t remember let me go through. Do you feel that that’s part of the process of learning is it just again writing it down and is that helping you for memory retention?

Allen: Yeah you know so and we can talk like a little bit about you know like memory and kind of how things work but to an extent yes. So when I’m journaling like you know it’s maybe it’s 7 a.m. in the morning or it’s 8 a.m. and I’m like making a new entry. Okay I’m working on this project for a while right and I’ll kind of make some notes on it and then when I finish with that maybe it’s 9 o’clock. And I’m like okay I’m gonna start on this kind of helps me like look at my day and see how efficient was I right. I mean if there’s blocks of time where I where I was wasn’t really as productive as I would like to be I do a recap at the end of the day. And it’s like how did this day go? What are the things that went well? What are the things that didn’t go well? What are the things we want to try to improve tomorrow? So it definitely helps you you know when it comes to memory, but the other thing that I think is super helpful when it comes to memory is there was this you know German psychologist. You know he’s Dr. Herman Ebbinghaus and he did this experiment in a silo. Which you typically never do right. If I do an experiment in the silo people kind of question it. But he released his findings and then over decades other scientists and other researchers have been able to come back and confirm the results. Which is he wanted to find out how we remember, but how we forget and what he found out was that. You know typically if you study something let’s say you know in the first day for several hours you’re going to retain a lot more of that information right after. Several hours goes by there’s a declination where you start to forget. After several days goes by there’s another stark declination and then it gets to the point where you can only remember a small percentage of the things that you originally studied. But what he was able to track is that if you do something on the first day and then instead of not reviewing it for several hours and you review it there’s a curve where then you kind of start to slowly forget a little bit less. But then you review it before you start to forget and then you start to forget a little bit less and then you review it what ends up happening is you continue to review those things until they transition to your long-term memory. So now these things that are important to you that you want to remember you don’t forget. And there’s like you know free software like Anki that does it the original software was like SuperMemo. Where you input in these things and kind of like a flash card style hey you know X plus Y is whatever or whatever you’re trying to remember. And the software prompts you based on the research that was done by Dr. Ebbinghaus on when you should review it. So you look at the app and it says okay it’s time for you to review this piece of information. So what you can do are those core pieces of information those things that you are like I need to remember this you break down into small units you load them into Anki or SuperMemo. You know again I think I think on iOS there might be a cost for it, on Android it’s free I mean the PC app is free the Mac app is free, but you know there’s other pieces of software that use the same space repetition algorithm. You put the information in there and you let the software tell you when to review. So this is important to you it’s something that you need to remember you use modern science to do it. Like when people say well you know you learned Japanese on your own like how did you do some of those things? Well not because I’m super smart but because I looked at what other people did, other people took the most commonly spoken words they put those words in Anki along with grammar and sentence patterns and they just continue to review those things and then once it transitions to your long-term memory then you don’t forget that piece of information right. So just like you said if you’re constantly interacting with it every day you’re constantly looking at it then it helps you to remember it but it doesn’t help it transition to your long-term memory. Which is the reason why if I asked you what the last password was that you had to use at your job you may or may not remember you remember it because you’re doing it every day but after 45 days, after 90 days that information never made it to your long-term memory. It’s really only in short-term because you were doing it every day right so you just have to come up with a strategy for the information that’s important that you’re like hey this is important I need to know this. Let’s use some space repetition to do that some of the other things that are big that are broad that you just need to remember. Okay I fixed this, I was pretty sure I did it this way, it was related to this device. Then you can kind of you know use your back end system or that’s Logseq or Roam or whatever to be able to find it so it’s just like a balance kind of between the two. What do I need to know for my job every day that I can’t forget and then what are the things that I need to have a pretty good understanding of how I resolved it or how the big concept works that I can go find.

Manuel: Okay nice so then you’re picking up these skills and this is obviously the way that you’re going through and you’re learning all this. Now in that data center role and I know you quickly at the beginning kind of showed us your kind of path and.

