The Non-Linear Path to IT Leadership: From Electrician to Senior Manager with Sean Leu | Ep033

In this enlightening episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez sits down with Sean Leu, a senior IT manager who transformed his career from working as an electrician apprentice to leading development teams in the financial technology sector. This conversation offers invaluable insights into navigating career transitions, developing leadership skills, and embracing continuous learning in the ever-evolving tech industry.

About Our Guest:
Sean Leu is a senior manager at a financial tech firm, specializing in ServiceNow platform development. His unique career journey spans over 15 years, beginning as an electrician apprentice in 2001 and evolving through various IT roles including help desk, systems engineering, database administration, information security, and ultimately management leadership. Sean’s diverse experience encompasses work with government agencies, casino technology providers, and now financial technology, giving him a broad perspective on career development in the tech sector.

Key Discussion Points:
– The Power of Career Pivots
– Building a Foundation Through Curiosity
– The Strategic Value of Continuous Learning
– Navigating the Transition to Management
– The Interview Coach Revelation
– Leadership Development and Time Management
– Choosing Your Next Career Move

Actionable Takeaways:
1. Embrace curiosity as your primary career development tool – always ask questions and seek mentorship
2. Develop a three-tier learning approach: current role, future goals, and personal interests
3. Understand that career paths are rarely linear – be comfortable with being uncomfortable
4. Master the art of communication, including strategic pauses and structured responses
5. Treat everyone with respect regardless of title – from interns to CEOs
6. Focus on elevating others when in leadership positions
7. Align career moves with personal values and company missions as you progress

Notable Quotes:
– “You have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.”
– “As a leader, you have the impact that is critical to their career. You can either make or break their career, and they’re trusting you with it.”
– “I think having that vehicle to say, hey, that’s what you specialize in, no matter what career you go into is important.”
– “Just talk to them like a regular person, be nice, be genuine, be honest, be candid, and I think you’ll go far in this world.”

Resources Mentioned:
– Simon Sinek’s “Start With Why”
– CISSP Certification
– PMP (Project Management Professional) Certification
– ServiceNow Platform
– Toastmasters (Referenced by host)
– “The Power of Voice” by Denise Woods (Referenced by host)

**About Career Downloads:**
Career Downloads is your essential resource for actionable career advice and insights. Each episode features in-depth conversations with technology professionals who share their unique career journeys, challenges, and triumphs. Host Manuel Martinez helps uncover practical strategies you can apply to manage and advance your own career in the tech industry.

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Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to really learn more about their background, their experiences, to really uncover and understand the different things that they’ve done to manage their career, with the expectation that eventually we can help uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me Sean Leu So Sean and I, it’s probably been quite a few years now, we’ve crossed paths, so I was working for a VAR, a value-added reseller, helping do a project to do an implementation for them, and then also kind of do some hands-on training and knowledge transfer. We connected, we kind of stayed in contact a little bit over the years, I’ve seen some of the different areas he had moved to, and really thought it’d be a good opportunity to kind of bring him in, learn more about what he did, some of the decisions he made, and some of the challenges and triumphs that he encountered along the way. So with that, I’ll introduce Sean.

Sean: Hey, Sean Leu, I am the senior manager at a financial tech firm, basically working on ServiceNow platform. I think it’s probably been about 15 years or so since we met, I’m guessing probably 2011-ish, if my math is probably correct. But I’ve had a weird, kind of not a straight journey to where I am today, started out as a electrician apprentice. 01:43 lot of the people that I talk to in the IT field, they don’t start in the IT field. You start someplace else and you realize, hey, maybe I wanna change careers. So I started as an electrician apprentice back in 2001. 01:58 t was fun, it was a way to make money, but it wasn’t something that I could see myself doing for the rest of my life. So I went back to school at San Jose State University back in 2003. Actually went to school for aeronautical engineering, did an internship for a firm out in Silicon Valley, realized I didn’t like the environment that I was working with, the people that I was working with, it was kind of dry. Went back to school for, changed my major to management information systems for the IT side, loved it, haven’t looked back ever since. Got an internship out here in Vegas, that’s why I’m here in Vegas, kind of moved back and forth between Vegas and other states. Worked for the Department of Energy, top secret networks, things of that sort, kind of bounced back between different government agencies for the next like five to 10 years, Department of Defense out in Hawaii, Pearl Harbor, other different bases, eventually made a move to the casino industry, oddly from government to casino, very different. And then after that, I moved back into the kind of the financial tech firm or industry. All through that, like I mentioned, I didn’t have a straight path to where I am to a ServiceNow developer position as a senior manager. I started as a winter intern for that Department of Energy, to help desk, to desktop support, to systems engineering, had some database administration in there, some tech support, and then some security aspects. Like I mentioned, to many people, the only thing I haven’t done is networking. will not touch networking, because I am bad at it, so I know my limitations. So I’ve had a different path, right? It’s not a straight path to where I am today, but I’ve enjoyed the ride, and I think it’s kind of helped me develop who I am to kind of take that odd kind of windy path to where I am today.

Manuel: I appreciate the way you kind of summarized that and gave a little bit of an expectation of kind of what people can expect. And you and I have kind of talked in the past. You mentioned that you kind of started as the apprenticeship as an electrician. Was that just something that, you know, hey, I want to kind of start paying the bills, just kind of work, not understanding what you wanted to do? Because I think a lot of times people think, and I’m glad you brought it up, is that you have to know that, hey, I want to get an IT, or hey, I want to do networking. But that’s not the case. And I would say that most people probably don’t. They’re figuring it out along the way, just because there’s so many different avenues. So is that kind of what happened? What eventually got you started there?

Sean: Yeah, and when I did the apprenticeship, it was like, hey, you know, just try to apply for it. My uncle worked for the Pearl Harbor shipyard. He was like, hey, we have an apprenticeship program. They have different avenues you can go. You can be an electrician, you can be a painter, you can do all these different. So I chose the electrician. I got into the program. It was like a four-year program where you’re an apprentice, you follow mentors. After probably the second year, I realized that it wasn’t really the career that I was looking for. It was more like, hey, it was more monotonous. Or like, hey, go do this exact same thing this year. Like, hey, same day, same thing, just a different day. I felt like I was kind of stuck in a rut. And my brother, who’s probably like five years older than me, he’s an IT. He was going– he was living in California. Just over on the dot-com boom, he was working for IBM. And it seemed really fun. Like, he was making friends. He was doing cool things. And he was, at that time, making a lot of money. I was just like, hey, this sounds like a career that I can kind of look into. So then I made that move to San Jose State to go back to school. Aeronautical engineering was my first, because I don’t want to be a copy paste of my brother. So I was like, aeronautical engineering, try that out. But then eventually, I came back to IT, because I’ve always loved computers. I’ve always kind of been that techy person. But I’ve never seen it as a career, and so I went back to school for it.

