Show Notes

Description:

In this episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez sits down with Matthew Wedlow, a seasoned IT professional with a diverse background in networking, cybersecurity, and technical sales. Matthew shares his unconventional path into tech, from working as a bus boy in Las Vegas casinos to becoming a published author and pre-sales engineer at F5 Networks.

Key Topics:

– Matthew’s early career struggles and multiple attempts at college

– How shadowing an IT professional at a casino kickstarted his tech journey

– Certifications can be a powerful tool for breaking into tech and moving up

– Tips for interview preparation and overcoming imposter syndrome

– Don’t be afraid to job-hop if it means advancing your career and skills

– Soft skills and networking are crucial for long-term success in the tech industry

– Always have a career plan and be proactive in pursuing your goals

– Embrace challenges and opportunities to learn, even if they’re outside your comfort zone

Highlights:

– Matthew’s unique approach to job hopping for career growth

– The value of soft skills and networking in the tech industry

– Insights into the world of technical pre-sales

– How to balance technical knowledge with business acumen

Quotes:

“I would say try to learn as much as you can for the different things because it’s all similar and it’s all connected in different ways.” – Matthew Wedlow

“Have a plan, like you’re not going to get jobs aren’t going to come to you, you got to go to them, promotions aren’t going to come to you, raises aren’t going to come to you, you have to go get it.” – Matthew Wedlow

Resources Mentioned:

• CompTIA certifications (A+, Network+, Security+)

• Cisco certifications (CCNA, CCNA Security)

Call-to-Action:

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Tags:

#CareerAdvice #TechCareers #Cybersecurity #NetworkingJobs #ITCertifications #CareerGrowth #TechSales #PodcastInterview

Transcription

Manuel: Welcome everybody, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where I hit the refresh button every week and bring on a new guest to have them talk about their career, lessons that they’ve learned, any tips and tricks that they’ve learned along the way and today I have with me Matthew Wedlow. So Matthew has a background in networking, he’s co-authored a book, he’s also done a little bit of teaching at some point during his career. So thank you Matthew for coming on.

Matthew: No, thanks Manny, I’m glad to be here.

Manuel: Appreciate it. So get started so what I’ve been kind of asking a couple people is just give me a little bit background on you and kind of where you grew up and are you originally from Vegas?

Matthew: Okay, yeah, yeah. So I’ve lived in Vegas most of my life. I’ve been here since I was a little kid but I was born in Japan, I come from a military family. So family worked overseas, went to Korea, went after Japan and then we came to California and then we came to Vegas. But since then I’ve been here for most of the time. I did leave for a job for a few years in North Carolina and came back. But yeah, that’s the skinny.

Manuel: All right, cool. So and when you started out, did you go to college for IT or did you even go to college at all?

Matthew: Yeah, yeah. So I went to college four times, dropped out twice. [Laughter]

Manuel: and finally decided to complete it.

Matthew: And then at the time, you know, pressure, society, teachers, everyone pushes you to go to school. But even if you don’t know what you want to do or if you don’t have any aims or goals like school, school, school, no matter what. So I went to school and hated it. I think the first degree I picked was just computer science, which I love the computer science part of it. I like the math. I like the tech part. But there’s all this other education that is completely unrelated. You have to do Philosophy, you have to do English, you have to do, you know, all these prereqs. And that that killed it for me. And I just lost motivation and two separate times I dropped out. I did end up finishing eventually, I did go back, I did get a Bachelor’s in IT and even I have Associates on IT as well. But it took me a while to get there. [Laugher]

Manuel: And so when you, you said, you know, you dropped out, did you, what were you doing in between there? So you dropped out and decided to start working or?

Matthew: just working normal jobs like here in Vegas. So working at the casinos, I think I was my longest job at the time was a bus boy where I was at one of the local casinos for like four years, which at the time was that was like four that was a dedicated job. And it was really easy and it paid the money was good enough where I was, you know, at that age was good enough to pay for my toys and living at home, living the good life. And I actually met an IT guy at the casino and funny, you know, as well, one of our mutual friends over the years, he was in IT, started talking to him. And he sent me down the path. And I didn’t even know what IT meant until I started talking to him. And he let me kind of shadow him at work. And I think that’s what really kickstarted it. And that’s when I went back to school, got my got some certs and history from there.

Manuel: Nice. So when you were shadowing him at work, is this during your working hours? Were you doing this outside of?

Matthew: A little bit of both actually?

Manuel: Oh, really?

Matthew: It started just being curious. We had the same the same coworkers. So a bunch of guys like the Engineering guys, the we were the Food and Beverage team, the Food and Beverage guys, and then the IT guys. But I didn’t really know what they did. They go in and out of secret rooms that are unlabeled. [Chuckle] They always had like they had every key to the whole building that that giant like janitor key ring. They always look clean. They dressed up. They were just different. Like what are the what do those guys do? So I just one day his name was Chance talk to Chance. Like, what, what do you guys do? And he’s like, you know what? Like, when are you off? I said, whatever, you know, whatever day it was, he’s like, just come in. Just come in when I’ll be there that day. I’ll let you follow me around. So he just let me follow him around on one of my off days. And he’s shown me like all the MDFs, the data centers, all the stuff. And I don’t understand anything. It’s all over my head, but I’m pretending like, oh, yeah, yeah, I get it.

Manuel: This is easy stuff.

