From Project Manager to Tech Executive: Building a 20-Year Career Through Relationships & Change with Sheila Brewer-Richardson | Ep020

From Project Manager to Tech Executive: Building a 20-Year Career Through Relationships & Change with Sheila Brewer-Richardson, Senior Director of Software Engineering at Fidelity National Financial

In this compelling episode, Sheila Brewer-Richardson shares her inspiring 20+ year journey from project management to senior technology leadership. Her story illustrates how adaptability, continuous learning, and strong professional relationships can shape a successful career in tech.

Sheila leads the software engineering teams at Fidelity National Financial, where she oversees both onshore and offshore development groups for their home warranty and disclosure source divisions. Her career path includes roles at major companies like Pacific Bell, Wells Fargo, and Allegiant Airlines, where she consistently drove innovation and built high-performing teams.

During our conversation, Sheila opens up about:

• Her unconventional entry into technology through project management
• Transitioning between different company cultures – from utilities to airlines
• The challenges and rewards of building global teams
• Creating innovative employee development programs
• Balancing family life with career growth
• The importance of finding and being a mentor
• Her brief but insightful career detour as a cardiac monitor technician

Sheila’s leadership philosophy emphasizes open communication, continuous improvement, and the importance of helping others grow. Her journey demonstrates that success in technology comes not just from technical expertise, but from understanding people, processes, and having the courage to embrace new challenges.

Connect with Sheila:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheila-brewer-richardson-a7b6127/

About Career Downloads:
Career Downloads features in-depth conversations with technology professionals who share their career journeys, challenges, and lessons learned. Host Manuel Martinez explores their stories to help listeners navigate their own paths in the tech industry.

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#CareerDownloads #TechCareers #WomenInTech #SoftwareEngineering

Manuel: Welcome, everybody. My name is Manuel Martinez, and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to really learn more about their experiences, their backgrounds, and the way that they have managed their career over time with the ultimate goal to really be able to uncover any techniques, tips that they have encountered along the way that might be beneficial for you to go ahead and be able to implement yourself. So for today’s episode, I have with me Sheila Brewer Richardson, and her and I have worked together in the past for a little while, and she has kind of moved on. I followed her career over time and just seen the way that she has kind of managed her career and ascended over time. So I’m really excited to learn more about her career in general and the things that she’s done prior to us meeting and even afterwards. So with that, go ahead and plug in and download the knowledge. So hi, Sheila.

Sheila: Hi, Manny. Thanks for having me.

Manuel: Of course. I appreciate you coming on. So what I’ve been doing with everybody is just to kind of start, if you can just tell me what your current title or role is where you’re at now, and just a brief summary of kind of what your roles and responsibilities are.

Sheila: So currently I am the Senior Director of Software Engineering for Fidelity National Financial. We have an IT team. The teams I have are both onshore and offshore. QA Automation team, I have a QA onshore team Obviously, a lot of that had to do with, we didn’t start that way. We expanded so that we could have testing 24-7. We basically build. So Fidelity Financial, for those of people that don’t know, basically, huge company has a lot of subsidiaries. I support their home warranty sector, Fidelity National Home Warranty, and then also there’s Disclosure Source, which is National Hazard Disclosures based in California Disclosure. So if you have earthquakes, fires, floods, different things like that. So we provide reports when someone’s looking to buy homes, they want to see like, okay, what zone am I in? So that’s what the companies that we support, our IT department supports, and they have home warranty companies, they have products, and they like to update their products and coverages very often, so in our software, that’s what it does.

Manuel: And you’re in charge of the team that does, when you say the quality, it’s the quality of the reporting, like I’m assuming it’s a portal or something like that that all these other companies kind of connect to?

Sheila: So quality testing, so we got the dev team that builds the products, and then we have the QA team that basically goes in and tests to see if the products are built correctly, if the systems that integrate with our main base software, if whether or not, okay, I go in, I’m ordering a warranty, how do all those steps happen? Are they, am I getting the right warranty, am I getting the right coverage? Do I have multiple HVAC systems, or do I have multiple, could be washing dryers, different things like that when you go to ordering a warranty, so ensuring that the tests go through, and then there’s that part of it, and then there’s the authorization part, so there’s different areas of, I would say, different systems and different pieces of the process that you have to make sure each piece, now I’ve ordered the warranty, you’ve got your customer, you’ve got your service provider, who’s going to go out and service you, so each piece has to be able to work, and there’s several different systems that it touches, and so that requires a development team, it requires a QA team, requires your business teams, so you’ve got your internal, you’ve got your QA teams, there’s manual testing with everything, obviously you want to automate as much as you can, but when you have legacy systems, you’ve got to do some manual testing, so the onshore team is more focused on, they do a lot more manual testing, and then my offshore team is, they do mostly automation.

Manuel: Alright, and now we’re going to kind of step back a little bit, and if you could just kind of give me a little bit of background, again, whatever you feel like kind of giving us a summary of kind of where you grew up and what eventually got you interested into technology, like some people are different, some people maybe when they got into college, some people at a young age, you know, maybe not until after your first job, so just kind of…

Sheila: So I grew up in Palo Alto, California, born and raised, I’ve been there for 30 years before moving to Vegas, I played basketball, so played some basketball over at San Jose State, and at the time, I think my mom was working, she was working at Hewlett Packard, my dad was working for Varian, both really great companies, I wasn’t on a scholarship or anything, so I, you know, still worked, I actually have been working, I’ve worked since 14 years old, you know, I think my first job was, I did junior achievement for Hewlett Packard, started there, my mom, she comes from 10 girls, 10 sisters, two boys, and they all had, you know, I guess various or very different careers, you know, some of them were very hands-on, brick masons, you know, and others, analysts, business, you know, I have an aunt that worked for Toyota for many, many years, she was a cobalt programmer, so my mom was the first journeyman machinist in California, so yeah, just very different, we got schooled teachers, you know, a lot of different careers, and so I used to go to L.A. all the time, and I would visit my aunt in Los Angeles, and they, my aunt and uncle, and I got to go up to, you know, visit Toyota in Torrance, California, and I used to be like, wow, this is interesting, you know, and she was, you know, just all the programs and different things that she was doing, and I just thought it was really exciting, and so, you know, I think at that time, in my early 20s, I was still like in college, and, you know, still trying to figure things out, I initially thought I was going into criminal justice, that didn’t happen, and that was mainly because my brother, actually, he graduated in criminal justice, I was thinking, oh, I’ll just follow you know, but then, sort of on the fluke, I did, like administrative assistant work, you know, in the summers, sometimes, and gosh, I tried many different types of jobs, you know, just when you’re out, during summertime, when you’re out of school, you just, it’s like, oh, my, our household was like, no one’s sitting, you’re doing something, yeah, after a certain age, you were, you know, doing something, so I, I needed a job, and like like, my cousin’s friend, I think, she was like, hey, you know, why don’t you go and sign up here, or whatever, and it was like a computer consulting place, and she was just like, because her friend was working for Pacific Bell, and so I went and signed up, and I, you know, did the interview, they sent me over to Pacific Bell, I interviewed a bunch of folks, and I got the job, and it was a junior project manager, and I was thinking, you know it was kind of explaining to me, like, oh, it’s like a step above admin assistant, or whatever, and I knew I was, I’ve always been a multitasker, and yeah, that’s kind of how my first entrance into, I would say, IT happened was at Pacific Bell.

