Episode 24

Last updated Sep 4, 2022 Edit Source

Welcome to episode 24 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [ @NerdJourney]! We’re John White ( @vJourneyman) and Nick Korte ( @NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solution Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we discuss John’s 3 Year Check-in at VMware, Part 2. 

Original Recording Date: 2019-2-2 

Topics – John’s 3 Year Check-in at VMware, Nick’s Questions 

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• Check out part 1 of John’s 3 Year check-in if you missed it last week. 

• John mentions sports research.  Was he prepared for what came next? 

• John considered this a medium to long-term job once he joined.  

• He loves the technology VMware has and the innovations as well as the overall technology space. 

• John has enjoyed exposure to new customer problems and situations (technical, political, etc.). 

• The constant change keeps it interesting. 

• Building good relationships with customers is part of the job and a nice perk. 

• The overall experience has been enjoyable.  John describes this as a process of continual improvement (always considering ways to get better), which has involved self-study as well as collaboration with others. 

• The goal is to always do the right thing for the customer to maintain a long-term good relationship, even if it means advising them not to buy something. 

• Everyone has more expertise than someone else and less than others.  John is a relative Yoda rather than an absolute Yoda 

• John applied a number of times before getting into the company.  He had applied for a technical marketing role around the same time as applying for the SE role. 

• He had to sell the company on the fact that his career progression was not tied to a specific position or role.   

• Mentoring was something he wanted – to be a mentor and to be mentored. 

• He’s been able to be more active in social media, attend events, podcast, etc.   

• A specific title was not part of the goal.  He focused more on the controllable steps to achieve what was needed to accomplish a promotion. 

• Nick’s book recommendation – Chasing Excellence by Ben Bergeron 

• Check out our episode on Process over Outcomes as well. 

• Figure out the process.  Do the things you can control.  If your measure of success is promotion to a specific title, you will be disappointed. 

• John has been iterating. 

• If there’s nowhere for you to go at your current employer, you may not get recognized as you think you should be.  Maybe the goal should be to get a better job elsewhere.  Being excellent at what you do will always be in demand. 

• John tells a story about being nerd famous. 

• Giving someone else a tour of the VMware Palo Alto campus for the first time was a great experience. 

• Relevance can be measured in different ways. 

• The ability to help customers solve problems over the long term is one way to measure it. 

• John also cites ramping on the growing product portfolio and knowing the value of each as another way to be relevant. 

• John cannot be a pure technical expert at everything, but he knows the right technical resources to engage when needed.  

• He misses having 100% input and control over technology solution decisions.  It was easy to do as part of a small business, but there is probably not a job he can go into to get that level of control. 

• He’s currently able to be an influencer at a number of different levels within multiple organizations. 

• The nuts and bolts of the Sales process and being part of Sales meetings is not always 100% enjoyable.  “Not every part of dinner is desert.” 

• Knowledge of the Sales process can be valuable for anyone in an organization.  Check out Episode 5 for more on this. 

• Nick had to learn about this after moving to the SE role. 

• The IBM Sales process model 

• Amount of travel is ultimately dependent upon the role.  Even for those with the same job title, the amount of travel is different. 

• John is flying about once per quarter and usually has to drive 3 days per week. 

• John’s travel essentials: 

• Packing lists for everything (good way to lower stress) 

• Different lists for local vs. long distance travel 

• Nick pressures John to write a blog on this. Send us a Tweet if you want to see it happen! 

• Sign up for GlobalEntry if you are flying with any kind of frequency (includes TSA Pre Check). 

• Sign up for travel rewards programs. 

• Dongle from automatic.com to capture mileage 

• Capture expense receipts with your phone camera to avoid loss 

• Should John become a full time career coach? 

• His dream for 5 years was to be a SE at VMware.  On day one of the job, he realized it was time to figure out a new dream. 

• John deconstructed what he enjoys doing: 

• Mentoring other SEs 

• Figuring out best practices across segments, specialties, etc. 

• Peer collaboration 

• More one-to-many conversations (i.e. outside of just his customers) 

• Speaking at VMUGs / conferences 

• Giving more presentations 

• John talked through the Principal program but mentioned he cannot just success / failover based on this alone. 

• These items lend themselves to a number of roles. 

• Figure out what he has time to work one, and see if other roles present themselves. 

• Nick cites examples like technical marketing for a specific product or SE specialist in a particular area. 

• John mentioned the challenge as a generalist to get deep enough in a specific product area. 

• He would probably need to be open to moving wherever the role is available (i.e. large concentration in his area). 

• He’s keeping his eyes open but not committed to any specific path. 

58:40 When did you start co-hosting the VMware Roundtable Communities Podcast? 

• John started going to VMware meetup events and ran into Eric Nielsen. 

• Eric was looking for a podcast co-host with experience in the field, and John fit the bill. 

• The opportunity presented itself because John went to meetups in the first place. 

• John had an idea for doing a podcast that eventually morphed into the Nerd Journey podcast. 

• Not everyone is reasonable or sees the company as an important partner. 

• John has had some confrontational interactions.  It’s challenging to not take this kind of thing personally. 

• You can only control your reactions to situations. 

• Nick was out of balance when he first started and still has spurts. 

• In some ways working from home has been incredibly freeing. 

• John says the most difficult thing has been managing how much he’s working. 

• There is always something to do. 

• It takes time to get better at this? 

• Sometimes you have to choose to go to sleep and take care of yourself. 

• Ethical mismatch with what the company was doing 

• Cultural gap between expectations and reality (i.e. “bro culture”, discriminatory culture, etc.) 

• Career issues 

• Not being valued / recognized as a good team member 

• Career dead end (builds up over time) / unable to progress 

• Family issues 

• None of these have ever been an issue. 

See also Episode 16 and Episode 17 for reasons not to pursue an opportunity. 

• Contact us if you need help on the journey.