Matthew: I do this stuff all the time. And then he kind of let me know that, “Hey, I’m going to quit. I’m actually quitting this job in like six weeks. So if you want, like I can tell you you’re interested. If you want, I’ll I can’t get you the job, but I can get you an interview So if you want to just shadow me until I quit on your own time, like, you know, you can work your job, but then come over here and work with me.” I was like, hell yeah. [Laughter] Like, again, I didn’t even know what he did. I didn’t understand it. He was, he was, you know, logging into switches and routers and stuff and making configuration changes. And he’s right over my head. But I could, it seemed interesting. And it seemed real versus the stuff I was even in school was like programming, coding for boring apps at the time. It just, it didn’t have the same immediate effect. Like you make some configuration changes and you can see it in the casino, something changed. Those slot machines now all report differently, or they were all, they had that red light at the top. Now that’s gone. I don’t know what he did, but he fixed it. [Laughter] And yeah, so it was like, it was basically an internship unofficially.

Manuel: Okay, nice. And then so you were you able to pick up enough skills during that six weeks for the interview or?

Matthew: I got the interview, but he didn’t hire me.

Manuel: Got it.

Matthew: So yeah, that was my first, my first letdown of many, you know, jumping, I was jumping in too deep. He was right. I didn’t have, I didn’t have the skill. I didn’t, I still didn’t know very much at all. I had started studying for the Net+, the CompTIA, like one of the, you know, the big three, A+, Net+, Security+.

Manuel: Right.

Matthew: And I hadn’t gotten it yet, but interview, I thought it went well, but he’s like, you know, I just, you’re just, he told me right away. Like he didn’t, he didn’t make me wait. He’s like, you just don’t have enough experience. Like, you know, if you can go out and get some experience, we’ll hire you because you already worked for the same company. So they hired some other guy, something happened with that other guy. I don’t know what, I don’t, I don’t think I’ve ever met him, but he ends up quitting about three months later. And that manager said, you know what, let’s take a shot on, on, on Matt. So he gave me a call one day, has he been studying? Did you get that cert? And I was like, yeah. And I had, in that time, I had gotten it at that point. He’s like, if you come in for another interview, we’ll give you another shot. And from there, he hired me. So I just, just persistence, having a good attitude and getting a cert. When I said I was going to do it, you know, I didn’t have a job. So I did it all on my own. It worked out. That was my first, that was my first real job.

Manuel: And what was the process, especially not having any experience or not really understanding? How did you study and prepare for that first certification? Was it just?

Matthew: A physical book. Like paperback, one of the common, I can’t remember the author, but he’s one of the like big ones that everyone knows about, like Messer or I forget the names. But I would just bring the, bring the book to work, read it. I would ask people questions if I didn’t understand it. And I would use forums. This is back before, like Reddit was the big, you know, that’s the everything forum now. So I think tech exams was a popular forum. It’s still there. And it was just people talking about their careers. And everyone who was on the Networking path would say, I did this, this, this, I did this cert, and then I got this job, and then I got this pay. And they was just outlining their whole careers. And I was like, I’m just going to follow somebody who’s doing it successfully. So I copied the books that they studied. And that’s how I got the cert. But I didn’t have any hands on, other than what I did with Chance in that internship. It was all just in my head theory. So the fact that they gave me a chance, Chance, you know, I was able to learn so much just by doing the job once I got in.

Manuel: Okay. And how long did you, how long were you in that role before you think you felt comfortable enough to say, okay, I now understand at least to do the job?

Matthew: Oh, man, it was, it was pretty quick. So that job was like, everything that plugs into the casino you fix. So the small stuff, printers, desktop computers, you have to fix that to the big stuff, you know, firewalls, ASAs, routers, switches, network configuration, everything. And then the hypervisor stuff, which that to me, that was new. That was like new at the time. This was like 2012. So VMware, I just kind of hit it stride. It became the dominant hypervisor. And that was the area I was weak on. So other than that, I was pretty strong on the networking and desktop support side. And then the Windows server domain stuff, like just in one year, I felt so good. I felt so good that I actually quit.

Manuel: Oh, really?

Matthew: After one year, yeah.

Manuel: And when you quit after that one year, obviously you went into a different role. What is it that made you say, all right, I’m done? Or what made you propel and say?

Matthew: I got big headed. In that one year, so I got the net plus cert before I even started. But since I got hired for about, it was literally almost to the day, about 12 months, I’d gotten four different certifications. One was in Windows Server 2012. Another one was some Windows programming like C+ or .NET, something like that. And then two Cisco certs. So once I got those Cisco certs, I got the CCNA and then the CCNA Security. I just felt like I was better. I totally wasn’t, but I thought I was like, I could do anything. I was like so big and I just jumped out. I quit without even having a job. I just had a few interviews that hadn’t accounted to anything yet. And I was like, you know what, I’m just going to quit because the numbers they were throwing out were like 50% raise. I was like, I can do this. I don’t need to get slowed down. So I put my two week notice [Laughter] and bad move. Definitely don’t quit until you, until you have something. But it ended up working out, but I wouldn’t recommend that strategy.

Manuel: Got it. So one of those interviews did pan out and you’re able to move on to the next one?

Matthew: Every one of them. I got, I was three different interviews and all three gave me offers and I just took the highest paying one. Um. And even, and then once I got in, I’d realized I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was. And once I was actually doing pure Networking, I was like, I don’t, I don’t understand this stuff as well as I thought I did. [Laughter] Like the stuff I had to do at the casino was very simple compared to the stuff that they expected me to do at this new job. I think the title was Network Specialist. And yeah, I had to, I had to learn it kind of on the spot, which honestly, I think that that should be how you do it. You shouldn’t be perfectly qualified for every job. If you’re overqualified, you’ll probably quit or get bored. I think every job should be a little bit ahead of your level. That way it pushes you to get there. But you should go in there knowing that where I didn’t know. I thought, I thought I was the man, but I wasn’t not yet. [Laughter]

Manuel: And in that role, how many other Network Specialists or how many other Network people work with?