Manuel: That’s cool, so I mean.

Sheila: And I was 20, 22, 23?

Manuel: So I mean, it’s pretty interesting, so it’s similar, I’ve come, not me personally, but like aunts and uncles, like I had a big family, having that exposure, it’s probably a good thing, right, seeing that there’s so many different opportunities, you weren’t locked into, I’m gonna be this, or, you know, everybody in my family does this one thing that I’m gonna follow along, do you think that that had an influence in you kind of being open to trying new things later on?

Sheila: Yes, that definitely was, once I got there, and you know, at the time my mom’s, actually what happened was, her job was ending in Palo Alto, and they were moving to Santa Rosa, it was, yeah, and it was either move, or you know, and it was kind of like, so she ended up leaving HP at that point in time, because you know, my dad, his job was in Palo Alto, and so it was just like, it was better for her to leave, and so at that point in time it was like, oh, you’re on your own to pay for school, and things started changing, and so I was like, okay, I’ve gotta figure it out now, but I really liked, what happened was I really liked Pacific Bell alot and I ended up working for some really great people, you know, and meeting some people that ended up, I would say, being mentors for life, that I not only worked there with them, you know, once Pacific Bell ended up getting bought up by Southwest Bell I think at the time, and so I think that contracts, my career started more in consulting than like a full-time job, you know, in IT, and so obviously I loved it, and also I enjoyed the pay, and I think that made me dive into a bit more of like, you know, what IT was all about, because we ended up, after I left Pacific Bell.

Manuel: And while you’re at Pacific Bell, you said 20, so were you finishing college still at that time, or kind of what was?

Sheila: I was trying to finish college, I will say I did end up taking a break, because I was, you know, it turned into I was paying for it on my own, and things like that, so I did end up taking a break, which probably was a good thing that happened for me at the time, and I didn’t return till I came back to came to Vegas, but yeah.

Manuel: So then you’re working there at Pacific Bell, you’re making contacts, obviously during that summer, and did that job extend past that? Or was it just kind of a summer job?

Sheila: No, so it was like they were laying folks off, you know, and contractors, of course, you know, start there, gosh, I may have been off maybe a couple of weeks, if that, and someone, you know, obviously people that I worked with and got to know at Pacific Bell were now at another company, Wells Fargo, and so I ended up, they were like, we need you to come over here and do what you’ve been doing over at Pacific Bell, you know come be that person for us, and that’s how I ended up going to Wells Fargo, and at that point in time it was really like, I just told my consulting company, hey, I already have the job, so now it’s a pass through, they didn’t find me the job, so I was like, oh, this is great, I’m going to go over to Wells Fargo, so now I’m in the city, working at Wells Fargo, and I think here’s where I got into learning more about change management, you know, still doing project management work, but it was more, a little bit more, you know, change management focused, and so I started, I felt like at that point in time I really started to learn the different pieces that go along with software development life cycle, you know, like these are the important pieces, you know, and then understanding, you know, the systems and when things go wrong, you know, I had the opportunity, you know, I think to work on both the software development side as well as, you know, some of the operations side of the house, and we were rolling out to 1,500 branches, some new software, and then that was also learning about like, that was when, you know, there was no cloud, obviously, so you’re late at night, that’s a lot of long, long hours.

Manuel: Those people that were reaching out are those, some of those kind of those mentors that you had kind of reached out to, and it was just, I’m assuming just based on the work that they can, you know, just the good job that you’re doing, so you didn’t actually apply, they were just kind of like, hey, come on over. Now, as you’re kind of going through your understanding all these different parts of IT and technology, you seem like you’re very good at multitasking, you’re good at, and I’m going to speak from my experience, you’re good at communicating and talking with other people. Was it at that time, or is that just something that you had, you were just good at, or as you’re starting to work, you’re kind of developing that those communication skills, working with other people and kind of even being good at multitasking, that’s, it’s a lot to kind of understand what goes where, so how did that kind of…

Sheila: I think the multitasking part has just always been easy. I think maybe I got that just from family. That part of it, the communication piece, I still, you know, I feel like that came from watching other people, mentors and things like that, but I also feel like that’s a skill that I continue to, you know, work on, because I know that I’m more of, I can definitely dive into, you know, let’s get everything ready so we can all make sure that everything looks good, you know, and then I’ll, you know, I had the opportunity to definitely help and prepare, you know, my leadership for, you know, if they had to go and present something, here’s the data, right, you know, here’s what we need to, you know, to show, you know, so, you know, so that’s, I think that’s where some of that comes from is just over time watching, you know, and seeing how, from an ops perspective, you know, the things that are important versus what’s important from a development perspective, you know, and then also seeing how, you know, dev, you know, and ops, I mean, obviously it’s more f a together thing now, but before it was almost like, I would say, development and operations and, you know, sometimes they butt heads, right.

Manuel: Yeah.

Sheila: So, just over time, just, you know, okay, how can we better, you know, if a system went down or things like that, what could we have done to avoid that situation, you know, what pieces, you know, what do we miss in the process or, you know, where do we miss it? Was it in dev, was it in QA you know how do you go back and understand that, you know, what went wrong?

Manuel: As part of that, I mean, I didn’t think about it until now when you kind of mentioned like the butting heads, but are you also having to do kind of like, I don’t want to say mediation, but like negotiation between these different teams, because again, if there’s a head butting, at some point, not that one person’s going to win over the other, but how do you find that compromise, and is that something that as a project manager you’re involved in or is it kind of more…

Sheila: When I was doing project, more project management, I would say that does not leave you, I would say, you know, even though that’s where I started my career, that’s not something you forget, you know, so I think you, you know, nowadays there’s more like you have, you know you’re sprint planning, you’re sprint planning, there’s a retrospective, you get to talk about those things a lot more, I think back then there was something you just said, hey, and you know, to your leadership, this happened, you know, I think here’s what I’m seeing is an issue or whatever, and then you let leadership kind of address, you know, with those teams, okay, here’s a problem, you know, or, you know, where can I help, you know if someone’s struggling, right, you know, and you kind of see, okay, here’s where, you know, if you’re looking from a change management perspective, and that’s one thing, I’m, again, but I go back to change management, you can see a lot when you look at changes that come through, you know, from every perspective, from a security perspective, from, you know, dev, from, you know, development perspective, from operations, you know, okay, all these changes went in, where did we fail? When did this, you know, what time did it start what time did it end, what time did the, you know, did we maybe figure out there was a problem or did what time did the customer tell us, okay, here was the problem?