Manuel: In your experience, right? Because you mentioned that it’s kind of being an intern. And it was just– it’s monotonous. IT is not that way. And I think a lot of times people think, well, I’ll learn this skill, and that’s it. Like, you can specialize, but you still– even within networking, like networking is evolving, you have to kind of continuously be evolving, be learning. You mentioned you like computers. Would you say that at that point in time, it’s, I have an interest, and I also want to learn new things? Is that kind of what drew you there?

Sean: Yeah, and I didn’t really fortify my interest in IT, because you learn a lot of things in school, right? All the book smarts, all the technical details of what it takes to go into IT, the business side. But you don’t really get a feel for that until you actually go into an actual job, right? And that internship, it was from December, beginning of December to ending of December. It was only a month. But I had the opportunity to shadow the help desk, kind of help answer phones. But what really got my– kind of stoked my interest was I got to shadow a systems engineer. He took it under his– me under his wing and said, hey, let me teach you some things. So it wasn’t just me doing phone calls, going and fixing computers. It was like, hey, let me go show you the servers in the server room. Let me show you how to install these different components, and let me show you how to break down a computer. And I was just like, dude, this is awesome. Going from, hey, this is just answering phone calls to learning how to work on servers, it was mind boggling, right? As an intern, you’re kind of in this little lane. Your mind is very shuttered. But then doing that, I was just like, man, this is awesome. And so having that person kind of take me under their wing and say, hey, let me show you some things. I was like, this is what I want to do, right? If it’s not systems engineering, not server engineering, what else is there in IT that I can learn throughout my career that’s going to help me be a better person?

Manuel: And that person that kind of took you under their wing, was that normal? Is it something that they would take people, or was it you asking questions? What is it that drew them to you and kind of, I’m sure once they started teaching you stuff, they could see the excitement. But before that, how did they seek you out, or did you seek them out? What did that look like?

Sean: I think it was my curiosity. Any apprenticeship program that I’ve, since I’ve been on that side, and I’m now on the other side as a senior manager, hiring summer interns and things of that sort, I’ve seen both sides. But I think looking back to 2006, when I did the internship, I think it was my curiosity, right? And you answer the phone calls, you can do that all day and just clock in and clock out. But I think where you really succeed as an intern is asking people, hey, can you show me? Like, hey, that’s really cool, what are you doing? Can you just teach me vCenter? Can you teach me SCCM? Can you teach me all these technologies? And then that got that person to really think, hey, he doesn’t want to just clock in one month and then go back to school. He wants to do more with his career. And so I think that constant, like, you know, asking them questions and kind of learning new things is what brought me back for the summer internship. And then eventually I got hired on full-time and I worked there for like the next five years, working my way from help desk to desktop support to systems engineering. So you have to have that, like that hunger, and you have to be able to say, hey, I don’t know what this is. I’m curious, can you show me? And hopefully you have someone that was like kind enough as that systems engineer to say, yeah, let me show you these things. And then off you go.

Manuel: And I think that’s something that you and I shared is, you know, same thing. When I started, same thing, help desk, like answering the phones, and I started asking people like, hey, I had this question and I sent it to a technician. I would kind of follow up with them afterwards, like, hey, what did you do to fix it? Is there anything I could have done? Is it something that I could have walked them through? Sometimes they’re like, no, there’s nothing. It’s something I had to do. I’m like, oh, okay, well, cool. But never asking like, hey, what did you do? It was like, could I have done more? And same thing, like then people start to, especially even if you’ve been in the field for a while and you think you’re interested in something else, I’m sure that that’s come up repeatedly where you kind of continue to say, you know, you mentioned you don’t have a straight path, but saying, hey, tell me about that. Hey, help me learn more. What should I be doing?

Sean: Yeah.

Manuel: So now you get here, you come in intern, they keep bringing you back, and eventually you get hired. I’m assuming at some point, either you got bored, or there was no room for growth or no other opportunities for you. So how did you kind of navigate that as, you know, to say, okay, hey, it’s time to move on. I don’t know if you went, if you moved up at that point, if you moved across to somewhere else, what was kind of like your thought process or from what you can remember what happened?

Sean: Yeah, it was back in, I think, 2011. My kids were pretty young. My daughter was just born. And it was a matter of necessity that we moved from Las Vegas to back to home, which was Hawaii. It wasn’t a, like, it wasn’t a straight path. It was kind of like a lateral move. I moved from systems engineering to working for the Department of Defense, doing systems engineering, managing a data center, kind of doing the overnight, working from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m., just managing backups, managing Active Directory, managing SCCM, and just kind of doing that. You know, it was a very difficult time because my daughter was probably two months old. My son was two years old. You know, they don’t understand that I’m gonna go work from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m., and I gotta sleep during the daytime. They’re young, right? So it was more of a necessity that I made the move. But what I understood from that process was, you know, you gotta be really comfortable with being uncomfortable because I was uncomfortable, like, every day trying to sleep during the day while my kids were playing around, going to work at night, doing something that I didn’t inherently know. I mean, I knew enough about systems engineering, but it’s such a broad, you know, area, right? I didn’t know much about backups. I didn’t know much about, you know, I didn’t manage Active Directory, you know, very much, right? So it was a learning experience. So throughout my career, it’s like, how do I make moves that keep my family fed, keep me from, you know, moving up or gradually up? And so it was just like, hey, go do this. And then eventually I went into security, and then I went into other roles, and I came back to Vegas. So you just learn throughout this whole process that everything is done for a reason, and you just grow from every little thing. And eventually, like two years later, you’re like, oh, that actually helps me in my new career, so I’m gonna use that. And it was two years ago that I had that, so.