Matthew: Nothing. I was expected to be the, the, the SME, the expert on everything. So anything Networking came to me and that’s when I knew I didn’t know. Like they’re asking me questions that they got further than I would have got. Like some of my other team who did like different areas. And I was like, okay, and I just have to go figure it out. So kind of, you know, drink it from the fire hose, just jump in and, and, you know, use all the resources you have available to you and learn it. And, you know, when somebody’s breathing down your neck talking about, we’re losing money, you learn pretty quick how it needs to work. And yeah, that was a tough one.

Manuel: So how long were you in that role before you, you know, mentioned in the last one, it took you about a year to say, okay, I feel comfortable. I’m, you know, I know everything now. And now in this role, how long did it take before you’re like, okay, I feel comfortable to at least do my job here?

Matthew: How long? I’d say about three months.

Manuel: Okay.

Matthew: And that seems fast, right? I’m saying how under qualified it was. And in three months, I got it all. But at the time, I was really career focused. Like my goal was always, I was looking the five years ahead. So I would take certification training videos, like back in the day, CBT Nuggets was like the cool member CBT Nuggets. And I would convert them into MP3. And I would listen to them as I drive. And this is before back when you had a drive to work. So I’m listening to tech all day, I’d listen to podcasts, Packet Pushers, Security Weekly, things that interested me that I wanted to do later. And I would just absorb everything I go home, you know, waste a little bit of time. But I would just study my job, my, my, my goal at the time was to get ahead. So I wouldn’t really take time off. I would just try to improve. If I couldn’t figure something out of work, I’d just stay at work until it’s fixed. I’m not like, Oh, it’s five o’clock time to go home. Nope, we haven’t fixed it yet. Just work, work until it’s done or work until you understand it. So that way tomorrow when you get on the phone with this guy, you can explain it and you don’t, you know, you’re not on the spot. And yeah, about three months, I felt really confident. It was like a small MSP. They had like lawyers, different businesses around town, like smaller businesses, where we would just do everything for them. And a lot of their networking stuff was VPNs. And I, when I got hired, I couldn’t explain what a VPN was. And, you know, after a few months, I could configure every single one of them.

Manuel: Yeah, and it does seem like a short amount of time. But if you’re putting in that amount of hours, right, staying in extras, doing all this extra study time, so it’s not like, Oh, in three months of eight hours a day, Monday through Friday, you picked up all these skills.

Matthew: Yeah, it was almost all day every day. Maybe, maybe take a day off in the weekend. But I knew I was, I wasn’t there. So I wanted to be the specialist, I wanted to be what my title said. So I wanted to make sure I didn’t want my, you know, in IT, a lot of us have imposter syndrome. We think we’re wrong. We start doubting ourselves. We think everyone knows more than us. So I wanted to make sure that I knew what I said I knew. And I wanted to be the guy you go to when you had a question. So I would go and learn the different customers environments and just poke around, just SSH and everything, figure out how it worked, start making diagrams. That way, I can explain it when, when the other guy calls, Hey, we’re having this domain issue. I’m like, Oh, this is how it’s configured.

Manuel: Got it. Okay. And outside of, so I know with Networking, it’s a little bit different. You know, you’re watching videos, you’re listening to podcasts, you’re doing all this. Are you at any point, did you set up a, any type of home lab or is there any wherever you could kind of tinker without actually messing with production?

Matthew: Yeah, it took, I would say this, not in that job. It was probably a few years later, I had a pretty serious home lab. Because still, this was like the Cisco was kind of coming out of favor. They were like dominant early 2000s. Like Cisco, before that was Microsoft, you had any, like MCSE cert, Microsoft was like gold, you can get any job you wanted. And then early 2000s, Cisco was kind of that guy. If you had CCNA, CCNP, CCIE, those were like just printing money, you can just go and demand whatever job you wanted. But that was starting to fall away. So Juniper was coming up, the next gen firewalls were coming out. So Cisco was kind of out the door. And when that happened, a lot of their gear got cheap, like the hardware, the physical gear, and some plays some jobs, just give it to you some places, you know, you, we have this lab equipment that just comes home with you sometimes. And I started to have a pretty good rack. I still have the rack with some like 2960s and ASAs. And then I started adding firewalls to it. And then I saw this suggestion on one of those forums that like, put your network on it, make your house depend on this. Don’t just don’t just have this theoretical lab that doesn’t matter. Actually make it work in your house. Because you’ll learn real fast that like PlayStation network doesn’t work on this switch. And you have to figure out why, like what’s different about my home router than this enterprise router? Why would it not work? And that, I mean, that’s, it’s a big problem. So I got to play my games. So we got to fix this router. [Laughter]

Manuel: We’re losing money. Wow. Okay. And then obviously you continue on, and I think it’s interesting you had kind of like a five year plan. So during that time, did you know that, hey, Networking and Security, that’s what you wanted to do the whole time?

Matthew: Not the Security part. That, that was still kind of a, I didn’t understand it that well. I would say if we’re talking OSI models, I was still layer three only, like layer, layer two and layer three is where I lived. I didn’t understand, you know, I did some basic firewall stuff and VPNs, but I didn’t understand like, if you ask me what a next gen firewall is versus, you know, just a stateful firewall, I wouldn’t, I couldn’t explain it. So the Networking side, yes, I literally just looked at people that were successful in Networking and try to copy their careers. And then I fell into Network or Security and found it to be much more profitable. Also, it kind of requires disciplines that are outside of Networking. Like if you’re just thinking of pure routing and switching IP addresses and MAC addresses, it’s not the same as thinking of what does the application need to function. And once you start thinking about the app itself, that’s where the money is, applications are what brings the money in. So if you can get as close to the app as you can, I think from a job security and just, you know, job demand, there’s a lot more money in it. But that was a few years later when I realized that.