Manuel: Those kind of those lessons learned, or is that something that you have to kind of document on your own? Because again, or is that something you just, you’re more of a information gatherer? So like you mentioned, like, hey, this is what we’re learning, is it just your own experience and your understanding, like, okay, I remember this, you know, just have a good, some people just can remember, and some people, like myself, if I don’t document it, I might forget and just I don’t have that reference.

Sheila: It definitely needs to be documented. When you run into those issues, right, you know, I mean, obviously, I’ve had the opportunity to work with the support teams. I’ve had the opportunity to help build support teams of, you know, onshore and offshore. I built the one actually here, for Fidelity, for home warranty, and for disclosure source. So ensuring that they understand, okay, and actually QA and support work really well together. Because obviously QA is the one that’s in there testing, you know, they’re coming up with here are the steps to replicate. And once you hand that over to a support team, they should be able to do the same thing when they hear from a customer, okay, you know, did you check this, you know what steps did you take, you know, oh, you know, and then that way you have a true tier one team, you know, because they actually understand, okay, this is when you do training, it’s great before you deploy to production to involve a support team, because they get the full training the same as your customers, you know, so you’ll know exactly what your internal customers, how they use the system, and then you also learn how your external customers use the system. And so it makes it much easier when it comes to troubleshooting.

Manuel: Right, and then be able to kind of address those different issues that come up because it makes sense. Like if it’s that internal customer, I go through and I’m expecting it to be one way and it’s not, and the customers experience the same thing, then it’s probably easy to go back and say, hey, I know you built it this way, you meant it to work this way, but it just our experience is that’s not the case.

Sheila: Right, right. And your knowledge base can get huge, you know, and so, you know, nowadays, obviously you have your ServiceNOW, right, can build a knowledge base is huge. We still also use Jira and Confluence. So, you know, Confluence, you build a huge knowledge base, you know, and in that way, when something comes up, first thing you do is, you know, check, you know, check your knowledge bases, you know, from a management perspective, that’s the first thing I say, where did we check Jira, because I, you know, did we check Confluence, did you go check, you know, service now, or like you said, it’ll be something, I’m like, we did this before, this happened before, I know it you know, we’ve gone over this.

Manuel: It’s somewhere.

Sheila: Yeah, so this shouldn’t happen again, right, you know, so I think, you know, it is important.

Manuel: So now you’ve spent that time there at Wells Fargo and how, you know, were you there for quite a while and is it something that you kind of, within there, did you start to move up? It was a couple years at Wells Fargo and then I stayed with them and I went to Sacramento to their data center and I actually worked on Y2K. Yeah, it was Y2K at that time, because, you know, at that time it was like, oh everything’s gonna blow up or, you know, everything’s gonna, you know, and it was fine, nothing happened yet, but I worked on, you know, on that for a while and then after Wells Fargo, I think at that point in time, I was, ended up leaving and going to North Point, yeah, North Point Communications and they were a, more of a local exchange carrier and during that time, I don’t know if you remember, that was when, you know, at one point in time when you had cell phones, you couldn’t if you changed carriers, your number was gone, right?

Manuel: Yep.

Sheila: You know, but in this case, you could take your number, start, you came to a point where you could start carrying your number over, but yeah, and but they ended up folding, but that was a startup.

Manuel: And the decision to move over there, was it just for a growth opportunity? Was it, you know, you’ve kind of hit a ceiling, you know, just what was, what was the decision, you know, because there was like, you know, even myself, I can say, oh, I went from here to here. But there’s always a reason, was it, you know, opportunity for growth? Was it just.

Sheila: Opportunity for growth. And again, I’ve networked, I definitely have, you know, over the years, I’ve met some great people, I’ve worked with some really great people that have given me opportunity to learn, you know, some of it is, you know, I was, you know, scary at times or whatever, but they felt like, nope, you can do this, you know, and, and so yeah, it was somebody reached out and it was like, hey, I got, you know, at the startup, you know, you think you’d be interested and it was full time and I had been doing contract work, you know, for a while, and you know, I think at the time I was, you know, getting ready to settle down, have a family and different things like that. So it just made sense.

Manuel: To kind of have that stability and say, hey, this is what I’m going to be a little bit more permanent. And at this point, you know, you’re building your, your network and your, all these different relationships and saying, hey, people are seeing not just your worth ethic, but they’re also seeing that, hey, you do a good job, they’re, they have a good relationship with you, right? So obviously they can get along with you. But at some point, they’re also like, hey, she can do the work. Did at least early on in your career, did you have kind of self doubt and, you know, having that, that encouragement from others, do you think that that played a part of it? Or at the same time, did you feel that you could do it on your own? You’re like, oh.

Sheila: No, I think that that’s going to go with you. I think it’s always scary to a certain point. You know, but I think having that encouragement does help. But I think you’ll always feel, you know, at a certain point. And I think sometimes they call it imposter syndrome, whatever, that, you know, this isn’t, you know, I think a lot of times people look at the role and they’re like, if I don’t know all of these things, then I can’t do it, you know, and, you know, and that is, I mean, you do think that, you know, but however, if someone, you know, feels like, hey, I’m trying to get this job done, I do feel like you have, you know, the capability to take, you know, to help the team or take them where they need to go. And that’s been, you know, what, what has kind of carried me.

Manuel: So as that company folds, did they fold why you were working there with them? Or was that after you kind of left?

Sheila: No, I was there at the time when that started happening. And I think AT&T ended up being buying, IT was last, obviously, usually that’s the last group. But they ended up buying the hard assets that were left there. And then I think I went on leave, on maternity leave, you know, and yeah, while that was happening at the very end. And then, yeah, I think, you know, yeah, I had my daughter and, and then I, you know, maybe, I think I was off maybe like four or five months. And then after that, yeah, I think I got a call again. Yeah, I think I, you know, my network, I mean, I was always in touch with, you know, to see what was happening or where people ended up landing and things like that. But another great opportunity came up with the company called Virgin Mobile. And basically one of the first like, no contract phone companies. And it was cell, you know, cellular company. And so I went and worked for them. And that was, as an IT manager, but it was doing a lot of, again, project management, change management.

Manuel: Similar type of roles.

Sheila: I would say that it was very fun. I had a lot of hours, you know, and again, start up in San Francisco. And, you know, working again with a couple of the guys that I had worked with before at North Point. And yeah, just watching that place, you know, just, you know, building, building it up.