Manuel: I’m curious because I had an experience where I kind of had to work that overnight shift. So do you think, I’m curious, outside of just doing your job, a lot of times that overnight shift, it’s usually not as busy. So what did you do to kind of fill your time there? And you mentioned you have younger kids, and it sounds like you kind of want to be there. So I don’t want to, I’m gonna make an educated guess, but I want to hear your point of view is, did that motivate you to say, okay, I need to do more so that I can get out of this overnight shift and spend time with my kids? And then what were you doing to fill your time? Because a lot of times it’s easy to say, well, I’m tired. It’s not so busy, so I can kind of, I’m gonna take a nap, or I’m just gonna take it easy and just not do anything. So what did you kind of do in that role?

Sean: I think you hit the nail on the head. It’s very difficult to not just get comfortable and just take a nap, because also when you went inside of the data center, it’s nice and cold, it’s perfect climate for taking a nap. But you’re right though. It was the motivator to kind of find the next step, right? Because my kids were young, my wife, bless her heart, she put her career on hold. She basically stopped working when my son was born so that I could pursue a career and keep our family moving forward. So it was a lot of like, okay, I’m gonna do my job as manage the backups, manage Active Directory, manage all these different things, but I have to do, but that’s not gonna take eight hours of my day. And I’m the only one here. So what I did to fill that time was I was like, okay, well, started looking at other pathways, right? So my next hop was to information security. So what did I do? I started studying for the CISSP. I started studying all the different security protocols and just learning whatever I could on the security side to be like, okay, maybe my next step isn’t security, but it’s still relative enough to systems so I can kind of use both. So did a lot of studying for that. So that test that CISSP test was one of the hardest tests I took, but I walked out of it. I was like, I don’t think I passed that. But two weeks later, I got the letter saying I passed and I was like, okay, I can use this as the next vehicle to say, okay, where can I go? And I eventually found a day job where I could work in the daytime, come home, spend time with the family. And it wasn’t that craziness of, hey, don’t bother me, I’m sleeping. So it helped my career. And not only that helped me reconnect with my family, which was super important to me at that time.

Manuel: Having that certification, you mentioned that at some point, you’re like, I don’t think security is for me, right? But you continued in and I think that’s something I don’t hear of often, right? Because I pursued networking similar to you. And I was just like, I didn’t enjoy it. I started going through the Cisco Academy, but I didn’t complete it. I mean, I stopped and decided, hey, I’m not gonna do that and pivoted. I see that what I did there still benefited me, but what made you say, hey, I’m gonna finish this anyway, even if I’m not gonna go into security, I know you mentioned that, hey, it’s gonna help me. But having that CSSI, CISSP as a systems engineer, it’s not, doesn’t seem like it aligns as much. So kind of what made you say, hey, I’m gonna do this, even though I don’t think that’s the path I’m gonna pursue.

Sean: I think for me, like I’ve always been curious when it comes to learning, right? Throughout my career, I’ve always tried to kind of keep myself knowing, even if it’s not within my realm of responsibility or my pathway, I’ve always been curious about security side, the database administration side, coding, you know, scripting, and now I’m looking into like ITIL and PNP. So I think it kind of keeps my mind fresh. And at that time, yeah, I had, I had ulterior motives to kind of get the CISSP because there was, in Hawaii, there’s a lot of government jobs and a lot of them are security. So it was like, okay, well, if I can’t find the server job, then I can potentially find the information security job. And information security has always wanted, been one of those big, you know, careers. It’s like, hey, I can make a lot of money here and it can make a big difference here. So I always thought, even if I can’t, even if I don’t use this and go into the information security realm, it’s gonna be something that people are gonna be looking and say, hey, that’s probably one of the hardest certs to get, and this guy got it. So if he can do that, what else can he do, right? So I’ve used kind of think that helped me in future careers of like, hey, he’s not in information security, but he’s done server, he’s done information security, he’s done all these different things. What else can he do? And so I think that’s helped me quite a bit.

Manuel: Got it, so you used it more as like, hey, this will be a backup in case, you know, I can’t find exactly what I’m looking for at this time. But I think that’s a great mindset to have is just understanding it also, like it’s gonna show that I’m versatile, that I can do a number of things. It’s not just, well, he’s a security guy. So then you go through this, did you eventually end up in Hawaii getting that security job or, you know, what kind of led to your next role? Because I’m sure regardless of whether security or not, that helped again, when you’re going through the screenings or, you know, they’re looking at resumes, they’re like, oh, all right, well, let’s bring this guy in. So what kind of transpired?

Sean: Yeah, so a lot of my career is out of necessity and it’s a good necessity. It kind of helped bump me to the next point. So I went from, in the government, you can be a government contractor. So I was just a government contractor working overnight and I went to government contractor working in daytime, working for Booz Allen Hamilton. So I was a contractor for them for probably about six months to a year. A lot of government contractors, the next step is to try to get into the government as a government, like a GS, a government scale. I had the opportunity to become a GS employee as an information security officer. Did that for, I thought I was gonna retire there because, you know, once you get into the government, you’re set. Things transpired in life or I was like, hey, I gotta move back to Vegas. And so I went from information security officer for the Department of Defense to, I mentioned earlier was working for the casino, doing database administration, tech support. And I think that’s where our paths crossed is right around that time when I was doing the DBA work and then I was doing tech support, but then they needed more people with experience on the system side. So then that’s when I started doing the server builds and doing the casino go lives and things of that sort. So like, again, everything kind of transpires for a reason and it’s all through necessity.

Manuel: Makes sense now because I remember around the time you were coming in, like there was a lot of questions kind of going on, whereas, you know, cause I think when they hired you, like, oh, I hired this, we just hired this systems administrator. So in my mind, you were already kind of used to doing that. But again, on the database side, you knew all that. But again, that curiosity like, hey, how about this? How about that? And I do remember, it kind of makes sense. Now I hear in the story because you were asking questions and once that project was done, I remember I gave you my contact information and was like, hey, if you have any questions, reach out. Like I can, I may not get back to you right away, cause I gotta do other work, but I’ll answer your questions. And I think that’s, that probably subconsciously is what kind of kept that relationship going. It’s just like, oh, he’s interested in, hey, there’s back and forth. And then eventually it became like, hey, how are your kids doing? Oh, I’ve got kids around that same age. So it’s interesting. You mentioned necessity because that could probably also be another reason that similar to you, I was like, well, I never thought probably two or three jobs ahead of where I was trying to get to. It was always, what can I do to get to that next step? I took it one hop at a time. So you get in there, you’re database, you’re going in and now you’re picking up the server administration, you’re doing a lot of VMware, a lot of Microsoft. In that role and up to this point, are you kind of starting to think two or three jobs ahead? Like some people do that, some don’t. So I’m just curious, like, what was your mindset at that point? Cause you’ve been in IT now for a while. Yeah, and people start to think like, oh, once you’re in, you know where you’re headed. Was that your kind of experience?