Manuel: All right. So then you’re doing this role. At what point do you say to yourself, okay, I’m ready to go on to the next one. So I know you’re trying to copy everybody else’s path. But in there, are they also saying, hey, I spent X amount of time at this role before you move it on?

Matthew: Yeah. Oh, is that at that point, I started participating myself, I started telling other people, Hey, I’m new, but this is what I’ve done so far. You know, I’m three jobs in in only a few years. And here’s my experience. Here’s my certs. I don’t have it at that time. I still hadn’t finished school.

Manuel: So you went back to school at this time and you’re?

Matthew: It was actually right around there. Yeah. I was like, you know what, let me just go finish school. And I found WGU. And they did a program where most of the classes were certs. And that’s what I wanted. That’s why I liked it. And they’d pay for them. So you pay tuition to the school. And then if to pass the class, you just have to get a certification. And that’s like the final exam past the cert, but they pay they’ll pay for it. So I was like, it’s a win-win. I’m going to get a degree and a bunch of certs for basically the same cost of if I just got the certs. So it was, I think the price went up since then. But at the time that it was a really good deal. And they had a thing where if you passed the class, but the semester wasn’t over, you could add another class. If they had a counselor that would come in and see like there’s not enough time. But if there was enough time, you could just add more classes and not have to pay more. So you could basically like fast forward your own degree program, get a bunch of stuff knocked out in one semester, get all these certs. So my resume went from like Net+ and like my Microsoft certs to like 15 certs and a degree. [Laughter] And I think I finished it in one year, the program, because I had some college from when I dropped out that carried over. So in one year, I got a degree, a bunch of certs. And I think the certs really helped me a lot. So I was able to quit that Network Specialist job and go to the school district. I went to the school district out here, which it might have been a bad move at the time. But I, the plan was to get in at the district and then join their Network team. And that worked out. But once I got there, I realized that they outsource everything. Like most of their complicated stuff, like they were doing deployments at the Switch data centers, and they just outsourced it. And I didn’t, at the time, I didn’t understand it. You have a team, why are you paying third parties to come in and do it? And I learned that’s when I learned about liability. Like they don’t want to get blamed. Anything goes wrong. They can just point at the other company and say they did it. So if there’s an outage, the school grading system goes down, they did it. And I didn’t like that. I get the, I get the, you know, the legal mindset of it, but from a worker’s perspective, I didn’t like that. So I quit. [Laughter] So if you can’t tell, I definitely did a lot of job hopping. And, but I made sure the job hopping was always a step up. Not job hopping to, you know, similar roles. It was always more responsibility, hopefully more money. And, you know, more a prestigious title, I would say. So going from, you know, Desktop Support to Network Specialist and Network Engineer to, to, and beyond.

Manuel: And I’m assuming this time when you quit, you made sure that there was something already in line, paper signed before.

Matthew: This time I learned, I learned my lesson. Wait till I get the job. Yeah. And it, and I bet it did burn some bridges. Some people were upset, you know, like you’ve only been here six months.

Manuel: Oh, so it was a short timeframe.

Matthew: A lot of them. I mean, I’m, I’m even skipping over some.

Manuel: Sure.

Matthew: Just to be concise. Yeah. A lot of them were short, but I mean, I would always just be upfront. Like say, this is what I, this isn’t what I thought it would be. You know, we’re doing this project. I would, basically what I just told you, I would explain to them upfront, like, I want to do it. I want to do these cool stuff. That’s why, that’s why I joined the team, but we don’t do it. We’re just, we’re just coming in behind them. Trouble shooting after the fact, which is, I don’t know, not as fun, not as sexy. So I just let them know. And then I would get an offer for somewhere at a higher pay at a better, better, you know, title. And it’s hard to argue when somebody comes in, like someone else is going to pay me more with a better role. They’re like, all right, well, we can’t match that.

Manuel: We can’t match that. And we can’t also match, you know.

Matthew: We can’t change your job.

Manuel: Right.

Matthew: Yeah. We can’t give you a new role that doesn’t exist.

Manuel: Interesting. All right. So then as you’re going through and you’re still participating in these forums and kind of laying out careers and helping out, as you’re going through and you’re doing your job hopping, are you, how are you picking out these jobs? Is it just, are you searching for them? Are you reaching out to people and say, Hey, is there anything available? Like, what’s that process that you kind of went through, especially kind of moving around? You know, because I’m sure there, I’m sure those guys are telling you like, Hey, this is what I did. They’re not like, Hey, go apply here or go apply.

Matthew: Yeah, this is all over the world. They, I don’t know these people. They’re not being that specific. So a lot of it was just me searching locally. At that time, remote work wasn’t, wasn’t the norm yet. So I was just looking here in town. And a lot of jobs would post, even LinkedIn was kind of new. I think I had one like early LinkedIn, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t what it is today. So a lot of jobs weren’t on there. Recruiters weren’t on there. It was more of just a online resume. So it was a lot of just job postings locally. And I would just talk to them and I would tell them like, Hey, I would just always be upfront with what I’m looking for and always be upfront with the price range, like what pay I’m looking for and get that out of the way. I don’t want to go through a whole interview process, get some and then get some low ball offer. So I would tell them upfront, this is what I’m looking for. If we’re not in this range, then there’s no point in us wasting our time. And almost everyone would agree with that. Some people don’t like talking numbers early, but I would always talk early.