Manuel: And being in that environment, right? So a lot of startups. So again, that’s especially in the Bay Area and all those, it’s a different culture. And the kind of the mentality of, hey, let’s grow this, the long hours. Over time, as you’re doing that, is that something, was there any kind of conflict, especially now you’re starting a family, right? Sure, you know, younger, you know, when you’re younger, and you know, even if you’re married, right, you don’t have the responsibility of children. It’s a lot easier to say, okay, hey, you know, hey, spouse or, you know, partner, I’ll be home a little bit later. Hey, I’ve got to put in extra hours. As you’re kind of starting a family, was there any type of concessions that you had to do either one way or the other was, you know, as much as we want to try and do both and be good at both, what were kind of some of the concessions that you had to?

Sheila: It was tough. I mean, I think some of it was tough because just, you know, explaining that, you know, hey, I’m gonna work, you know, I’m gonna work till probably one o’clock in the morning, you know, at times. But I’ve always had a great family support, you know, from, you know, from my parents, you know, and so, you know, we’re just, my whole family, we’re very family-oriented, and it’s oriented. So, you know, the kids needed to be, you know, with my parents or there’s somewhere we could, you know, do that or whatever.

Manuel: So having that support system.

Sheila: Yeah, support system is huge. Yeah.

Manuel: So you mentioned that you’re having fun here at, you know, being the IT manager. I’m assuming a lot of it’s just growth, doing new things. IT manager, and I’m assuming over, even though you said it’s still project managing, is it over like managing?

Sheila: I would say at that point in time, it was, we had a lot of, there were a lot of contractors, a lot of, you know, consultants or whatever. So I was mainly making sure, you know, work was getting done with our contractors.

Manuel: Got it. So with the work that they had to do. Okay. And within that role, so what did you, are there any kind of specific skills that you picked up in this one or, you know, I guess kind of?

Sheila: I think I went to middleware training, you know, I’m not gonna say the name of that, it’s not even used now. But yeah, I did, like a lot of times, if, you know, the teams are going through any type of development training or things like that, I wasn’t very much involved in QA during those times. But I would, you know, either go through the same training to try to understand at least, you know, at the level to where I could say, okay, did we, you know, did you do this step or did you do, you know, you know, this or, you know, where are you documenting this information, you know, different things like that. So that would help me at that point in time. I had to choose at a certain point back then, how, you know, it’s like how deep can you get into it? Because if I’ve got to manage at this level, right, and I’ve got to go back and give reports, you know, how hands-on can I be, you know, so that’s a certain point, which is tough. Because at times you feel like, you know, okay, this person’s gonna feel like, well, you know, she doesn’t know because of, you know, she’s not in here, you know, every day doing the, you know, development or the coding or, you know, she’s not doing this or that or whatever. But, you know, you have to remember what your role is, you know, and so at times you just have to say, you just kind of have to go with, you know, with what you know, you know, it’s like this is, you know, I have my role, you have your role, you know, and everyone’s doing their job, I would guess.

Manuel: And you’re, I mean, at the same time, you’re also still kind of pulling on your own experience, right? Like in the past, like, okay, maybe I don’t, I’m not hands-in on that technology or that stuff, but I have an experience of how projects go, how things, you know, different teams have to work together, so at that same time.

Sheila: I do feel, with all my years, I’d know what success looks like, and when there’s certain things missing, and I know that I learned that from watching, you know, I’ve seen a lot of leadership and, you know, and so I’m like, I’ve watched a lot of different things that changed over time, and how they, we ended up getting to, you know, having successful projects and what it took, and at the time, I think at times it would be like, gosh, that was either crazy or, you know, something like that, but in the end, it ended up being good for those companies. So I think that’s, that’s where I, you know, I kind of try to share with people, like, I know what this is, and like, it’s either like, this is going in the right direction, or this is definitely not going in the right direction, so.

Manuel: And you mentioned leadership, right? So you’re seeing all these different leadership, and is there, so far, at least to this point, right? And I’ll bring it up again, you know, as we move on.

Sheila: Yeah.

Manuel: But is there anything that you’re seeing, especially with these startups, and, you know, you’ve been with companies that are a little bit more well-established?

Sheila: Yeah.

Manuel: There are different cultures, but is there leadership styles or leadership traits that you see that, hey, I know this is going to work because this leader or successful leaders do this versus that?

Sheila: Yeah.

Manuel: And what are some of those things that you’ve seen that you think that you’ve kind of incorporated, or as you kind of are seeing other people, you’re like, this is going to work because this person has this trait or, or is missing?

Sheila: That’s a great question. We talked about, and this is just making me think of, remember how we were talking about, you know, being a great multitasker can be a good thing and a bad thing.

Manuel: Yep.

Sheila: All in one. And there were times that I know, you know, and this is something I’ve learned obviously over time, you know, where I may have just, you know, you’re in the grind, you know, you’re trying to get everything worked out or whatever, work-life balance wasn’t always there. And that does take a lot of, it does, it took some time to evolve, you know, but, you know, and that’s just what, you know, some of that came with watching people and how, you know, seeing how some leadership, you know, they were like, you know working hours and hours and hours, and then all of a sudden, they started to evolve, right? You know, if you’re going to go through changes, you know, if you’re going to take a business through changes, then you have to change. And then you teach others how to make those changes. And so I’ve seen that happen at probably my last, definitely at my last job. I saw that those things, you know, that happened and involved and I watched the company definitely grow.

Manuel: So probably like one of the bigger things, and I just want to make sure that I’m understanding and I want to summarize it. So the ones that are able to adapt, learn, and then also be able to communicate or show others at the same time is really kind of what’s made them successful and then even the teams that they’re with or the companies.

Sheila: Yeah, and that came with, I mean, there’s, you know, you learn through that from successes and failures, right? You know, okay, you know, I think they learn from their leadership and, you know, then next time, you know, you’re, you’re, you might be the leader next and you do the things, you know, the way you want to do it. And I think each time, like I said, each of the leaderships that I, you know, that I’ve worked with or worked for, they, um, I could see which things, you know, that I wanted to take away and say, okay, this is, you know, what I think.

Manuel: Is going to help you in the long run and make you successful. And now you’re going on here. What makes you ultimately decide to move on?

Sheila: The only reason I left Virgin was I moved to Vegas.

Manuel: Oh, really?

Sheila: That was the only reason. Yeah, I did. I had enjoyed everybody that I worked with there. You know, it was, again, amazing team of people, still friends to this day.

Manuel: With those people?

Sheila: Yeah. Yeah, we’re all in touch. So, I mean, I, you know, you don’t talk to people all the time, but if I do talk to them, we could pick up.

Manuel: And I know at some point you’re kind of starting to move out of kind of that project management, change management, and do this management. What gave you the confidence, the drive, the desire to kind of start moving up out of that type of role? Was it, was it necessity? Was it just one?