Sean: Absolutely not. I wish younger me was like, hey, I had the foresight to plan ahead. I’ve never planned more than my next thing. And most of that time it was like, oh, look into it. That sounds kind of cool, right? It’s not like I’m actively looking for the next thing. And I think my career, even though I kind of hop from different positions like database, server, information security to application engineering, I’ve always had what I call like a vehicle, like, hey, you know, SCCM or VMware has always been that thing that I was always a commonality in all the different jobs, right? Hey, we need an SCCM administrator. We need someone that knows the SCCM platform. We need someone that knows VMware. And when I spoke to you, I knew that VMware was huge at that time. So that’s why I had a lot of questions for you. Like, hey, how do I build a ESXi server? How do I build a virtual machines? I think having that vehicle to say, hey, that’s what you specialize in, no matter what career you go into is important. And that’s how I went from building servers for the company that you worked with and to being a system engineer working on SCCM, working on VMware, building servers, building backups for a casino provider here. And I was lucky enough. I don’t think I’ve ever thought of myself, like I said, I don’t plan two steps ahead. I don’t think I’ve ever planned to be a manager. I’m a functional introvert. Like I can have conversations with you, but I never thought that I’m gonna be managing six, 10 people to be able to be a manager. But the opportunity came along and I was like, hey, that sounds kind of cool. But it’s a, like I said, you have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable because I went from individual contributor to now managing four or five people. And it’s a whole different ballgame when you’re doing that. So it’s a different journey, I would say.

Manuel: And is that around the time, because I know that you did the management there for a while. And then if I remember correctly, is that around the time that you kind of became a manager or that first one with the smaller team, or was that later on?

Sean: It was, I think it was a little bit later on. Yeah, I was working for a casino, what do you call it? A casino provider here. They do all the machines, they do all the systems here, the casino systems. And I was just a regular systems engineer, but then our manager had left the company and they, I guess they saw some promise in me of like, hey, you wanna be a manager? And I was strictly on the technical side. I didn’t have any experience managing anybody. And I think that’s a hard leap for a lot of people to make. Like either you can do really well at it if you’re highly technical, or you can really fail at it because you struggle with the people side of it. And it took a lot of adjustment to kind of push away from the technical and still be technical. But at the same time, I went from being one of the individual contributors working with friends and people that I hang out with after work and going out to like play video games to now being their manager and having that kind of, you have to draw the line of, hey, I’m your manager, but at the same time, we’re friends, we used to be friends. And now we’re, I’m no longer your cohort, I’m now your manager. So now we have to draw that line there.

Manuel: And is that something when you went through that, did you have that honest conversation? Because I’ve only been in that scenario, actually I’ve been in that scenario twice. I went from being somebody’s manager to being their peer to eventually them being my manager. And then I had another situation where we went from peers to them being my manager. And I think that second scenario happened first. And again, he was a newer manager, but I think having that conversation with me and saying, hey, we’re friends, we’re cool. But when we’re at work, like if I tell you to do something, like I’ll let you know, hey, this is work, this has to get done. And you can tell when it’s, hey, this is work related versus, hey, what did you do this weekend? He was, but if you’re okay, and I had to be okay with that type of dynamic, but I think had he not set me down from the get-go and say, hey, before you even apply, is this something you would be okay with? And I was like, well, yeah. And I think that ultimately led me to say yes, because of the fact that they had that frank conversation. Is that something you did in that role as well? And was it received the same way?

Sean: I think it was a learning experience for me, just because we were colleagues for so long, maybe two, three years, when I assumed the manager role, it was a lot of trying to learn how the dynamic works. Because it wasn’t like night and day, we’re like, hey, one day I’m your colleague, next thing I’m your manager, like when we’re at work, it’s just strictly business. It was, you lose sight of that, because you’re just one of the colleagues, you’re just kind of joking around. And then when you ask them to do something, a lot of times it’s like, oh, it’s just Sean. Who’s he to ask me? But then you gotta kind of set that bar of like, hey, I’m your manager, we need to get things done. And so for me, it was more of a gradual working. And there were a couple of times where it was very difficult, because I had to have very frank conversations with individuals. And during those conversations, it was like, you know, kind of like, who are you to say, this you are just one of us and now you’re a manager. I had to really just say, that’s no longer the case, right? We have to set that standard. And setting those boundaries, even though it was difficult to get to, was important. And then for me, that was the most difficult time from that transition to manager is, because I had that connection. Now, I still have that connection with the people that I work with, the developers that I lead, but it’s easier to do it because you kind of, like you do it like in your situation, you set that expectation up front. Hey, we can chat afterward, we can play video games, we can go out and hang out. But at the same time, when we’re at work, if I ask you to do something, it’s not because I’m just asking you, we have to do this. So I think that that boundary and that expectation is important to set right out the gate.

Manuel: I know you mentioned that later on, you continue to do more management, even though you found it difficult, you continue to do it. So I guess I have two questions, but I’ll start with one is, what is it that kept you in that role, or at least interested? Because again, I managed once, I did it for a while, it was great until it wasn’t, and then I realized I didn’t want to do it ever again. But you kind of stuck with it. And I think I could have continued to do it. Like there’s aspects of it that I like, and there’s aspects that I don’t. So but what kept you in that role, and what do you think made you continue to get better and not want to go back just to being that individual contributor?