Manuel: And is that something you picked up just on your own again, from these groups? Because that’s something that I, you know, I made the mistake, at least at first when I was kind of moving on. Salary wasn’t something that was brought up early on, right? I kind of went through a couple of interviews and then to get there and I’m like, well, wait a minute, this is not, this is not what, you know, what I was expecting. And they’re like, oh, what were you expecting? And they’re, you know, they try to go back a little ball, something that it took me a while. And then eventually I was like, Okay, hey, what’s, what’s the range?

Matthew: Yeah. So I think a little bit of both, a little bit of just going through this, some of the doing that job hopping, I kind of saw the process. And I did get caught off guard a few times. So I just realized there’s no downside to just talking about it upfront. And I would read books. I can’t remember the author’s name, something Carnegie, but “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”

Manuel: Yes.

Matthew: Very popular book. And then “Never Split the Difference” by I can’t remember, the guy’s name. I’m bad with authors.

Manuel: Voss or something like that. I read the book as well.

Matthew: Yeah. And it’s just more about how to talk to people, how to have conversations. So I would never be mean about like numbers or I’d bring it up in a way that makes sense for both of us. Usually, like, let’s not waste our time. You’re looking for, you look, you want to hire somebody, I want to get paid. What’s the, what’s the mutual thing that we both need? Well, we have to agree on numbers. So nothing else matters if that number doesn’t match. So I would, you know, tactfully question that, right? Oh, you know, first talk about the job. What’s the job? But usually I get on a quick call with manager or recruiter or whoever I’m talking to, and, you know, hammer out the numbers. And usually they’re like, this is good. Like, and a lot of times they don’t even know their numbers. Like they don’t have it. So it would just be like, oh, we’ll have to find out later. Or a lot of times I don’t know what the job, like their job could say this, but that’s not what the job is. So how I don’t even know how to put a number on that yet. So they’ll try to, you know, I try to throw it at you. Like what number are you looking for and play that negotiation game? And I always try to get them to say it first. But yeah, that’s, that was definitely something I just learned by job hopping, I think.

Manuel: And do you think doing that, did it help you not only land roles, but kind of, you know, at some point you’re earning a reputation, especially when you’re just, again, there’s no remote work. You’re doing a lot of this internally. Do you think that ability to be able to go through and say, hey, up front, again, not being mean about it, did it help you land some of these roles, you think?

Matthew: I don’t think so. No, I don’t think it helped. I think it helped me learn my own value. Like I knew a lot of people don’t, you don’t know what you’re worth. Like I knew what my, my labor was worth very like almost to the dollar because I’m shopping it around and no one’s paying up here. No one’s, everyone’s paying above that. So I’m probably right there in this middle number and knowing that number means I could look for it. I could specifically say, other people are like, I could tell a potential employer, this is what everyone else is paying because I actually talked to them and they did, they, you know, we, we negotiated and this is a, here, here’s the email. So I knew like what I was worth at the time, which is, which I think a lot of people don’t have that advantage. You know, a lot of people don’t really go looking for jobs all the time. You know, they’re secure, they’re happy where they are. There’s no, not, not a bad thing. But me, I was always looking, I always felt like I could get fired at any point and I want and I’m trying to move ahead. So I constantly was updating my resume and, and talking to potential employers. So I knew what I was worth, which is a good feeling when I know, you know, I can quit at any point and go here. If, you know, things don’t work out, if, if, you know, this business fails, I can just go over there where a lot of people don’t know that they’re, they’re, they’re caught off guard if something like that, something bad happens.

Manuel: No, that’s, and that’s good because it sounds like you learn that early on. I think for me, knowing my worth and my value and then also what my, what my bottom is, right? Because at some point.

Matthew: I don’t want to go under. Yeah.

Manuel: Yeah. If the company goes under or something happens.

Matthew: You need a job.

Manuel: You need a job, you know.

Matthew: You might just take the first thing, but what’s that? What’s that bottom number? Yeah.

Manuel: What’s that four number? Okay.

Matthew: Yeah. And I learned at the time, Vegas was actually kind of untapped tech wise. We were considered by like the big companies to be a, like a, a dead space for, for talent. Like you just overlook Vegas. If you want to, if you have a Vegas company, you outsource tech because there’s nobody there, which they were wrong. [Laughter] There’s, there’s a lot of solid talent out here, especially now. And being that guy that you’re shopping yourself around, you’re kind of letting these recruiters, these, these employers know that there’s, there’s people out there and they got to pay if they want them. And, you know, once outsourcing fails, like it always does, then that, then they know that this is what the market is looking for. And it’s come up quite a bit at the time. This is 10 years ago, Vegas paid a little less than a lot of the, like, you know, a lot of the surrounding areas like Phoenix, LA, obviously the California stuff pays a lot more, but not, it’s not that the gap has gotten a lot smaller now.

Manuel: Right. No, I would, I would 100% agree with you there. So then now you’ve kind of moved around, you’re, you’re going through your understanding your worth. What’s kind of the next step? Or how are you kind of continuing to progress now? So now at this point, you are like a Network Engineer, almost a Network Architect at some point, right? Is that?