Sheila: I wanted the next thing, or, you know, it’s like, okay, I’m, I like project management you know, and I’d done it on the software development side. I wanted actually, it kinda evolved more from sofware development to infrastructure, you know so that was more infrastructure project management so at times I felt kind of in between when I was just doing more change management, you know project management you know dealin with software projects and then it was more you know my career went into directly infrastructure project management.

Manuel: And is that just for the ability to want to challenge yourself? Is it just technology shifting that way or I mean because I know everybody’s different there’s some people that kind of find find a niche and they stay and they want to be the best in that area where they’re okay continuing.

Sheila: You know what I did I’m I did skip something when I came to Las Vegas you know and at that time now I have two kids I’ve got a daughter and then I’ve got a small baby under one years old and so we moved here around 2004 I, I didn’t you know stop knowing how to network obviously right you know I think I took like the next year and I was like thinking okay you know we’re gonna work and you know I wanted to go back to school. And so I did that I went to an event they had an IT professionals networking event and I remember going and I’ve been taking my resume and I actually during that time even though I did that actually worked for the hospital I was like cuz I had worked so many hours and doing all the start-ups stuff for a moment I was like oh god is IT you know you mentioned with kids you know maybe I need to slow down and figure something out you know and I was going to school and I knew I didn’t want anything too fast-paced but I took a job and it was it was so much less I mean it was really I went and got a certificate and actually I still can to this day I actually have a cardiac monitor tech I know how to read hearts you know

Manuel: Interesting

Sheila: yeah yeah so I know if you’re a tachycardia bradycardia you know a fib you know and so for a while I did I worked at the hospital doing that and talk about going from you know working at a start-up all night you know and then now I’m monitoring patients hearts some that are dying and having to let people know that there’s you know that something’s wrong you know the nurse needs to get into this room right and then working 10 to 12 hour shifts you know hospitals are different right you know now you’re you know I might be three 12s but I’m dead tired you know that’s a long shift I I have a true appreciation for the people at work in the hospitals that’s for sure because yeah those are long shifts three 12s or you know even four 10s and then you know someone asking if you want to work overtime and work another day right can you imagine four 12s so yeah your your beat you know by the time you get off the ship you go home and you just want to go to sleep

Manuel: And at the time when you kind of went through that certificate and did that was your expectation that it’s gonna be easier or kind of like less hours like oh I’ll have my set hours and be done?

Sheila: I thought that but there was something that went along with it that I realized from working in IT and being you know professional right you know and then going into working into this I was definitely a different level of expectation because you know again I now become this process oriented person and different things like that and then so I think I learned you know and I was trying to apply it to what I was doing now and going this is more difficult in in certain ways and how can you know that you know you I think once you’re in the IT you know I you know once you’re in that field you’re in you know in the sense of now everything you look at differently so now I’m in the hospital going this this manual you know all these manual different things that are happening because I would say hospitals are a a little bit behind when it comes to technology not a little bit they were a lot and and so yeah that was that was definitely a change for me.

Manuel: I know exactly what you’re talking about right you go into and I’ve helped other people I’ve gone to businesses and you you start to see well if you automate this if you put this type of technology here like it just could be so much better and so much easier like that doesn’t go away but you mentioned also okay you’re thinking that it’s gonna be easier more kind of or set hours apart from just working 12 hours I mean you said that you’re having to you know tell people hey they’re dying so it’s not just the physical tiredness but I’m sure that that takes an emotional toll.

Sheila: Yeah

Manuel: Because I know two other people that have worked at hospitals like in IT but they’ve kind of ventured in and kind of helped out yeah just that seems emotionally draining it as well so how did you kind of deal with that and is that what ultimately led you to go back and say this isn’t for me or was it just?

Sheila: It was like okay it’s time you know it was like okay Sheila you had your moment but this isn’t where you need to be you know you’ve worked you know it’s kind of like you’ve worked hard enough what are you doing you know I mean obviously it was a lot of it had to do with my family but it was you know I put a lot of time in you know so it was kind of like a time to figure out okay career-wise I don’t think this is where you want to be so yeah I literally just went to a networking event because I think I kind of missed being in that type of environment right and then I met the director of software development one of the directors of software development at the Las Vegas Valley Water District and gave him my resume and I think I got a call a week later to come apply and come in or at least come for an interview not yeah and I interviewed and I went over there as a it was a PM slash business analyst position

Manuel: And that conversation at these at that networking event would you say that it’s you spend a lot of time with that person a short amount of times is one of the things that I’ve, I’ve learned over time is it’s nice to go to these events and meet a lot of people but I now try to focus more on okay meet a lot of people but find maybe two three people and just really connect with them and really get to know them because to say hey I met 50 people that’s great.

Sheila: No my personality anyway is I’m not the one that works I don’t work the room and I’m not walking around saying hey to everybody that’s yeah that’s and so it was more of a I ended up you know meeting a couple of people and and he just happened to be one of those people yeah and so yeah we talked had a great talk

Manuel: And then obviously seeing your experience on your resume he was probably like hey this is the person I was able to communicate with had a good relationship at least in that or sorry not relationship a good interaction with and then decided hey come on in so as a business analyst what what does that entail like what exactly is a business analyst do?

Sheila: That was and again I’d never that was not something I’d really been involved in but you’re gathering requirements you’re documenting requirements and I think at the time they were getting ready to replace their application support system with Remedy if you remember Remedy and so you know I had to gather you know requirements for this new Remedy system yeah so and I was working with one other I think one other lady at the time but.

Manuel: And doing these different.

Sheila: You’re looking at you know the as is right you know you’re looking at okay how you know the system we’re using at the time how it worked you know versus you know okay here’s where we want to go where all the I would say where the areas that you know you’d want to be improved you know and what can this new system do you know versus what was you know not other system and then also how do you fit in you know is there a change management role module you know all the different pieces so.

Manuel: And does this new one address some of those things that we would like the nice to have or probably the needs.

Sheila: Yeah yeah there was that but then also several interviews with the business several interviews with different business departments you know to understand what their needs were you know and then you know obviously you’ve got to understand what tickets are already out there outstanding what are the things you need to to be able to port into the new system so.

Manuel: It sounds like while they’re different there’s a lot of these a lot of the skills that you’re able to kind of apply everywhere right even when you went into kind of being you know the heart technician now you’re going into business analyst being able to talk and then not only that but would you say that you’re a naturally inquisitive person because I would think to gather requirements most times if you just ask a question and you just take it at face value okay great and you move on you’ll probably miss something but.

Sheila: Yeah.

Manuel: Is it experience or is it just your own inquisitive to where you know to ask additional questions?