Sean: I think for me, it’s, I think it’s kind of seeing the development of people and having that impact on people’s lives, right? Because as a manager, as a leader, any position where you have individual contributors under you, you have the impact that is critical to their career. Like you can either make or break their career and they’re trusting you with it. And so for me, it’s always been that, hey, how do I harness their career? Like, hey, if they want to, I’m not trying to keep them there forever, right? How do I get them to the next step? Whether it’s a senior position, a architect, whatever it is, or if they say, hey, Sean, in two years, I want to go work for some other company. Great, how do I get you there? It’s not personal, it’s how do I put it under my belt and say, yep, I help X, Y, Z get to where they want to be. And so I’ve always had that feeling of kind of happiness when someone kind of gets what they need out of their career and gets what they need out of me. And for me, what makes me happy is when people tell me, hey, things are kind of crazy, things are kind of hectic, I’m having a hard time, but me as a leader makes it easier on them because that makes me feel like I’m doing the right thing. And that kind of fuels me to kind of keep going and seeing my impact on their careers and their everyday lives and how I can improve upon it is what has kept me in this management career, even though I kind of like got pushed into it.

Manuel: Kind of thinking back on some of the, what I would feel are, and you’ve said it repeatedly, you didn’t call yourself a manager, it’s a leader, right? So that good leadership and the ones that do that, again, they are trying to develop, they are trying to help. And is that something that you were getting as well? Because as a good leader, again, helping others and I still enjoy that, I think what kind of drove me away from the management part is again, more the political side. I’m okay being a lead, I like that part because I can help develop and help you grow. It was just a lot of the management, the paperwork stuff that I didn’t enjoy. But in order to be that successful leader, did you have those type of leaders as you were going through or even in that role, right? To help make you successful, you have to have somebody that helps support you. So I’m assuming that that’s kind of another aspect of it. And then also what are you doing on your own? Are you reading books? Are you just similar to before? Are you just asking people, how are you developing those skills to continue to improve? Because I know it was gradual, but then it wasn’t like a year in, you’re like, I got this.

Sean: I’m the guy. And I think you’re right, right? There’s a difference and I purposely use the word leader compared to manager, right? There’s a huge difference between someone that leads and someone that managers, right? And I’ve had, I wouldn’t say that I’ve had the best leaders or managers throughout my career. You kind of learn from both, right? You learn from the bad ones, you learn from the good ones and you kind of take both and you find out what works for you. And as a manager, you find those that are more in it for themselves, right? They don’t really want the people underneath them to succeed. They’re just there to do something, do a role or do a task that elevates the manager or the person that is gonna get the credit. So I’ve seen a lot of that in my career where a leader really comes into it is they elevate people. People are doing the job and people are doing the technical work, but the people that they lead want them to succeed. They’re doing tasks to elevate the leader. And so I feel that it’s very important as a leader that we are elevating them so that they wanna elevate us. So I’ve had really good directors that, in my last two jobs, they were great leaders. They really cared about people. They really cared about the people that have worked underneath them. They really wanted the best. They would go out of their way to, even if it was an uncomfortable position, they would be like, “Hey, I got your back.” And it makes a huge difference knowing you had that leader instead of someone that’s gonna tell you, “Hey, I need you to do this.” And as soon as that thing doesn’t get done, they chuck you under the bus, right? So to me, I envision myself as hopefully one of those directors that I ever had compared to one of those managers just said, “Go do it. I’m gonna elevate myself to a VP eventually, but you’re still gonna be stuck in your individual contributor role.”

Manuel: You mentioned earlier that you’ve considered yourself more of an introvert. Do you think that that is kind of, even if you won’t say it, led to your success because you’re not looking for the credit, you’re not looking for that like, “Hey, look at me” type of situation and you really are more vested in other people. Do you think that having that type of personality, for you, again, I’m not saying that everybody, but for you specifically, do you think that that helped you is that, “Hey, I don’t wanna shine, but if I can help other people shine,” do you think that that plays a lot into it?

Sean: I think so. I think as an introvert, there’s a lot of value between introverts, extroverts, and someplace in between. And me as an introvert, I’m more of that guy that kind of listens and analyzes and then gives my feedback as needed. And so when I’m having conversations with the, with colleagues on my team, where the team members on my team, it’s more, how do I listen to their problems? How do I help kind of guide them without saying too much? Because a lot of people just wanna be heard. And so I think as an introvert, I think it did help me just being more inquisitive, being more quiet, being just more on the background. Like you just mentioned, I don’t go in there for the spotlight. I don’t go in there for the, all the, you know, hoorah, right? I just do it. And then eventually I think people start to notice, even though it’s maybe a slower path, but people, when it does happen, everybody kind of wants you to win. And I think that’s the difference between me kind of pushing my way and being a manager and me being a leader, right? As a leader, people want you to succeed. As a manager, yeah, you may succeed, but then what trail of bodies have you left in the wake? And so I think there’s a lot of value to introverts. And on my team, you can, I think it’s detrimental when you try to push an introvert to be an extrovert, an extrovert to be an introvert in whichever way, you just gotta treat everyone as their own individual. You can’t cookie cutter it, right? And so that’s what I tried to bring into my leadership style is, hey, how do I treat this individual as an individual, as seven people on my team? Each one is individual, not cookie cutter it. And I think it makes a huge difference when you have those conversations and when you have that path up for them.

Manuel: Is there anything that you, like, are you a big reader? Like, do you read books on leadership? Do you follow certain things? Like, what are you doing? You know, cause on the technical side, it’s easy to say, well, I want to do the CISSP, right? Like, okay, well, I can go get the book. I can start studying. I can watch a couple of videos on the leadership side, you know, and being, communication is another thing, right? Like, you have to learn how to communicate with your team. You’re probably also communicating up with, you know, your leadership, you know, higher above. So communication is another skill. What do you, what did you do? Or what are you kind of looking back if someone says, hey, I would like to get into a manager type role. What would you recommend to them or even to your younger self? Hey, these are skills or these are things that looking back now, I would recommend that you would have done or to somebody else.