Matthew: Yeah, I think at that time, I am I this around this point, I was like Admin, Admin level Administrator. I wasn’t designing brand new networks yet, but I was managing them. Usually, you know, you inherit somebody else’s network, you come into a business or multiple businesses. So I was, that’s a pretty senior role, I would think at least at the time. Just under, I would say six figures was about the pay. Again, this is 10 years ago, that was good money. I thought I was, you know, I’m thinking I’m good. I was way ahead of my five year plan, way ahead. So I was thinking I was doing pretty good. And that’s when Security hit me. Found out about, you know, my, the company I worked at at the time was a managed security provider, and we sold network services, and we sold security services. And security services made a lot more money when I mean, I mean for the business, like they could sell that to customers for way more than they could sell us. And when I would talk to the Security guys, I felt like they didn’t know anything. Like I felt like I knew more than them just in general. Like they couldn’t explain, they’re looking at like security alerts, and just looking at like a SIEM output, and then sending that somewhere to sell someone else to fix it. But they couldn’t, they didn’t understand the technology behind it. I felt like they were referees that didn’t understand the rules of the game. And that’s what I realized, but they’re, but they’re getting paid more. [Laughter] And they’re able to command more money, because like Cybersecurity was hot at the time. This was like 2015-ish around that time, time window. So I was like, I just need to, I need to learn what they learn and have both learn, like I can do all the infrastructure from layer one all the way to layer seven. So started doing, I started just handling customer issues that were security focused. The work was there. I just wasn’t focusing on it before. And now I started focusing primarily on that, ended up working with a customer in North Carolina. They liked me so much that they asked me to come on site and be their dedicated, basically Engineer through the provider. I was still working for the MSP, but they wanted me on site. And this was my big negotiating moment. So customer wants me on site across the country. And they have a contract with us. And they, my company couldn’t fill that role. They didn’t have anyone that they could send out there. The customer’s asking for me. So I’m in a good position where I can demand a lot of money. So I did. I basically said, well, I want you to pay me what I’m getting paid now, plus my wife’s salary, because I don’t know what work, I don’t know what work options she would have. We’re going to have to move and relocate, plus like, you know, add a couple of percent for cost of living and stuff. Cause they have state tax out there. Like I did a little math in my research and just made sure I had my negotiation all preplanned out, like go a little bit too high at first. They’re going to counter too low and then we’ll meet right where I really want. And I messed up. I, that too high number, they agreed to right away, which at first I was happy, right? Like, yeah. But then I was like, man, if they agreed to that right away, their number was actually way high. So, but I was stuck. We agreed, but it was a good raise. Ended up moving North Carolina, working with that customer. They’re great. They’re like, still have lifetime friends out there. But now I was a Security guy. I was doing nothing but firewalls, load balancers, proxies, like stuff in between the network and the app, like the stuff that makes it work. And again, I was able to bridge both sides of the network side, the infrastructure side and the application side. And I think there’s still, there’s a lot of gold in that, in that sweet spot.

Manuel: And do you think, and I want to get your, what you think on this? So you mentioned these guys and I’ve come across people in roles where they are Security Specialists, right? But again, that’s all they’ve ever done.

Matthew: That’s all they know.

Manuel: Do you think that a lot of what kind of sets you apart and what kind of helped you move along is, you know, you mentioned you started with printers and, you know, anything connected to it, basically a network jack and the kind of having, you know, your Microsoft certifications and doing all that. Do you think at first being, even though you were a Network Specialist, having that kind of broad kind of jack-of-all-trades type of experience?

Matthew: I think that like, first being open to it, some people are like, I’m a specialist, this is all I do. And they don’t want to even explore how anything else works. Where I came the other way, I was jack-of-all-trades and then I went into a specialty and realized that it’s actually better to have a specialty that requires a lot of different things. So yeah, I think definitely I would recommend anyone trying to find a career in this space is to learn as much as you can for all different things because it’s all similar and it’s all connected in different ways. You know, if you’re a Linux Administrator, you have to configure the network. You have to configure firewall rules. You have to configure the different services and roles and permissions. Like there’s so many things that overlap. If you can understand that and then understand, you know, what does it mean if I create this user that’s a super user in Linux? And what does that mean for a network? Does that mean someone can connect remotely as a super user? If you hadn’t thought of that or you didn’t have that perspective, you might have this glaring security issues that you’re creating by not understanding it. So I would say try to learn as much as you can for the different things. Now, there’s too much for everybody to know, obviously. But there’s a lot of like staples. I would say basic information that I think most people should know if you’re going to go for these more senior jobs.

Manuel: Yeah. And I’ve had that experience, especially as I kind of moved up into more Engineer, Architect rules, where a lot of times I was dealing with other people and I was able to kind of bridge the gap in between a lot of this because I at one point I thought I wanted to do, I didn’t have such a kind of laid out plan like you did. I went in, I started as a Help Desk and Desktop. And then at one point I was like, I want to be a Networking guy. I did that for a little bit. That’s not what I want to do. I want to be a Database person. So I played around a lot of it, tried a lot of different areas. Eventually I found that infrastructure was what I wanted, but it made it easier when I was having conversations when I would say, hey, we’re having problems with the network. And I don’t know if this is kind of your experience. Most times they’re like, everybody will blame the network, right? So I was a Network guy, it’s a network, it’s a network.

Matthew: Long running joke.

Manuel: But I went through and I was able to go through, hey, I think it’s a network and here’s why, right? Because I think a lot of people think, oh, tech, it’s its own language and everybody speaks the same, but a Security’s person speaks a different language than a Server person, than a Network person. So I think having that common understanding is very, really helpful.

Matthew: You’re totally right. I think being able to speak the language is more than is enough as a minimum. If you can speak to the Server Admin guy and understand how the basics of Windows servers or Linux servers work, where you can explain a problem, and that way he knows that you’re not just saying it’s the server. But if someone’s saying, oh, this connection doesn’t work, and you can prove that the connection is working, but it’s probably the services not running on the server. And this is why, and this is howhow, and you show that, I think that it earns you a lot of respect from the other teams, like, oh, he actually knows, and he explained it. He kind of did my work for me, and he told me where to look. And so, oh, yeah, I just had to restart that service. [Laughter] So I 100% agree there.