Sheila: No I would say with a good BA that takes time I don’t think you can just you don’t naturally just start at a point where you know how to you’ve got to start learning those systems right you’ve got to either you know use your resources work with other people I think that’s the biggest thing is is knowing who your resources are and who knows what you know know figure out who those people that have that is historical knowledge at each of wherever company you are because they’re going to give you some of the information that will probably get missed when you get ready to implement right you know you need those one-off use cases I mean it’s just like when you you know gather the requirements from accounting right it’s usually with accounting there’s always that one-off you know that we run this one job you know once a

Manuel: Once a month

Sheila: Once, you know either once a month or once every you know 13th year you know just something odd you know so you definitely got to make sure that you use your resources that are there find out who that the experts are in those areas that can tell you you know you want them tell me everything that you do you know tell me what those processes look like tell me what you know what departments are involved you know what roles you know so so that you can capture all that information

Manuel: And as you’re doing this my guess is that you also have to have a bit of humility right and not going in thinking that you know everything or that you’re gonna figure it out but like you said relying on these different resources and saying hey can you is that how you approached it is hey can you help me and I’m assuming that makes people receptive to giving you that information as opposed to you like hey we’re doing this.

Sheila: Yeah.

Manuel: Tell me and so I can.

Sheila: You have to you have to be definitely the type of person that’s you know willing to listen you can’t just come in and say oh I was here over here before and it can work the same way here because every company you know different right I’m selling a different product you know we’re not doing exactly the same thing so I need you know you to tell me how it works here bviously yes I might come and I might be brand new I might be coming bringing some knowledge that I have that I can help apply here but I’m relying on you to tell me you know then that way we can say okay you had all this you know maybe you had a hundred manual processes right and yes we want to automate some so you might be able to automate 80% there still might be a percentage that you might not be able to you know be able to be right away right but the only way you’re gonna learn that is by talking to them you know yeah and people still will forget you know there’ll be some things they’ll be like they don’t remember until oh no emergency

Manuel: So now you’re kind of picking up all these skills you’re understanding now on the business analyst side which is I’m assuming is gonna be something that’s helpful later on in your career as you’re kind of picking this up and kind of what’s your next?

Sheila: I knew I will tell you this I knew right away that that wasn’t my role

Manuel: Oh really

Sheila: yeah I definitely can appreciate you know system analysts business analysts but I know for a fact I’m more of a project manager you know I’m more of a my mind is more to where I’m thinking of all the coordination

Manuel: So you’re thinking more implementation after the fact as opposed to.

Sheila: I’m still pulling the pieces together you know and still you know making sure that we’re getting all the different pieces but I can’t be the you know I can’t I can’t oversee it and still be documenting everything that’s what I’m saying

Manuel: Okay.

Sheila: It’s like I

Manuel: They’re very distinct roles.

Sheila: Yeah very distinct when you’re trying to document requirements and then also you’re trying to manage all the different changes in scope and making sure that the business requirements are updated or whatever and obviously some of this is you know if you look at today some of that’s waterfall right if you’re gonna write make this big 500 page BRD you know or where now it’s more like okay let’s figure out what features and let’s focus in on on this piece and let’s build that piece right you know and understand the requirements around this piece so we can build that module and then next and next and next right so very different but when you’re dealing with legacy systems sometimes it just has to go you know you’re doing sometimes a quasi waterfall

Manuel: So when you knew that that wasn’t for you did you look for something else internally were you trying to move up or did you just kind of decide?

Sheila: I wanted to say that I ended up moving just because of reorg into more of the database area at the Water District towards the very end we did a huge project for CCMB which was great you know I was a project manager but helped with training I think we moved from PeopleSoft to Oracle CCMB and you know once that finished we ended up you know being in the database team and that was interesting I was learning a lot there there obviously you know it was more of the tail end you know you’re in the more change management piece and I think at that point I think I was just doing you know small we were just doing SQL updates and different things like that whatever and I had to learn that you know I’m just from watching and I learned from other people while I was there because that wasn’t something I’ve been doing before

Manuel: Something different something new to kind of learn and pick up

Sheila: Yeah I felt like I was PM the BA one time doing training then it was associate applications developer yeah it was yeah it definitely moved a little bit at the Water District

Manuel: and so if you spend your time there you’ve kind of moved around you’ve done a lot is it again same thing kind of a repeat process somebody reaches out to you and says hey

Sheila: I was on my own right now because I went to that networking but yeah when I left the Water District I did get a call.

Manuel: You did get a call.

Sheila: And I was very thrilled to get that call because I would say that was when I went to the airline. So I went over to Allegiant One of the things and now people are kind of reaching out and saying hey come over as they’re coming over and everybody’s experience is different right so I’ve had some people that have called me over and they’ve kind of prepare me for what to expect not only in the role but through the interview process you know that that negotiation as you’re going through do you feel that these networks apart from finding you a you know a new role or something different are they also kind of helping you prepare for the interview process kind of what the role is going to be the environment

Sheila: Definitely some of that but some of it I did you know on my own you know you have to do you know your own homework and you know as far as like understanding everything that you learned over time you know because you know you know sometimes you work with you know the same people sometimes you don’t right you’re gonna get each company is different you know so each experience is different and at the end of the day it’s you regardless of how you got there it’s up to you to do a good job right you know so you know so it’s yeah it’s not that person you know doing your job right

Manuel: That you make a good point right a lot of times people sometimes will kind of maybe rely too much on the other person to think oh well they’re bringing me over they told me this about it.

Sheila: Yeah

Manuel: Oh well you didn’t tell me that well also you didn’t ask or you didn’t you know you kind of also have to put in your own work it’s not just somebody else now you mentioned that you were thrilled because you’re coming here and I’m assuming because and I’m gonna make an assumption but I’m also gonna ask you is it also that the environments you’re going from the Water District which again they’re not government but they are kind of a utility so it’s a little bit slower pace than kind of like an airline, like a private company that’s going through so was that kind of the excitement is now I’m gonna do something completely different it’s faster it’s more kind of?

Sheila: I think once you were in that such pace even though there are times you need to slow down I wasn’t I didn’t feel like I was that at that point in my career and sometimes still even now I’m like you know I don’t know how slow I’m ready to go I still you know I’m still that person that I enjoy you know you know whatever you know it’s the deliverable how that let’s do whatever it takes

Manuel: The challenge and that fast pace of just slowing down

Sheila: Yeah so that was exciting and I always wanted to work for an airline

Manuel: Oh really okay and when you get there so that’s around the time that we met

Sheila: Although I think at one time I thought I was wanted to be a if when I’m when I say always I think in the beginning it was a flight attendant. Yeah you know and I and I appreciate you know every piece of it but yeah yes I think I’ve from being at the airline I’ve learned so much about every area.

Manuel: And just understand the business as a whole so you’re kind of more in that fast-paced environment at the time I met you your were a more of a project management side still and also there at that time you kind of start moving,

Sheila: infrastructure

Manuel: Moving in the infrastructure and then you know you kind of did some of the help desk stuff so you’re kind of moving around in different areas so even though you’re kind of doing the same type of job similar to what you said before you hadn’t done the database here you’ve kind infrastructure you’ve done all these different things is that some of the excitement and the challenge of it or was there anything else?

