Journey From Mexico to IT Management with Jose Esparza | Episode 007

Episode Information Show Notes Episode Description: In this captivating episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez sits down with Jose Esparza, an IT professional who shares his inspiring journey from Mexico to the United States and his rise through the tech industry. Discover how Jose’s passion for video games led him to a successful career in IT, and learn valuable insights for your own professional growth. Show Notes: Introduction to Jose Esparza and his background Jose’s move from Mexico to Southern California at age 14 How video games sparked Jose’s interest in technology Early experiences with CCNA classes and computer electives in high school Attending DeVry University and pivoting from coding to system administration First IT job: Building servers from scratch Transitioning to Help Desk roles and developing critical thinking skills Moving up to Level 2 support and gaining technical depth Challenges and rewards of working for a managed service provider Transitioning to enterprise-level IT and managing thousands of users The importance of communication skills in IT Learning to share knowledge and help others grow Balancing work-life and valuing time in one’s career Overcoming shyness and cultural barriers in the workplace The power of positivity and helpfulness in career growth Key Takeaways: Embrace challenges and continuous learning to advance your IT career Develop strong communication skills to complement your technical expertise Share knowledge with colleagues to foster a collaborative work environment Maintain a positive attitude and helpful demeanor to open new opportunities Balance work responsibilities with personal life for long-term career satisfaction Featured Guest: Jose Esparza Connect with Jose on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/esparzajose/ Resources Mentioned: CCNA certification DeVry University Call-to-Action: If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. Don’t forget to subscribe to Career Downloads for more inspiring tech career stories and valuable insights. Join our community: Website: https://careerdownloads.com YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloads X/Twitter https://twitter.com/@careerdownloads TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloads LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloads Instagram https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloads FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249 Have a question or topic suggestion? Message us on any of the social platforms Remember to use #CareerDownloads when sharing your favorite moments from this episode! Transcription Manuel: Welcome everybody. So 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 understand a little bit more about their background, their job history, any tips and tricks that they may have picked up along the way that they’re willing to share and just understand how they navigated through their career and how they continue to do that now. So for today, I have with me Jose Esparza. So we worked together for a little while. I obviously know a little bit about his background, so we’re going to kind of touch in to that and there’s a couple topics that I really want to make sure to discuss. So with that, thanks for coming Jose. Jose: Yeah, thank you for having me. Manuel: Appreciate it. Jose: It’s been, you know, I’ve known you for a bit and with me being new to Vegas, I enjoyed getting to know you and you showed me a little bit more about the area and really the profession out here, which is tech, IT, given that you’ve been out here for quite some time. Manuel: Yeah, I mean born and raised, so I would say it’s been a little while. Jose: Yeah. Manuel: Yeah, you know the ins and outs. Jose: Yeah. Manuel: Well, and a lot of that comes with just networking with other people in the industry and just, you know, kind of growing up. Again, my family was here, my dad, I know, touched on us a little bit. So he is, you know, they did construction. So we all over the valley. So I knew the area were like, Hey, let’s go here. Let’s go do this. And so you start to learn a little bit. Jose: Yeah, that’s that’s one thing that I’ll eventually do. Manuel: Cool. So as we get started here, so if you want to take just a couple minutes, right, to just give us a little bit of background on kind of where you grew up, you know, how you kind of, you know, we don’t have to go into super detail, but just a little bit of background how you grew up, then also what got you interested in tech. So if you kind of like, Hey, you know, this is where I grew up. This is what kind of got me interested in tech and then what kind of segue into how eventually you started in IT. Jose: Okay. Yeah. I actually was born in. Born and raised in Mexico until I was 14 years old. We,my parents, my dad being a musician, working in the music industry moved out here just for some different opportunities that were presented to him. So at some point he thought it would be best to move the family with him and brought us over here. Manuel: And you guys moved over to where? Jose: We moved to Southern California, kind of moved around that area a few times, pretty much wherever his work would need him. And it was, you know, it’s difficult moving to a different country, especially when you don’t know the language as much or the culture. Given that I think my siblings and I, particularly, especially me, I always liked video games as an example. I always found the need to understand and really dive into that portion. And eventually at some point when, you know, you get your first computer, I really wanted to know everything there was about it. And that’s, so we were here, we lived in a town called Hesperia, California, which is in the Southern California area. And I knew at that point that I really wanted to do something with computers or tech. And that’s when I, even in high school, I took CCNA classes, and even though I never had a computer or knew anything about switches, I still passed the class. So I still knew some stuff, and then doing like graphic design, coding, anything that, you know, typically your senior year, you have a lot of room for electives. I’m not going to lie to you, four out of my six classes were computer based, just because I had time. I just wanted to learn. And then I already kind of knew I was going to go to, I actually went to DeVry University in Southern California. And I already kind of knew I wanted to get into tech, and I took, I think it was computer information systems, the program that I joined. So it was a lot more development, like coding, just was not necessarily the most fun for me once I got into it. I eventually pivoted to more Sys(tem) Administration and Networking. Manuel: And what is it about the coding that really didn’t interest you? Jose: I think coding is, I still use it, you know, because being in IT, you can’t just limit yourself to not want to do something, right? There’s still always case, whether it’s System Administration or Networking, you’re going to need to go through code at some point. So it is, it is a skill set that you need. I just didn’t want to just do coding, just sitting in front of a computer and look at lines of code and that whole process. I just wanted to do more than that. And now that I think about it all, so it’s just, I didn’t want to be sitting down all day. I like to move. I like to talk to people. I like to not be confined to the desk in front of the screen. I want to get my hands on things. And I think that’s why I kind of changed that career path along the way. Manuel: Nice. And then is that something you did while at DeVry? Was there a different path or you just decided to leave DeVry? What was that process? Jose: At that point, because schooling is expensive, I picked up a job and I came into a web hosting company. They did a lot of IIS servers, SQL servers, few MySQLs, few UNIX, primarily Windows shop. And I came in working as a technician building the servers, meaning they would buy the parts, processors, fans, hard drives, cases, power supplies, all of that. And my job was to, because it was a very fast growing company, I was probably putting together 15, 20 servers a week. And that meant burn in tests, configuration, all of that. And I started off as a part-time, but eventually moved to full-time, doing half-time as server building and the other half as Help Desk. And that’s when I started getting a little bit more into understanding the Windows servers, databases, and I kind of liked that a lot better. So I switched my path at that point. Manuel: At that point, okay. And then did you end up finishing at DeVry or did you decide to just, hey, now that you’re working full-time and you seem to have found at least a role or an area that you really seem to enjoy, what did you decide to do? Jose: I think I probably, it was about my third year in, just because being a DeVry, not necessarily being the cheapest, and ...