Sean: I think if I was looking back probably 15 years ago and I said, hey, I want to be a manager or a leader, I would probably find someone that I can mentor and really say, hey, teach me. Because I mean, we’re having this conversation, you know, 20 years after my career started, what I would do, I would have that same conversation with someone 15 years ago and say, what can I do in order to elevate my career into potentially a manager position? Because it’s people management and technical is completely different, even though in IT, you do kind of toe the line between the two. I also read a lot of books, you know, like, you know, Simon Sinek, “Start With The Why,” because as a leader, as an individual contributor, when things get crazy, you just worry about your little realm of what’s your responsibility as a leader, you now gotta manage everyone’s problems. And so as things get kind of crazy, that book’s Simon Sinek, “Start With The Why,” is like, you gotta ask yourself why? You can’t take on all these different responsibilities and then drown your team in all of these different tasks. You have to start with the why, make sure that you know what you’re getting yourself into, and then kind of push back and say, hey, those things are important, but not as important, because we don’t know why we’re doing it. So Simon Sinek, I’ve read some books about like, quiet leadership, I’ve read books about, you know, managing teams from a distance, because my team, they’re all over the place. I don’t have anybody here in Las Vegas. It’s Utah, New York, you know, Ohio, Boston, so we’re, we’re all over the United States. So managing people at a distance is very different from managing people when you’re face to face. And so reading books, taking training, like even though I’m not as technical on that technical side, I still have to be able to speak intelligently to these individuals. So I do a lot of personal certifications with like ServiceNow, looking into PMP, because as a leader, I think it’s important that you get your PMP, because a lot, what I didn’t realize in the beginning, a lot of it is managing projects, managing people, and project management, the PMP certification would be huge to be able to understand how to manage the people, understand the processes, agile, waterfall, and things of that sort. So I think having that certification, having the right mentor, and just having the right books, and like literature, and YouTube, and whatnot, is huge to say, yep, that’s how you kind of take your step to management before you even know that you’re gonna be a manager.

Manuel: That’s good to know, and I have read that book, that it’s Simon Sinek, and it was very insightful. Like again, I was just like, oh, well, you hear a lot about it, but again, it’s why. And that’s something is, even as an individual contributor, there’s a lot of times I start, you know, like, I will question, like, why am I doing this? And sometimes when I, for good or bad, when leadership or somebody would come to me and say, hey, this, I would ask why. Again, it’s not that I’m questioning them or their authority, but helping to understand, okay, why am I doing this? What’s the value? What’s the benefit? And really trying to understand it from that standpoint. Now, you’re going through, you’re picking up all these leadership skills, project management you brought up, because you’re right, having to go through and manage projects with teams, right? Like you have deadlines. Something that I don’t think has come up much, but I’m just curious now is time management, right? Because you’re managing projects, but you’re managing not only your own time, hey, I’m sure you’ve got reports, you’ve got things you’ve got to do, you’ve got projects. Is time management something that you’ve been good at? And, or is that something you’ve kind of developed over time and then having to manage other people’s time as well? Because, you know, I can give you a task, you probably have to know who is going to be good at managing their time, they’ll get it done early, whereas this person might get it done towards the end, these people in the middle. So from a time management standpoint, like what are you doing there? What, I guess, what’s helpful or not helpful?

Sean: I think I’ve always been decent at time management, having, you know, there are times when, you know, things are super critical and you’ve got like a hundred different things, like you come into work, you’re like, I got to work on these 10 things. And then all of a sudden you’re like, I didn’t work on any of those 10 things. I got 10, 50 other things. It’s time management is huge, right? It’s just, how do you make the most out of your day? Like, I mean, as a leader now, I call it meeting madness, right? Like I spend probably 75% of my time in meetings. And so 25% of the time I’m trying to do actual work, planning projects, you know, talking to, you know, stakeholders, talking to business owners, you know, talking to my team, making sure that things are moving forward. So I don’t have the recipe for like success when it comes to time management. But for me, I think the PMP has been kind of enlightening because it teaches you how to get more information before you even start a task or like, hey, the whole requirements gathering, where we struggle, and I’m sure other people struggle, that watch this is you get a requirement and then you start developing and then all of a sudden that requirement changes, the scope creep or the shift. And then you go back and you get a rework it. And it’s that constant back and forth, or you’re like, hey, I’m working on this one thing, but I’ve got four or five other tasks. So now you’re bouncing between and you’re reacclimating yourself to step or task one. And then you go to task three as a, what I’ve learned in the last year is minimizing that bouncing back and forth. Hey, just give the developers three tasks per sprint. So every two weeks, give them three tasks instead of seven tasks that minimizes the back and forth of I’m bouncing between tasks, getting better requirements, understanding like, okay, I need to solidify this. As a leader, I need to make sure that whoever’s asking for this agrees upon it before we even start. That’ll save my developers times in saying, yep, whatever we start is what we’re gonna finish with. And so that even though we’re not getting more time, we’re minimizing the time loss. And so that’s what I’ve kind of learned from the project management, from just hard lessons of like, okay, we’re struggling to keep up. We’re working 50 hours a week, but we still feel like we’re drowning. How do we adjust this? How do we learn from this to work only 40 hours, but get more done through that time?

Manuel: So I know we kind of focused a little bit more on like kind of your growth and how you’re doing things. So now as you’ve been in this manager position for a little while, and eventually you kind of obviously kind of move out and move around. What leads to those types of decisions? Like what is it that says, okay, I’ve accomplished what I’ve accomplished here, or is it another change of circumstance? Like what leads you to kind of the next role?

Sean: I think if you would have asked me 15 years ago, I mean, as a young person, it was like money, right? Like money kind of drives you, but as I’ve gotten older my family has gotten older, my kids, they’re more, everything’s more stable. I think what I look for in the next step is not necessarily, hey, I want more money. It’s what piques my interest, right? Cause I went from, you know, department, like from government to the casino industry to now financial tech, right? And to me, if I was to look for another step, I think it’s the mission, right? The mission of the company. Cause you have to really believe in what you’re doing, right? And in the casino industry, the mission is, you know, to make more money. And unfortunately, the way they make more money is people losing the money. It was hard to as swallow as you get older, like, okay, now I’m just kind of taking money from one person to give to a corporation. For me in the financial tech firm, for the company I work with, we build wealth for people, right? So it’s like, hey, we’re doing something that helps people get what they need for healthcare and things of that sort. So I believe in the mission. And so if my next step, if I was ever to make the next step, it would be like, hey, I need to make sure that the mission is right so that I can sleep at night knowing that I’ve worked for a company that’s doing better for the world. And then two, I think if I was to move on to a new role, it would be, how do I do something for the company that builds something from scratch? Like, I don’t want to just come in there and just do the day-to-day and just manage something that’s already done. I want to build it from the ground up. Say, hey, I built this whole platform. Look at what we can do. We built up this team. So it would be the goals of the company, the mission of the company, and if I could build something from scratch. Because I think as you get older, it’s more about what you can do for someone else and what you can say, hey, I did that more than the money itself.

