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

Episode Information Show Notes Description: In this episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez sits down with Allen Tyson, a seasoned network engineering professional, to discuss his fascinating journey into the tech world. Discover how Allen transitioned from aspiring teacher to tech expert, and learn valuable insights on skill development, career pivots, and the importance of continuous learning in the fast-paced tech industry. Key Topics: Allen’s unexpected entry into the tech world through a data center job The power of curiosity and self-directed learning in career growth Strategies for skill acquisition and knowledge retention in tech Transitioning from technical roles to management and back again The importance of humility and asking questions to accelerate learning Tools and techniques for personal knowledge management Balancing technical skills with people management in director roles Finding passion and fulfillment in your tech career Quotes: “If you’re not humble to be able to want to improve, if you think you know everything, then when it comes to getting feedback, you don’t want it and you’re certainly not going to go get it.” – Allen Tyson “Your stress should be the people you work with… If when the drama of the people goes away and you’ve got that work, whatever that work is, and you look at it and you’re like ‘I don’t want to do this,’ then there’s a problem.” – Allen Tyson Resources Mentioned: GNS3 and EVE-NG (network simulation tools) Anki and SuperMemo (spaced repetition software) Roam Research, Logseq, and other Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) tools “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” (book) “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” (book) Connect with Allen Tyson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allen-tyson-9067b45/ Call-to-Action: Love the show? Subscribe, rate, and review Career Downloads on your favorite podcast platform. Don’t forget to share this episode with a friend who’s looking to level up their tech career! Tags: #CareerDownloads #TechCareers #NetworkEngineering #ContinuousLearning #CareerDevelopment #TechIndustry #PersonalGrowth #SkillAcquisition Transcription Manuel: Hi everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each week and each episode I come and I hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn a little bit more about their career, their journey, tips and tricks that they’ve learned along the way. And today I’m very excited, I have a good friend of mine is Allen Tyson and with that welcome Allen. Allen: How you doing? Hey good to see you man thanks for having me. I know you talked about it and you know it’s off the ground you got an awesome space here so thank you. I’m looking forward to it. Manuel: Yeah it’s it took a little bit of work but it’s definitely I think it’s something that will be really beneficial to you know people in our industry and just looking to get into it. Maybe who are curious or if they’re looking to either get into tech which again we’ve talked before tech is very broad. Allen: Yeah definitely. Manuel: So having different perspectives from different people that do not only have different backgrounds but also are in different roles. Even if you and me had gone through the same the same path right hey we went to the same places where our experiences are going to be very different right. So I’m very excited and even if people who are already in the industry maybe they pick up some tips for their current role or if they’re looking to make a role a role change into something different. Allen: Yeah and I think that’s one of the things that we kind of talked about too is you know when we were first getting into tech and just kind of figuring some things out there really wasn’t a platform like this right. I mean there really wasn’t you know a way that you could kind of say okay well let me see what somebody else who’s successful or you know who’s had some level of success like what have they done, but more importantly like what are the things they wish they didn’t do right. So we kind of have that ability now you know to kind of share some of those things and I think just like you and I were talking a little bit you know offline there’s so many more tools and resources that you have today to just scaffold and just be so much more successful so much quicker, but a lot of times people don’t you know, know about those things. pefully, like we can chat we can share some of those things and kind of put people in a better position than we were when we kind of first got started you know. Manuel: Exactly so let’s start off and just kind of give me again it doesn’t have to be very in depth but just give me a little bit of background of kind of where you grew up and how you kind of slowly started and got interested in tech. Allen: Yeah, so I was born originally in Ohio and I kind of lived there for a few years but I would say like you know my my hometown where I grew up is in Colorado. I grew up in Aurora, Colorado I’m kind of went to school there you know went to some college there got my certs there and for me tech wasn’t really where I was focused at. So you know my sister you know is one of my heroes right you know my sister Cynthia and she kind of went to school and got her PhD and I wanted to be a teacher. So that’s the direction that I was going I was going to school to be a teacher and I was working for a cable company just to be able to get the school benefits to be able to go to school. I mean and back then I mean I hate to admit it but I didn’t know a lot about printers and I could put paper in and you know I just was not like a tech guy. So I worked you know in customer service to be able to do that to be able to go to school. There was a job that actually paid more money in a data center. Knew absolutely nothing about data center didn’t know anything about computers or any of that. But I knew that if I got the night shift job I could go to school during the day and I talked to the manager there and I said look I don’t know a lot about technology I’m applying for the job because I’m internal if you give me an opportunity I mean I will definitely learn it. I want to be a teacher here’s what some of my goals are and he’s like okay and getting into the data center exposed me to like computers and exposed me to technology and then I was able to find out like what a router was and what a switch was and that just kind of ignited you know like this desire to learn more about tech. And then from there it’s sort of like deviated away from wanting to be a teacher. I started getting more into tech started learning more about it started getting more certifications and figuring some of those things out and then that led me to like navigate to Network Engineering and then being a Senior Network Engineer and then you know being in the Director role for a while and wanting to get back into Engineering and then working for like some major ISPs and you know working here in Vegas. So it ended up kind of being a roundabout way to find something that I was really passionate about but I had no idea because originally I wanted to to be a teacher because that’s something that I loved and sharing things was something I love and I think I kind of got that from my sister too. So yeah it was a very different journey for me when it came to tech I wasn’t one of those people that just grew up and always wanted to know how stuff works I was like way on the opposite. Manuel: So but did you always have a natural curiosity like just in general? I mean I know not for tech like hey how does this work but just were you a curious person? Did you enjoy challenges? Like what what really kind of sparked your interest in technology once you got exposed? Allen: Well I mean I always liked learning right I always liked learning new things and you know neuroscience and meta learning. Which are some of the things that we’ve talked about before were always like hobbies because I always found it like fascinating that how do you acquire a new skill and once you acquire that new skill how do you maintain it and then how do you make sure you don’t forget that new skill. Which leads to things like how does space repetition work and how do we forget. So those type of things were always interesting to me and I think I gravitated towards those more on the cognitive side because it was related to teaching. So I was thinking about like if I had students like how would I reach them. How would I make sure I’m part of that information to them so a lot of experimentation and because of that when I got into technology it was some of those same things. Like okay well you know how does this work? I mean when you click Enter here what happens or when routes need to go out to the internet like what do they do? You know how do they operate? And so that curiosity I think was just very important and I think that’s definitely something you have to have no matter what it is you know that that you’re learning. One you need to be curious about it you know. Two you have to be interested but if you’re not interested in it it’s it’s very very hard to acquire the knowledge it’s very very hard to you know maintain it you know. And I don’t want to go off you know like too far on a tangent but you know you have to have some kind of way to keep yourself engaged in whatever it is. You know that you’re studying that you’re trying to learn that you want to become good at if you can’t keep yourself engaged you know in it and understand how you learn then you know ultimately you’ll do yourself a disservice. And you may find out yo...