Sheila: Yeah it was a challenge when I was asked to be to manage you know the enterprise you know be enterprise service delivery and manage the NOC and help desk and service delivery it was that was a challenge

Manuel: And what was the challenge around it was it just the fact that it’s more managing people in the specific areas opposed to kind of you know with the project management you’re dealing with multiple teams now here it’s kind of your team and you’re responsible for this area.

Sheila: That it was that learning yeah yeah it was a lot to learn and then you know yeah you know the new team the new team that needs to be built also we needed to build a knowledge base that we you know we really didn’t have and I think we had you know started getting really heavy into using confluence and and Jira and you know trying to make those processes better and you know building up the service delivery team those are all exciting yeah

Manuel: And now up to this point you’ve got quite a bit of experience you’re doing you know a lot of different things everybody’s different so I, I know from my own experience I never really had a kind of a long-term vision or goal of kind of where I was planning on taking my career I know some people that do they have a better understanding at this point would you say that you had a goal you haven’t are you starting to establish one or are you just kind of like hey I’m just gonna kind of keep playing it?

Sheila: I learned a lot about myself with that with that being a challenge right you know I think I learned a whole lot there and I think it’s told me you know it’s exactly where you know where I can you know where I need to be or you know where I can where I see myself as far as my best placement in IT

Manuel: And when you say you learned there in that role what is it that you kind of learned is you learned that that’s not what you wanted to be did you learn kind of more what you want to focus on or kind of what what was it you took out of?

Sheila: Sorry my gosh I can pinpoint several things that’s from a management perspective I would say helping I enjoyed helping people you know I there’s there’s meant there’s many opportunities to to figure out you get a lot of young people when it comes to the network network operation center you know and maybe trying to figure out maybe sometimes first time in IT and different things like that or whatever they’re just trying to get to put in the door and the dreams and opera you know aspirations just we all start there you know and there was some opportunity to actually I think I’ve worked with HR and I think one of the things that I remember appreciating was they you know we started this job resource sharing it was like a portal we even created within JIRA service desk to where like someone was interested in going to work in one of the other areas you know be that security or software development or you know somewhere else they could do that for a few hours a week you know you know so yeah they you know put that information into the system say I want to go do this and then track their hours there be that if it was two hours a week or four hours a week it was their own time that they gave outside of you know their regular role to go learn something new.

Manuel: Really? And that’s a program that you kind of help build out because I know that most places I’ve been that’s not a formal program right it’s usually you on your own you reach out to you know if I want to be a developer I would reach out to developers like hey can I shadow you can I go through again so this is something that you just kind of saw the need for or you know?

Sheila: I think it was just through discussions with you know HR and then there were some just we’re talking to you know with you meet with your team members and you know hearing you know what their thoughts are and then also with other managers when you speak with other you know managers and tell them hey you know because you know initially when you are looking to promote or things like that you want to look within you know if you can you know and then maybe work externally after that you know and so there were people that were interested and you know I think Allegiant does you know good job of you know trying to hire you know within and promote within and so yeah we created created that and I think I just did my homework and tried to find you know you go out and figure out you know who’s done this before you know and like how can we implement it here and you know worked with you know service delivery team I think I had two other resources at the time on the service delivery team and you know built that.

Manuel: It was the perfect culmination of your experience right working with the project management getting some of that business also like trying to pull some of these resources and then having people that had kind of mentored you and helped you out now it feels like you’re at the point in in your career and probably shortly after that is similar is like now I’m like okay I’ve had I’ve been the beneficiary of people helping me out and now you’re kind of starting to turn that around is that?

Sheila: I get the most out of that when I work with like even other departments that were doing a bunch of manual processes it was great to be able to go and say hey let us build you a service desk and you know you guys guys start getting out of email and putting that into you know into JIRA you know whatever and then now each department you know once you’re done with the piece you can maybe send a ticket over to the next department and they can finish their piece you know you know putting processes you know with risk and compliance into JIRA you know purchasing I could think of several different aircraft and you know different areas that you know they didn’t genuinely appreciated being able to start you know having their own portals and and managing their work differently

Manuel: As you’re doing that is that kind of you’re establishing this as kind of the next evolution of what you want to try and do like you know kind of help people out move up and now you’re in more of a you’re getting more towards that leadership role right where you mentioned like you’re adapting and now you’re starting to kind of help others and kind of implement and improve these processes are you seeing this now as an opportunity to kind of also kind of move up and expand and was that a goal or is it just kind of a byproduct?

Sheila: I wouldn’t say it was a goal that’s kind how it’s my evolution has happened I guess that’s just kind of how it happened I think I’m more getting to a point where I’m you know I’m still at a point where I’m you know telling people this is you know do these things even there are things that I feel like I didn’t get to do I can share that with my team members and say hey the good idea if you go learn this or you know you know what can I do as far as you know helping you you know get that cert or you know you know take the time out you know to help them get to where they need to be

Manuel: You spent quite a bit of time there now you’re doing this and you’re moving on is there?

Sheila: I did move on and but it was when I left it was I still felt like I was in this happy place I enjoyed every bit of that you know every bit of you know the work at the airline and I just move on because I was ready to like let me go help you know the next place evolve yeah and it felt like subsidiary that was ready for some change and so that’s what I’ve been able to

Manuel: Yeah and that kind of leads into because the question I was gonna ask is now you’ve had a lot of mentorship you’ve had people helping you sounds like you’re doing that and I guess the question that I was looking to kind of ask is now at this point are you still getting that mentorship like you’re doing the mentoring but do you feel like at this at that point in your career are you still getting mentorship and there’s still people that are kind of help guide you along at that same time.

Sheila: I still I think I still have that you know but I also now definitely am really good at you know understanding the resources that I have around me you know so I know you know obviously you can the internet is huge right you know and now the days you have all the different podcasts you can learn from from you know so many different you know things that way so I think I’m

Manuel: More selective?

Sheila: Yeah, yeah I’m a little bit more selective I you know I think I’m more like you know I want to go help here you know I want to go do this you know so I think I’m more where I have some things in my head where I this is what I need to do next.

Manuel: And being able to see those challenges like you said like hey you’re ready you built this up.

Sheila: Yeah.

Manuel: And again there’s probably room for improvement because everyone no where’s perfect right but probably the level of improvements probably not as much as like you said hey there’s this there’s this new opportunity where I can kind of build it up from scratch there’s more ability to have a greater impact.

Sheila: Yeah

Manuel: Within your role

Sheila: Yeah.

Manuel: And now this is I’m assuming now this is at the point where you’re at Fidelity where you’re currently at?

Sheila: Yeah.