Manuel: I think you nailed it. Because I would say that similar to me early on, you know, you’re young, you’re chasing the money, and you’re thinking that that’s what’s going to kind of make you happy. But ultimately, it does lead you to kind of bouncing around and jumping. Whereas if you believe in what you’re doing, or there’s a vested interest, you probably don’t move around as long as at the same time you’ve got to have that personal growth, right? Like, I can work on something all day, but if it starts to get monotonous, as much as I believe in the company and the mission, there’s stagnation there, right? Because I firmly believe in that growth mindset. And just, hey, there’s always, I’m constantly growing. If I don’t know it now, I’ll figure it out. At one point, you know, in a prior conversation that we had had, you mentioned that you had actually hired a coach. I want to say it was like an interview coach. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Because prior to talking to you, I mean, I’ve seen coaches everywhere now, and there’s, you know, mentorships and different things like that, but I had never heard of an interview coach. And that’s something that really intrigued me. So can you tell me more about that experience? What ultimately led you to find this person or how you even became aware of this, you know, and kind of what transpired from there?

Sean: Yeah, so it was back when I was working for the government. I was going down the route of trying to work for a three-letter agency. And so this three-letter agency has very rigorous interview processes. It has, you know, you have to do lie detector, you have to do physical fitness. So I started reading up on it, me being the one that wants to be prepared for it. I’m like, okay, well, first step is to interview. And so I Googled it, and sure enough, one of the things that popped up was interview coach. I’m like, to me, I’m like, an interview is an interview. I’ve done them a couple of times. Like, why would I need one? But then they really started to get into like the details of what this interview coach would teach you. And even though that I don’t work for that three-letter agency now, it has taught me a lot about what you should do when it comes to an interview. And so some of the things that they kind of, this interview coach kind of went through was like, this agency would ask you a certain list of questions. They should say they have 10 questions. You have an hour to go through the interview. They’ll ask you a question, and it’s a panel interview. There’s like five people just staring at you. And so the tendency for an, as an interviewer or interviewee is to just answer the question and then continue to ramble on until you feel like you’ve answered the question. This type of interview is they’ll ask you a question and they’ll just sit back and they’ll just stare at you. And they’ll let you talk for the entire hour for that one question. And then you basically won’t pass the interview because you didn’t answer the other nine questions. So this interview coach was like, okay, you have to understand, you have to be clear and concise. You answer the question and then you gotta be okay, which is stopping while those individuals are just staring at you. And they’ll stare at you for 15, 30 seconds to a minute to see if you’ll continue to talk and feel that awkward silence. So that’s one thing that she taught me. The other thing she taught me is when you’re having a interview, you always want to have a introduction to your answer, a body and an ending. And then that’s how you format your answers so that they know that, yep, that’s the answer. He’s thinking about this in a logical process and he’s happy with this answer, so he stops. That I’ve seen a lot of people in my experience do that very well, not just IT people. I’ve interviewed a cook for an IT position. Super good at storytelling. I was just like, wow, that is exactly what the interview coach taught me. It was like, have that story, have that beginning body end, be uncomfortable with the breaks at the end and just stop. And so there’s some other little tidbits that she threw in, but those two resonated with me for every single interview that I’ve done and every single person I’ve told, hey, this is what you want to do in an interview. And everyone is like, yep, it’s huge because it’s hard to stop. Right now I’m kind of rambling. It’s hard to just stop and be like, okay, I’m done talking. That’s my answer. Move on to the next thing.

Manuel: And you’re right there because it’s something that as I’ve gone through and I’ve been working to kind of improve my communication skills in, not just in this format, but just even at work. I had a guest on here at one point and she mentioned Toastmasters. And that’s something that had come up and I started talking to other people. I’d heard a lot about it and I finally went through and decided to sign up. So I’m gonna be starting that here in like a week or so. I’ve also read for those that are interested in books, there’s a book called “The Power of Voice” by Denise Woods. And she just talks about annunciation, pausing, but every speaking coach, everything that I’ve read is that pause, right? And being clear and concise. The amount of like how well that elevates you and just not knowing because again, being uncomfortable with that pause and just thinking like, okay, well maybe they’re stopped because I didn’t give them enough information or I didn’t answer this correctly, you know, even where I work now, helping others with presentations and you know, you kind of stop and you’re just waiting. And a lot of times that person’s processing what you just finished saying and then you kind of continue on and we teach like that time management. If it’s a 30 minute presentation, you have 30 minutes. Like you can’t go over, you get dinged for it. Similar to that situation. Is that something, you know, mentioned early on, do you think that that has had significant impact in you attaining additional roles as you’ve gone through? Like I know you didn’t mention, I don’t know at what point in your career, you didn’t work for them, but has that helped you? Would you say that because of that coaching and because of that knowledge that you just weren’t aware of before, would you say that you are now, you were more successful at passing that interview and moving on to the next round?

Sean: Yeah.

Manuel: As opposed to before that?

Sean: I think so. I mean, everything that I’ve done in my career, I feel like it was a, there was a reason why. Even though I didn’t get that, go down that career path, that the lessons that I learned through that interview coach was monumental because I’ve done, you know, countless amount of interviews and having that, you know, the power of the pause, right? Like having the ability to like stop and just say, yep, I’m confident in my answer onto the next question. If I didn’t do that interview coach, I don’t think I would have ever learned that. Maybe I would have learned that eventually. And then having that format, like, you know, you write papers, you’re like, oh yeah, beginning, body, ending, you’re like, okay, that’s fine. But you don’t really think about that in an interview, unless you somehow learn it. And then the other thing that she taught was, even though you don’t know the answer, like even though you can’t give something like that’s directly related, talk about something in your life that’s somewhat related. Just don’t say, I don’t know. Don’t say, yep, you know, I have no experience with that. Give something so that they can actually see the thought process behind what you’re saying. It’s a more, it’s an easier thing to say, I don’t know, than to say, well, I don’t have experience with that, but this kind of relates to that. And I think this would kind of help my reasoning for why I think that this is a good answer for the interview. So definitely think that the interviewing has helped me. I think throughout my career, seeing people that are really good at using that pause, using that like, hey, I’m just gonna talk really slow and really enunciate, really be intentional with their words, with their verbiage. And even though they speak slowly, they take pauses, I can’t help but be amazed at them, like, wow, like they’re talking slowly, they’re enunciating, they’re pausing, I’m like, there’s a lot of power to that. And I really need to learn, even though 20 years later, I’m still trying to be better at it.