Allen: All over the place.

Manuel: No and that’s good right so you gave us a quick highlight. So now in that data center role how how long were you there? And before you kind of transitioned off into that next one and what was the process that you came through to say it’s time to move on to the next role?

Allen: So when I first kind of went to the data center there were just a lot of different things that I had no idea what they were. We were mounting like reel-to-reel tapes and they had like AS/400s and they had like you know main frames and then they had all these computers and I’m like oh man I’m never really going to learn you know like like all of this stuff right. And so when I was first coming in what I ended up doing and you know it’s not something that it’s not something that you may be able to do every single place right, but I’ll kind of share it anyway. We were in an operations environment in an operation environment things break and then you have to fix things. People submit tickets and then you have to work through a ticket you have to figure things out. So the first thing that I did is I said okay can I have access to your ticketing system which was Remedy. And they’re like oh yeah sure. And what I would do is I would just go through and I would look at how many trouble tickets were closed last month they closed like 400 trouble tickets last month right. And hopefully they never see this video. But um what I did is at night right um I would print up a hundred trouble tickets and I would read through the trouble tickets to see how they were fixed because I didn’t really understand all the different pieces of equipment but I knew that we were in this environment where things break we had to fix it. So then I was able to say okay well this is how you fix this type of issue here’s a technology involved and I would just go research those different pieces of technology that were involved. And so then I started to get much more comfortable because if last month we had a hundred trouble tickets that came in and out of that hundred trouble tickets you know let’s say 70 of them were about this issue and I would focus on really learning those those 70 things. Like what are all the different pieces of technology? What do they do? How do they operate? And I would write it down. This piece of technology is here, they fix this, what does this do, where is this, who is the person that fix this. And if I saw somebody who was really good at what they what they do. The one advice I would give anybody is you know just like we’re talking right you know sometimes people like talking about you know themselves and what they’re comfortable with. I would go to that person and be like hey you fix these issues very very efficiently I’ve been studying through your notes what type of feedback can you give me. Meaning how do you do that? Like what’s your thought process? How do you approach that? And they would say well I learned that because I read this manual or I learned that because I took this course. And so I would try to like reverse engineer how people were fixing things. And then the second thing I would do is I would talk to my boss and I would say who are the top performers like who are the people not just in this data center but in the other data centers nationally who you think are just like awesome who you wish you could clone. And he gave me a list and guess what I did? I went I found those people’s IDs in Remedy and I looked them up and I started studying how these people who were really good who were better than me. Because I didn’t understand anything how are they fixing issues because you had to document what you did. What were they doing? I would ask some people I’d email them, some people didn’t you know like I don’t really have time for that, other people would be like sure I want to help you. You know so when you’re approaching something you know kind of that you don’t know at least in an operational environment that’s how I did it finding out who the people that were really good at it looking at what their thought process was. Because the idea for me was this concept of scaffolding right. If you’re really good at something let’s say right and you know how to fix these things and this is the same process that I kind of approach today this. Is why I think journaling is so important what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to close the gap between how you think and how I think. So I’m looking at okay what would I have done in this situation? I would have done this, this, and this. What did you do in this situation? You did this, this, this, and this and this. Or maybe you didn’t do any of the steps that I took you did these two things and you fixed it. So I’m trying to figure out okay how do I close that gap right. How do I get to the mental state where I’m able to do the things that you do and the way you do that is you look at the process that they took and then when my knowledge stops here I’m like okay how did they fix these things. Oh they were aware of this piece and they were aware of this piece and this piece and then I’ll reach out to that person and I’ll ask them. Even now I’ll journal and I’ll be like okay I fixed this thing, I went through this, I did all of these steps. And then I’ll show JTAC when I talk to them or I can show Cisco TAC or I can show another Engineer and they say yeah dude you were right. This is right, this is right, this is right, oh you drew this wrong conclusion probably because you didn’t understand how the route maps worked if you understood this part and you fixed this everything else would be easier. So when you journal like that and you keep track of what you’re doing and you’re humble about it and say I want to get better. You can show your results to other people just like you think of a scientist. Scientist says I discovered you know planet Manny the first thing people are going to do is say show us your work and scientists that here’s my work other people look at it critique it yep that’s right oh you made a mistake here and then you get better. So that’s how you continue to iterate that I still do that to this day. I try to surround myself with people I think who know more than me share what I’m doing get feedback and move forward and I started that doing it in the data center.