Manuel: And what was the biggest enticement you know was it the fact that you saw that it was a that they were starting out and you kind of have the ability to kind of build something I don’t want to say from scratch right because they’re starting to build it but really have a great impact in a kind of trying to think of what the word I’m trying to find but really just kind of put your your stamp on right this project or this area?

Sheila: I saw a company that’s been around for a long time but also that has been you know running and doing well but I also saw that you know you know opportunity for you know some change you know implementing some organization you know so that you know just like how do we get to the next step you know how do we become you know a better competitor you know.

Manuel: I’ll tell you just hearing kind of like the evolution of your career like as you’re talking about the different things that you kind of learned and picked up like I can see how they’re influencing each each role or each place that you go on to right like hey I had these mentors they kind of pulled me in they kind of gave me the confidence and you know doing some of the business analyst of the project management like I can see how this all starts to kind of shape and mold your career in the way that you think about things right like implementing you know that process for people to try out new jobs right like that’s the mentorship that you got put in the project the business analyst this together and just talking to other people like it’s to me it’s been fascinating to kind of hear right because we spent a couple years together and just understanding and you know you you talk to somebody but kind of hearing the evolution of your career has been amazing

Sheila: And you do I mean obviously when you know not just with me I mean you meet different people it’s like oh I want to work with them again right you know oh I think we can build this great team you know so I always feel that way even you know wherever I go, oh I had so and so here you know we could do this you know so yeah.

Manuel: But at the same time you’re also able to kind of know hey so and so does this and you could kind of yeah probably find that person and help build them up and like hey I mean you mentioned like the certifications and you know hey things that from your own experience but I’m sure you’re also drawing from other people like hey this would really help you because I mean you know probably say like this person I worked with did it but you guys you see and address it.

Sheila: Right.

Manuel: Is there anything that we haven’t discussed or something that you kind of thought of that you’re like hey Manny you didn’t ask me about this but this is something that’s I feel is important for people to know.

Sheila: I mean I’m always like don’t be so hard on yourself you know you know don’t you know it’s okay to take a step back and and look at you know those areas don’t be afraid to say you know speak up and say something you know I think sometimes you know even when you have people that work for you you know they’re not sure sometimes whether or not they can say and I’m I’m very much I’m open like nope tell me you know tell me what you you know tell me the good tell me the bad you know so I can figure out how you know you know what I need to do to improve or you know how can I help you improve or you know also understanding you know at a certain point you do you need to understand people’s lives you know and understand and we did work in definitely a very different work is different now you know there wasn’t the remote usually everyone was in the office and even now still you know it’s hybrid right you know you get some people working in the office some not there is an appreciation for being able to be in the room definitely and and I’ll get on the whiteboard and actually you know you kind of can understand the differences of what you’re when you have that and when you don’t when you’re just like on a Zoom call you know you know and you know sometimes it is good let’s meet up once a quarter or you know you kind of figure out you know what the good balance is for work but again I’m just like find find the right I think everyone should have or you know or find the right people in your life that are going to just you know be direct and tell you okay you know I you know I think you should try this you know or I think you should I think having you know some mentors are still good to have someone that can kind of help, help you you know guide you in some ways so that you can be better.

Manuel: One of the things you said made me want to kind of ask so you said that you are very open and say hey talk to me and take that feedback and just knowing you personally I know that that’s that is true right it’s not just lip service

Sheila: Yeah.

Manuel: How do you think that someone can go through and really do that? Because I’ve had not often but there I have had some of that leadership where they say it and then you go and it’s not necessarily the case so what do you think is either from an employee you know a kind of a direct report what’s the way to kind of establish or even kind of test that out and see if this is really or how do you I guess I guess the question is a better question is how do you implement that kind of open door and give somebody the confidence to know that they can come to you.

Sheila: Oh that’s from the that’s our beginning conversations I’m very yeah I’m generally when we start doing you know if I do one-on-ones you know I mean obviously when you work remote since one-on-ones kind of sort of become extinct because you talk all the time now you know via you know either Slack or whatever Teams but you know just saying hey whatever it is you know I need you to talk to me because I find it just makes it so much easier you know at the end of the day you know there’s a deliverable right that you know everyone wants to make but then there’s also here’s where I want to be in my career you know and it’s like okay if you’re telling me that’s where you want to be and you know say like you’ve got you know tier one to two or or or analysts one two three or whatever that is you know making sure that you meet you know and talk about where you know okay here’s where you are right you know and and so that they understand it’s always you know out there like here’s where I think you are and and then when those kind of times you know come up you know yearly or whenever those positions come up you know are you are am I keeping my word right you know that’s one thing and saying okay okay you’re ready to move up you know and then hold me accountable if you know at you know ask me and you know but I, I think that those are exchanges that should happen continuously you know so that there it isn’t a surprise when you know maybe a position comes up and maybe you don’t get it.

Manuel: It’s opening and having a continuous dialogue as opposed to like point-in-time like oh here and here

Sheila: Yeah and at the end of the day someone told me a long time ago I remember never forget who you are and I did have someone that I’ve worked with actually at the Water District and she’s told me never forget what you know and never forget who you are and now what that told me was that regardless of what you know yeah even if someone’s saying do the project this way or that way whatever doesn’t mean you’re not gonna listen or whatever but know who you are know you know obviously you know what’s right you know you know don’t forget who you are as a person you know this might just be temporary right you know the situation or whatever you’re doing but your angle is you know where you want it to be

Manuel: That’s amazing well I appreciate you coming in and taking the time to you know like share your experiences and in your career path and I mean I’ve taken bits and pieces and I see a lot of benefit myself right so I’m sure other people say okay hey I didn’t think of that or that’s that’s a good to know so I appreciate you taking the time to come.

Sheila: Of course, I’m glad to see you doing this.

Manuel: I just see the benefit of just showing people the different you know the different roles that are out there to different experiences right whether you’re in IT and looking to make a career move right just kind of hearing somebody else say okay well maybe you know if that’s something that I’m interested in hey maybe I start attending these IT events start making sure that I’m building a good relationship where I’m currently at because again I think and you could probably attest to this is not even just in Vegas but just IT in general

Sheila: Yeah.

Manuel: It’s, it’s smaller right like your your reputation knowing who you are carries weight and you know if you’re not a pleasant person to work with like yeah it will come around.

Sheila: Exactly the other thing you made me think of is it’s even though there are I mean I think with every department or role with IT I think there’s certain processes that are the same but it feels like it always is like there’s something different coming and I think that’s what made it so exciting it’s like it’s not just the same always repetitive you know there’s gonna be new tools new software you know what I mean there’s always something new that’s coming and as long as you’re good with change I think you’re you’ll do well you know anyone can do well in IT as long as they’re okay with change.

Manuel: And with that thank you everybody and I hope you enjoy this episode and we will see you next time.