Manuel: So now with the communication, so it’s obviously helping you improve, it’s probably outside of just getting jobs, speaking with leadership and being concise. One of the things that I’ve had a prior guest, and I don’t know if this is something that that coach had brought up is, a lot of times people go, did that answer your question? Does that make sense? And that actually does two things, right? It kind of helps, it actually brings you down. Or you’re indirectly kind of bringing that other person’s intelligence down. Oh, does that make sense? Like, because I explained it, so it should. So is that something that she happened to mention at some point or has it come up?

Sean: She didn’t mention it, but that’s a good point though. You shouldn’t feel the need to ask that question, or you should feel confident in your answer, whatever it is, to not have to ask, do you agree or is that correct? Because you’re right, it kind of diminishes your intelligence and the power that you have, and also that diminishes theirs. Because now you’re saying, kind of asking them, hey, were you following? Were you paying attention? Can you follow what I’m saying? So having that, a lot of people do that, and I do that sometimes too, just naturally try to fill that void of awkwardness, but it is a power play to not have to do that, right? And we all benefit from not having to say, yeah, do you understand? Is that correct?

Manuel: Yep. So I don’t know what else, I know we’ve covered a lot, you shared a lot of good, your career path, kind of your mindset, how you kind of navigated, and I found a lot of value, there’s a lot of things that you’ve kind of brought up that again, I don’t think it’s even just somebody that’s just starting out, right? Somebody like me, I’ve been in the career probably just a couple more years than you have, but I even now, I’m like, oh, I didn’t think about that, I’m gonna use that, or I never thought about it that way, even some of the things that you’ve done, then I’m like, oh, I’ve done that, but I didn’t think about it in that context. So throughout this conversation, is there anything that I haven’t asked you, anything that you kind of want to bring up, something that you feel is important, I just kind of want to open it up to you and say, okay, Manny, I answered your questions, but here’s something that I really want to speak about.

Sean: Good question. I think when it comes to learning and to your path forward, I would probably say that to me, there’s always three aspects of learning. One is to learn for your role, right? So you study books, you do YouTube, you watch Reddit, you read Reddit, you go and watch Udemy, things of that sort. So you learn through necessity of your current role. Then to me, it’s also important to start thinking about the next step, right? So artificial intelligence is big right now, so learn artificial intelligence, something that you’re thinking, okay, that’s my next step, PNP, ITIL, or things that I’m wanting to learn. So that’s the second kind of thing that I’m trying to push when it comes to learning. The third thing that I do just to kind of keep my head sane is learn for my own personal enjoyment, right? So I’m trying to learn Japanese because me and my family are gonna go to Japan in the summertime, so just trying to learn Japanese. I took it in high school, but I think having that three-tier learning of necessity, okay, my next step, and what I wanna do, personal growth, whether it’s learning guitar or learning knitting learning a new language, I think is important. So I think that’s one of the things that I would impart on people is don’t just learn for what you need to do, learn for yourself. And then also, like I mentioned, not everyone’s gonna have a perfectly linear path. Be okay with, I wanna go parallel, I’m gonna go perpendicular, I’m gonna go every which way, I’m gonna go backwards. We all have our own path, which is okay. Just be comfortable with, yep, I have my eye on the prize, I wanna get to this point, and know that we’re all gonna have setbacks. You’ve had setbacks, I’ve had setbacks, and it’s okay. And then third, what I try to really impart on myself on a day-to-day basis is just be a good person, right? Be, even though I’m a leader, I treat everyone with the same respect, with the same openness, the same candor, right? Don’t try to treat people differently just because they’re an intern, they’re an engineer, they’re a CIO, they’re a VP. Everyone is just a person trying to make their way through this life, trying to make it through their career, trying to get to the next step. Just talk to them like a regular person, be nice, be genuine, be honest, be candid, and I think you’ll go far in this world.

Manuel: And I’m glad you brought up that last point, and that’s something that, I’ve had the discussions with other people, because some people get nervous around certain titles. They’re like, “Oh, this is the CEO,” or “This is the this,” but the intern they’re okay with, because it’s an intern, right? And really understanding that it doesn’t matter what that person’s title is, again, they’re a person, they’re a person, that CEO at one point probably was an intern. So they don’t, and I wanna be careful in how I say this, is they don’t, because of their title necessarily, there is a form of respect, right? Because they’ve worked their way to get there, but that doesn’t necessarily make them better than the intern, they’re just at a different point in their career, in their experiences. So again, I’m glad you kind of brought that up, and I hope that that’s something that people take away, is don’t have that fear of talking to anybody, right? Just because of what it says after their name.

Sean: Yep, exactly, everyone started some ways, like CEOs or interns, they were McDonald’s cooks. I mean, I started McDonald’s, I worked to this, like everyone started someplace, we’re not gonna fault them for where they started, and a lot of that builds your character. So a lot of these CEOs, a lot of these VPs, they understand it, and so I think you do a detriment to yourself to get into that head space of like, oh, it’s a CEO, I gotta be on my best behavior, I gotta really tiptoe around this, just talk to them like they’re a normal person. And I think they’ll respect that, and I think your conversation with them will go a lot smoother, because you’re not getting into your own head, and you’re like, oh my God, I’m gonna screw this up, it’s a CEO, no, just treat them like any other colleague treat them like me and you are talking, everyone just needs that feeling of we’re just another person.

Manuel: Well, I appreciate you coming on and kind of sharing your story and your experiences, and I think you gave a lot of good information, it was also great to reconnect with you and kind of catch up. So, if at some point, as you kind of move on down your career, I know that this was kind of outside of your comfort zone again, and you continue to kind of do things that are uncomfortable to continue to your own personal growth. So again, I appreciate that. And for everybody that’s watching or listening, again, thank you for taking the time to kind of listen. I really hope that you’re finding value in these, and again, the one ask that I have and that I will always have is provide the feedback. Let me know what you are enjoying, what you aren’t, the type of people that you wanna bring in, the types of roles. Again, I do a lot of this, really I do all of it to try and help others through mentorship, teaching, things that I do. So again, just provide me your feedback so that I can make sure that I am bringing you the type of content that you are looking for and enjoying. So with that, plug in and download the knowledge, and until next time.