Manuel: And is that something you were always comfortable asking questions? And did you ever get any pushback you know from people that you felt weren’t as willing to help? Because I know that that’s something that I’ve been pretty fortunate in my career like I’ve usually had somebody at least in the beginning I was paired with somebody that kind of was again willing to help and train. So some of it I did learn on my own at some point, but you know I had somebody there to kind of guide me through originally and they were able to make me feel very comfortable admitting or understanding that I don’t know something right. Because he was like hey you know do you know how to do X, Y, Z? I know how to do X, I’ve never Y, and Z. Z I’ve never even heard of Y I kind of know. Okay that’s fine. And they made me comfortable to say it’s okay to not know everything and it’s okay to ask questions. Is that something that you had always had the ability to do or did you kind of grow that skill? How did that come about?

Allen: Yeah so and that’s a great question because I mean originally it’s kind of hard because you’re worried about your job and you’re like well if I’m not qualified you know they’re going to get rid of me if I’m asked all these questions you know. But originally it kind of took me some time to just say okay well how am I going to get better right. You know there’s this idea called the zone of proximal development right. The zone of proximal development it’s kind of where you want to operate but within that it makes this point. That there are certain points that you can’t get beyond without some help. You kind of want to operate in an area that’s a little bit challenging or a little bit difficult so you have to struggle and you’re kind of learning and you’re getting better. But then you reach a point where without some sort of help, whether that’s YouTube, whether it’s somebody to talk to, whether it’s a book a manual or something. You just can’t get past as an individual right you have to figure out how to do it. And so you know if I were you know like telling anybody today I mean I would say adjust to that quicker than I did because it took me a little bit to really say okay well wait a minute and kind of deconstruct it and be humble enough to ask some of those questions. Because there’s this sometimes you work with people like you know like we talked about some people who are Engineers or who are you know Cloud people or who are whatever. They act like they’ve been doing it their whole life, they forget there was a day when they didn’t know it and they looked at it for the first time they didn’t understand it either. And so sometimes you don’t get help from certain people. Sometimes I would reach out to people and you know I would ask them and they wouldn’t want to respond right. And I would say but for every couple of people who didn’t want to respond there was always somebody who did right. So you just have to if you want to get better you just have to keep asking you have to keep trying you have to keep doing you know research on it seeing what you can figure out. The other thing that I would say too is that even like in our field and there’s been research either way right. I mean you know the Dunning and Kruger effect is just something that everybody’s heard of I mean it’s been around for a while. Some of the researchers I don’t really know if it works but it’s it’s been accepted for a long time which is sometimes people who work in a field for a long period of time aren’t really aware of the things that they don’t know and you assume sometimes that you are better than you really are. I’ve been doing this for 20 years. Well just because you’ve been an Engineer for 20 years doesn’t mean that you’re a great Engineer because if you stopped learning five years after you got the job you’ve just been coasting on your Juniper, your Cisco knowledge or whatever for the past 15 years right. So people sometimes draw this conclusion that we’re better than what we are based on the amount of time that we’re doing it right and so you really have to get past that. Like just I’ll share like a personal story just like a couple I want to say like a month ago I reached out to Mauricio Wecker you know great guy. Actually met him at AWS re:Invent a couple years ago he is one of the lead engineers for Riot Direct. And Riot Direct from like a networking standpoint you know on the planet they’ve built like this kind of amazing architecture that you know even AWS leverages in certain areas because of you know their resiliency. And so you know I met him he’s like hey let’s stay in touch and I pinged him on you know LinkedIn and we chat. And I said hey just want to reach out what do you think are qualities that a great Network Engineer should have? I’ve been doing Network Engineering for a while I like to think you know I’m pretty good at it but his network and what he’s doing is on a totally different level. And so we chat a little bit and he gauged my experience answering his questions. Like okay he’s like well you know for you I would look at this. Let’s look at some stuff on segment routing, let’s look at some stuff over here, you know these are some things that I think will just continue to help you grow and continue to help you round out your knowledge right. So if you’re not humble to be able to want to improve if you think you know everything then when it comes to getting feedback you don’t want it and you’re certainly not going to go get it. But I try to make it a habit to reach out to people who I’ve met on LinkedIn people who are really good at what they do. What type of advice can you give me? Like what do you do to be successful? So I think that’s a trait that you just need to continue to have throughout your entire career but you need to be humble and you need to understand that just because you’ve been doing it for 10 years for 15 years doesn’t mean that you can’t learn from somebody else who’s been doing it for a shorter amount of time who might be doing it at a much bigger scale.