Manuel: All right. So as you’re kind of going in now, and you moved over to North Carolina, are you focusing now more just on security, or are you still kind of doing both network and security? Still, yeah, it’s still, I mean, they go hand in hand. But I would say primarily I was like security infrastructure at that point. So again, firewalls, load balancers, proxies, VPNs, and then web application firewalls. So like the ingress of the network, when you’re first coming into whatever organization, you got to hit a bunch of things. That’s usually the edge is where my work was now. And then there was always a Network team I worked with. And we had to work together. But I wasn’t doing like routing and switching anymore. It was just all pure security infrastructure.

Manuel: Okay. How long did you end up staying there in that role in North Carolina?

Matthew: One year. [Laughter]

Manuel: That’s it one year, huh?

Matthew: Yeah, one year. And a great, great job. We actually liked it there. We wanted to move back. But I ended up getting a remote position that this was the first, this was my first Architect role. This was through a mutual, a friend from the same company he quit, went somewhere, and he said, hey, we need another Architect for the Security side. He worked with me, we had a good relationship, we’re friends. I can get you an interview. I’m like, yeah. It’s win, win, win. And it’s work from home. That was my first work from home job. And they flew me out, limo picks you up. I was like, man, this is the big, the big leagues [Laughter] now limo picks you up from the airport, takes you to the hotel. They give you like a like itinerary, your interviews at this time, you’re going to meet this person, here’s a picture of them. I was like, man, like, I really want this job now. [Laughter] And I got it. They hired me. And I was working remote in North Carolina for a little while, had some family stuff back here. We moved back because I was remote. I didn’t need to, I didn’t need to work there. We moved back just to be close to family. But I still had the same job. So I was still working remote, just went from went back home and was there for a couple years. I mean, that was literally, hey, we’re, we have this new building. It’s empty. We haven’t even designed the building yet. And we need you to come in and design how the infrastructure works. And again, that was still a little bit over my head. Like I hadn’t done that yet. I hadn’t done that the full design from, from nothing, like from scratch. So, but that’s again, that’s where I always want to be a little bit, a little bit out of my league. That way I’m forced to learn it and get there. And, you know, lean on, I had, we had a good team. We all worked together, came up some good designs. And I think those data centers are still, still functioning. [Laughter]

Manuel: You haven’t heard of any hacks going on in there?

Matthew: No big hacks yet.

Manuel: So, and that’s interesting because I know earlier on, you touched about the kind of like that imposter syndrome. And it sounds like you have, you know, you’re pretty comfortable being uncomfortable and kind of pushing yourself. Did you ever have that feeling? And the reason I ask is because that’s not something I’ve experienced. I’ve heard about it. I understand how it works

Matthew: Oh you’re rare.

Manuel: but I think, but I think it’s, I think it’s more like you, right? Where I feel I always felt, okay, I don’t know it. Again, I’m pushing myself. I’m going to that next boundary. But I was always like, I could, I had enough confidence in myself to know I’ll figure it out. And similar to being, you know, come in like, Hey, I know what I know. And it’s one of those things that early on in my career, and I really think the person that when I got into a Desktop job, you know, he’s like, Hey, do you know how to tone? Do you know how to do these things? I didn’t. And he, one of the first things you would ask me, and he’s like, it’s okay if you don’t, right? So he made me very comfortable in saying, I don’t know. I don’t know. And he would show me. And then he’s like, okay, I’ve shown you now you go and do it and kind of pick that. So he gave me the confidence to go through. And it’s something that I always tell people like, it’s okay to not know something. Right? Just, Hey, say, Hey, I don’t know. Hey, can you explain it to me? Or say, Hey, I think it works this way. Instead of what I feel some of the imposter syndrome. And again, this is just kind of my own opinion is that you feel that you have people are expecting, you know, I, oh, yeah, I know what that is when you really don’t.

Matthew: Oh, okay. I get a good point of view.

Manuel: That’s my point of view.

Matthew: It’s not so much that it’s more, and when I say imposter syndrome, I think, let’s say you get on a technical troubleshooting call and like, there’s some outage or something big is going on. Everyone’s yelling. And someone says something that you think is incorrect. And but they say it so confidently that you start to think you’re you maybe I’m incorrect. Maybe he’s right. And I’ve been wrong this whole time. And I don’t understand it as well as I thought I did. That’s kind of where I’m at. So as people are explaining things or troubleshooting things, or even just talking about things, somebody might say something where you’re scratching your head and you’re not sure. But instead of you knowing that they’re wrong, you start to think that you you are wrong. Like I must I must be wrong. He said that with such confidence that maybe I’ve been wrong this whole time. Let me go read into that. And you won’t confront them. You’ll wait. You’ll just start Googling. You’re looking it up. You’re reading your books. And yeah, so you feel like you’re an imposter because this whole time I thought it worked like a but he’s saying it works like B. And I don’t want to have I don’t want to argue with him. So I’m just going to go look it up. [Laughter] So a lot of that that’s that’s where I’m at. But I think you touched on a good point. You said it’s okay to not know 100%. A lot of I’ve interviewed so many times and I keep a dump of all my interviews. And they’re not exact, but it’s pretty close of every question I’ve asked. And the funny thing is, by the way, they get easier. And it’s partially because you’re better at your skills are better. But I think there’s just with that imposter syndrome, there’s not a lot of people up high that can even correctly interview people for the job. Like, obviously, we’re hiring for this role. That means there’s nobody here that does it. [Laughter] So we don’t have a good way to vet candidates. So it’s kind of just funny way that that works out, like interviewing. But like you said, it’s okay to not know. If you don’t know, just always admit it upfront. I don’t know. I don’t know how that works. But here’s how I’d figure it out. Like I understand these things that are similar, or I’ve done this older version that probably doesn’t apply anymore, but I’ve done it before. But I don’t know, you know, the new latest, greatest, whatever version we’re on now, just admit it and then explain why that is not a problem. It’s okay to not know. Like no one knows everything. You’re asking me these trivial things. I’ll just look it up. No problem. [Laughter] Yeah, posture syndrome.