Manuel: Right that’s that’s amazing and that so you mentioned you wish you would have learned that earlier in your career. So like are we talking a couple years is that something that 10 years ago? What’s the that timeline of?

Allen: Yeah I would probably. I would probably say when I was first getting in like so I got the data center job I was kind of going through that. You know then I got like some of my first Network Engineering jobs and I think I was I think I was more worried about keeping the job and more worried about showing what I needed showing the knowledge that I had like this is why I’m here. And you know this is why I should be here instead of saying okay well how can I absorb the knowledge of all these people around me right. How can I ask more questions? How can I do some of those things? I think I would have scaffolded much better I think I would have figured out things much quicker if I had done that and so I think over the years it’s kind of gotten easier and sometimes people will look you know. I mean I like wow I mean you just asked like you know like 10 questions in this meeting about some stuff. And I’m like yeah did you know the answers to any of those questions? No, but I didn’t want to appear like I didn’t know. And I’m like that doesn’t matter right. Do you think I really care if I’m sitting in a meeting and you think I care if other people think that I asked a bunch of questions if I end up getting the knowledge that I need to know to be able to grow and move forward great, right. I’ll be the last person at an AWS session asking questions and I’ll be the first person there right because I want to continue to learn. It’s like like you know that movie Dragonheart like way back in the day Dragonheart?

Manuel: Sounds familiar I’m trying to remember what.

Allen: Yeah it’s the one like with Sean Connery kind of voice the Dragon and have like what Randy Quaid and I think. And so not to like kind of deviate but in like Dragonheart there’s this whole scene where you’ve got the one guy who I think he was related to the king and you know Quaid was training him to be a great swordsman and he was training him how to have honor. Well at the end what ends up happening is he ends up becoming like an evil king and he’s like wait I didn’t teach you these things right. That’s what you know Quaid’s character says he’s like he’s like I would have told you anything to get the get the knowledge that you had. See he was concerned about getting better and I’m not saying you know become like evil and ruthless. But what I am saying is that sometimes some people will be condescending and they will give you information and you have to put them being condescending out of your mind and get the information from them to learn. Some people you might not want to talk to they might be irritated they might be hard to deal with and you go and you ask them a question and they may answer it and they might be a little condescending to you but you have to focus at the end of the day I’m getting the knowledge that I need to get better. So if you can focus on that that this is about continuing to get better each and every day and growing your skills you’ll surpass people like that. But if you’re worried about how you look. If you’re worried about asking questions. If you’re worried about you know man I people should probably you can’t get better without admitting the things that you don’t know and the only way you find out the things that you don’t know are by study and research and then getting the answer to those things to be able to move forward. And those are the things I wish I would have learned a lot earlier. I think I I don’t think that I was necessarily arrogant but I think I was like overly shy and I was afraid to ask those type of questions. I was afraid to have people peer review some of my work yeah my configuration worked and it got the job done but was it optimal could it have been done better right. Could I have saved time in doing it right so those are the things that you’re after and I think I’d be in a much I think I probably know a lot more about everything right if I had done that earlier on in my career.

Manuel: Okay interesting so then as you’re kind of going developing the skills you’re becoming a really good. You know eventually sounds like you got out of the data center and moved into a Networking more of a Networking Engineer role. And what made you kind of go you mentioned at one point going to be a Director. So kind of again it sounds like same thing with when you went to teaching right like you’re at a at a crossroads. So what made you go Director level as opposed to kind of staying in the Engineer?

Allen: Yeah so this is like a funny story. Wow, I did not know you’re gonna ask that but this is good this is good. So here’s what ends up happening um I’m a Network Engineer for the hospital system right. You know so I worked for you know HCA hospital system for years and you know I was a Network Engineer kind of did some stuff you know Senior Tech you’ve done a lot of different things. And one of the things that was always important it was I wanted to understand the interview process like to get to this level what are the type of skills that they look for and for a long time. Even as a Network Engineer I would still interview like I would look at you know different places and I would say okay I’m going to interview at you know the Cosmo or something to be a Senior Network Engineer. Don’t know if I even have the qualifications to do it but if I get an interview what are they looking for right. What are the type of things that type of questions that they’re asking right. You know to be able to like you know grow your skills. And and I could do that now more easily with things like you know LinkedIn. I can look at a Senior Network Engineer job for Netflix and I can kind of look at the qualifications but a lot of those things weren’t published like once upon a time right. So I wanted to understand what it was like to be a Director like what are the type of things that they were looking for. So they would have a book club where they’d go through like The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There and I would join those just to kind of understand what the mentality was like. And so when the interview process came along you know my you know Director at the time he said you should you know interview for it he’s like just to understand you know what the process is. So I go through and I understand what the process is I’ve done some research on some of these different things and felt like I understood it but I wanted to see so I go through the interview process and they’re asking me questions about teams and dynamics. And how you would handle things? And what you would do and what how you transition from like a Technical role into a Director role? Because it’s different right you have to drop your technical skill you now have to focus on teams and you know inner dynamics and so I did all those things and ended up making it to like the final round of interviews never ever thinking that I would be offered the job because I was up against some other people who had been Directors for a while. Um and then I get a call on a Thursday that says hey Allen um you’re going to be our new Director and I was like excuse me. [Laughter] I was you know I was you know I didn’t really think I was necessarily qualified for this I was interviewing I wanted to go through the process and kind of understand. And and the Director talks to me he’s like no he’s like you understand what we’re trying to do he’s like you understand the importance of bridging the gap between tech and between being a Director and you’ll understand how to interface with the CMO at the hospital and you help us do all these things. And I wasn’t thinking of myself as being a Director I was thinking of myself as someone who I want to go through this process I want to show I want to move forward I want to understand I want to learn more but I ended up getting the job and so I accepted it. And I did the job for a while I mean I enjoyed it I learned you know a lot about a lot of different things and health care and how they all work but one of the other things that I learned too is that. It’s to say that you work in health care when you work at a division office as a Network Engineer I don’t want to say that’s disingenuous but it’s not the same when you are a Director in a hospital and you’re going on rounds every day and you’re seeing cancer patients every day and you’re hearing conversations about well these rooms were probably clear out because we think they’re going to pass away and you’re seeing all the reasons why you don’t want to go to the hospital. That’s when you really realize that you’re working in health care and so once I got to that level and I was in the hospital every day and I was doing these things I developed like a much greater appreciation for clinicians. You know and doctors and nurses and these people who have to somehow figure out how to compartmentalize all these challenging things that they see every day and then go home to their families and not cry. And there were days I would leave work and I would cry in my car on behind some of the stuff that I saw because every day I would go on these rounds. And so I decided you know what while I like kind of this like Director aspect and some of these things I’ve learned you know quite a bit. My heart is still in Network Engineering that’s still something that I want to do. I want to get back in a Network Engineering maybe at some point I mean I might kind of look at the Director side of things. But it really helped me understand what it was like at this level and the interaction to take place at that level but then it also helped me to say okay well I would much rather be back you know kind of in technology. Working on some of those things learning a bunch of new things because you know. And this is just between you know me, you, and everybody watching the podcast. But you know I think if the longevity that you have as a Director sometimes in any technical field right if there’s a layoff can you get four more Director jobs on your way home. But if you’re an Engineer, Cloud Architect, how many jobs can you get if the economy changes right. So there were a lot of different factors once you know I kind of got over the sadness of you know going through some of those things every day. It’s like okay well let’s look at this what do you want to do. Well here’s why kind of make pros and cons list want to get back into tech why well because of learning and doing some of these things and you know what happens if the economy shifts so you kind of refactor all those things into it so that’s kind of how I ended up there. I was never really planning on it but when I had the opportunity I took it and then when things changed I’m like okay. You know what let’s make a change it’s you know I was a little bit concerned but I’m like hey you pivoted once years ago you were going to be a teacher, you pivoted to tech right. You pivoted to a Director you have to be willing to pivot we’re going to pivot we’re going to go back in Engineering right.

Manuel: That’s cool and as kind of that process of being at the Director right. So you kind of got a I might call it a peak behind the curtain yeah. When you went back into Engineering did do you think that that helped or hindered you moving forward? Knowing what it’s like that level above. Because I did at one point similar to you I went and I had that that crossroads where I decided to become a manager I did that for a while and again my heart was in tech. While I was managing a small team it was also still a lot of very hands on. But then at some point they’re starting to grow you know I’ve been in the role for a little bit they’re like hey we need you to be less hands on more management and at some point now that I was a manager they’re like hey kind of the next level up is go Director level. And I decided you know that’s not for me but it gave me an appreciation and I think for me moving forward it was. I had a different understanding of what a manager is you know and what a good manager is. Do you think that that helped or hindered you? Because I know some people that have done that and they’re like oh now I you know I’ve seen the politics I hate it. You know it hinders them in the fact that they kind of like I know what that’s like and other people. Where I feel it helped me I know what my manager goes through. I know what my director now goes through because I got that peak behind the curtain and I think it helps me become a better employee for them.

Allen: You know I think it’s a little bit of both because on the one hand you understand the struggle a lot more. You understand you’re dealing with things like you know budgets you’re dealing with things like raises. I’ve got a certain percentage and I have to figure out how to give that percentage across the board right. How am I fair? How am I equitable about that? You understand the challenges of writing people up and you have people’s you know who have families and livelihoods. But you have people above you who are expecting things from you. So I think on the one hand it does help you kind of understand but also you know goes on like I said behind the curtain. But I think the flip side of that is that you also understand what goes on behind the curtain and so when people come to you and they try to tell you well we can’t do this because of this. You know that’s not the case when people try to say well I really wish we could you know pivot this way and do this. You can say you know, you don’t look you don’t tell them you know it’s not the case but you can give them the look and mentally you’re saying you and I both know that’s not how that operates right. When you tell me that you can’t do this but you’d really like to you and I both know that’s not really how that is you and I both know that you came to this meeting today with a predetermined agenda on what we were going to do and this is just an exercise to make us feel like we’re part of the process when we’re really not right. Because we’re using the same verbiage that you know I was trained to use when we all read Five Dysfunctions of a Team and you’re quoting it directly right. You know so I think I think it helps because you can really see the people who are trying to be good Directors trying to be good Managers we’re you know trying to move forward but then I think on the other hand you can you know see people who are telling you things not necessarily understanding that you were in that role. And it’s funny you mentioned that because I was I was meeting with somebody and I won’t say who and I won’t say where right. And we’re talking about something um and they make a comment and then I say something back um and they say well how do you know that. I said well I used to be you know a Director for years oh oh okay well you you know the reason why I really said that was because of you know. First it was well where at well at the hospital worked over here. Oh okay well I said that because of this I mean I’m sure you understand it’s like okay well I do you know but your original statement to me was based under the auspices that I didn’t know because I had never operated at that level right. So I think it’s kind of a 50-50 situation but you know I think you know at the end of the day that’s one of the things that I really like about Network Engineering and Cloud Architecture and some of those areas. Is I have this sphere where I am 100% accountable for what I do and I have this area where I could build operate you know be innovative in this box right and my success in this area is not really dependent on anybody else. When you’re a Director you have people on your team maybe who aren’t performing you have to get those people performing and if you’re having a hard time getting them performing or performance managing them out of the business. They’ll get somebody else to get rid of you right. I mean so there’s just a whole other level of dynamic where you have multiple vectors of control that kind of comes at you the higher you go right. You know but if you but if you’re in the operations-isk type area I think it makes it easier to operate and I think you see that and I think we probably saw that more once you go to that side of the fence for a while and then you look and then you come back. And I would always encourage anybody you know your careers is your career never wish that you would have done X. Man I wished I would have gone over I might have really liked it try it. The worst thing that happens is it doesn’t work out you don’t like it and you can move back if you are still alive and you have a good heartbeat you can change it right. You’re never locked into anything that you want to do, try different things out find something that you’re passionate about that you love. I mean I love what I do every day I get to play with cool stuff have an awesome environment you know you have to deal with the drama of people but that’s everywhere. But you really need to have something that you like doing that you will research you know when you’re not at work where you experience time dilation where you’re like wow I was researching this thing and wow it’s been three hours right. That’s what you need to feel for whatever career you decide and if you’re not feeling that then pivot and find something until you do.

Manuel: That’s great advice I mean and I think someone that’s getting into tech or even that somebody that’s already in there right there’s so many areas like you’re in networking it turns out you really dislike networking guess what there’s so many other different roles type careers there could be something else that you know that maybe you have more of an interest in. Because I know I did that I mean at one point I thought I wanted to be a network guy. Like I just saw the network guys kind of walking around going to closets and like I want to learn networking. I quickly learned that that’s not for me, like I just I did not enjoy it. I enjoyed learning about it you know. Can I configure a router for you? No, but I think that process helped me understand gave me a good baseline so that when I talk to a Network Engineer or we know when we’re designing something to collaborate and say hey this is what I’m trying to do with my servers this is what I’m setting up can you kind of help me um and ask those questions like hey how would we set up you know the the VLAN you know structure for this. Things of that nature it helped me understand it helped me get an appreciation for that but it also made me understand I don’t like networking.

Allen: Yeah exactly right.

Manuel: I just I have no interest, it’s interesting to me but I wouldn’t want to do that full time.

Allen: So no you’re right man I mean and you really have to it’s such a great way you have to find you know kind of the things you know that that you’re interested in right. I mean so like we grew up like in the skater era and you know Tony Hawk like one of the greatest skaters alive but like one of my favorite skaters was this guy named Chaz Ortiz. He was awesome right and Chaz Ortiz had this great quote he’s like “If you don’t want it why are you even trying” right if you if you don’t like what you’re doing you’ll never be good at it right and you want to be good at it not only for yourself but to have self-fulfilling but to move forward. So if you’re not you know if you’re not digging in if you’re not interested in that thing you know move on to something else I always tell people your your stress should be the people you work with right. The drama that you have to deal with should be in the people because people are a dynamic that have will never be solved but if you don’t like what you’re doing if when the drama of the people goes away and you’ve got that work whatever that work is and you look at it and you’re like I don’t want to do this then there’s a problem right because there’s so many other things in tech that you can be doing that you will actually like.

Manuel: Yeah and I think that’s I’m glad you said that because I know a lot of people try to go into tech and they see well hey I can make a lot of money you know in tech. Hey that’s where the money’s at. Hey you know I I can have a successful career. That is the case but I think you touched on it is the people that usually do are the people that are constantly learning that are doing that. It’s just not hey I passed this certification I got in I should be making six, seven figures like no that’s not how this works.

Allen: No.

Manuel: Right, it’s very much you have to put in the time, you have to start because. I mean you mentioned it where you got started I mean I’m sure when you came in they weren’t like Allen we’ll take a chance on you and here’s a six figure salary for you to figure out how to install a printer.

Allen: No, yeah not uh I was like the lowest paid guy um and he kind of let me know he’s like hey he’s like I’m gonna bring you on he’s like but you know it’s all based on percentages and I ended up getting raises and moving up but yeah. I mean you have to it’s like training camp right or being a starter for you know any team anywhere you have to continue to earn that job. When you’re in the in so government’s a little different right and that could be a whole show but you know on the enterprise world which is where most people will work in tech you know it’s it’s very competitive and you have to come to work every day with the mindset that. Well I’ll back up if you love what you do and you are staying up on things then you will be fine you will have a job if they make cutbacks or there’s some other ancillary things that’s okay and even if you lose that job if you did your best that’s all that matters because doing your best with that bar continues to move right your best continues to get much better. But you know you have to you have to keep in mind though like you mentioned that it’s it’s very competitive and if you’re not good at what you do if you’re not trying to improve they can bring somebody else in. They can get rid of you right so there’s no entitlement really to you know yeah I got this cert I should be doing X. It’s like how are you performing in the job are you continuing to learn new things are you continuing to move forward because everything that you and I study we didn’t create it it was written by other people which means anybody with the drive and the know-how and the determination can go home today spin up an EVE-NG lab today register for an AWS cloud account or an Azure cloud account today and start learning and look at the syllabus and build things for free. And if that person is more motivated than me and they bring that person in and there are layoffs they’re going to say who are we going to go with the person who’s been here for a while who hasn’t really done any new things or this other person who we’ve just brought in maybe they’re making a little bit less maybe they’re making the same but they have the drive to move forward. So that’s why if you’re learning every day like we talked about Vladimir Horowitz if you do a little every day you’ll get better every day but if you’re not doing that you’re going to stop and your knowledge is going to stop and you’re going to be good at what you do but it’s going to be hard for you to learn new things when you have to because it’s not in your process.

Manuel: Man this has been an amazing conversation that I’ve had with you and I’m very sad that you know we’re getting close to time but I definitely at some point would love to bring you back.

Allen: Oh thank you.

Manuel: In a couple months and continue the conversation and kind of even dig more into kind of what you have accomplished in your career you know some getting a little bit more detail about the different roles maybe some of your interviewing techniques things of that nature but I mean I’m very appreciative and I’m so happy that that you you know agreed to come on the show and

Allen: Oh no thank you it was mine when you asked me I was like you want me to come on there [Laughter] I’ll help you I hope you know hope you can edit it but no thanks for having me it’s just honor to be here yeah

Manuel: And and definitely I can see your your passion for teaching coming across right like just the way that you explain things so I mean you didn’t become a teacher but I know that you are definitely helping a lot of people who are watching or listening to this and you know throughout your career so thanks again.

Allen: No happy anybody wants to reach out I mean you know feel free to reach out I’m happy to share knowledge experience the only thing I ask is if you reach out to me you know you do the same right if somebody else put yourself in a situation where somebody can reach out to you and then everybody continues to learn I wouldn’t be where I am without people like you and you know other people who’ve helped me too so

Manuel: Got it yeah definitely I’ll put it like in the show notes and everything I’ll put all your contact information and yeah thanks again

Allen: hey no pleasure thank you

Manuel: All right pleasure take it easy.