Manuel: Okay, so that makes more sense now to me. And that confidence to kind of go through and figure it out. And again, is that something that you just, do you think you always kind of had that mentality of I will always figure it out? Or it’s just like, hey, I’m just so determined to upskill.

Matthew: Put a time limit on it. Have the mindset of I can figure it out, but not at the expense of the job or the company. Like if the company is losing money and you’re like, you’re stubborn and I’m going to figure it out, escalate. Like if there is some way to escalate, escalate. Like get other people involved that know more than you. You don’t have to be the expert on everything. So it’s an arbitrary number that you’d have to put on very situationally. Like if a point of sale machine is down at a restaurant, but there’s two other ones, not a big deal. Take your time, figure it out. If the hospital bed, like heart rate monitors down, don’t try to figure it out. Like get the guy that knows the heart rate monitor. [Laughter] Like don’t put someone’s life on the line for you to be stubborn about learning something. So I don’t think it’s a personality thing. I think it’s just judging the situation, knowing when, when, when can I have the luxury of figuring it out versus when do I not want to lose the company money. Because I don’t want to call support.

Manuel: Right. Or I’m so determined to just figure it out and be the guy.

Matthew: Don’t be stubborn. Like you’ll fit. You can learn through someone else. You can watch the support guy do it and be like, Oh, like I would, it took me hours to get there. It took you two seconds. And now I know for next time, and I can, you know, learn similar things. Now I know where to look.

Manuel: Okay. Interesting. So as you’re going through it, and that’s something I’ve, I’ve kept some of those dumps out of interviews, but I don’t think I have like a running list. So usually I keep it for a while and eventually I end up losing there and getting rid of it.

Matthew: Oh I keep them man.

Manuel: Interesting. I mean, that’s, that’s probably a good tip to kind of go through. And most of what I’ve, I remember a lot of the, you know, there’s specific questions that I know that I’ve remembered. There’s a lot of them like, I don’t know. Like if someone asked me a question that they asked me at some point, I probably wouldn’t even know anymore.

Matthew: Yeah, you don’t know any more. Yeah. I forgot. Yeah.

Manuel: That’s cool. And is that something you would reference before your next interviews? Like to kind of go through those dumps?

Matthew: You haven’t really talked about prep. So interview prep is a huge, a huge thing. And I would say most of it, even just in general, it’s more personality than it is tech, even though we’re talking about technical roles. People have to work with you, people have to like you. So being likable and being, being able to fit in is a much more valuable trait than knowing every answer to every arbitrary question. Because a lot of interviews are just trivia. It’s the interviewer didn’t prep himself. So he’s just rattling off things off his head or whatever problems he’s working on that day. Like, he’s, you know, he’s troubleshooting some routing loop. So he’s asked you, how do you fix a routing loop? Literally, that is what happens. So it comes down to more personality. But for prep, yeah, I go through, I have basically a giant Excel spreadsheet with a million tabs on it. And one of the tabs is all my previous interviews. So I’ll go through that, just kind of look it over. Like what are they, what similar roles in the past? What are they asking me? What were they looking for? Then do your research. There’s a lot of websites now that people go in and say, this is how my interview went at this company. And, you know, make sure you, you can at least see what their line of questioning is like. You might not get that those exact questions, but you can see like kind of the type and have good answers for it. And I think it takes practice, you know, it gets like anything else, you can’t just walk into an interview and you haven’t had an interview for five years and be good at it, probably not. I would say I would practice, I would do it with myself, do it with my wife, do it with my friends and other coworkers. And we would do literally mock interviews and take them seriously. And it does help. It does work.

Manuel: I would agree. So I’ve had a couple. So I do a lot of mentoring. And that’s one thing that I brought up, you know, that I’ve had people like, Hey, I’m going to do, I’m going to have an interview. What should I do? I was like, well, if you want, let’s take 30 minutes right now and let’s mock. And they were like, what do you mean? I was like, look.

Matthew: They pushed back to like, why?

Manuel: Why? Right. And we went through it.

Matthew: Then right after they’re like, that was a good, because I didn’t know what to say for half of that. [Laughter]

Manuel: And it was because I think the first 10 minutes, I got to ask a question. They were like, again, they’re trying to take it seriously, but they’re giggling like, I don’t know. Like, or they would stumble. Hold on. Let me start again. Okay. This is.

Matthew: Get those out.

Manuel: It’s probably similar to what you would do in an actual interview. And I’ve had a couple of people afterwards come back and say, dude that really helped? Sometimes I’ve gotten the job. Sometimes I didn’t, but they felt at least more confident going into it as opposed to it. Now, when you say you would interview by yourself, are you recording yourself? Or are you just kind of talking out loud? Because it’s one thing to, and again, these people have said, Oh yeah, well, I looked at questions and I thought of answers, but it’s, I think it’s completely different to actually verbalize them.

Matthew: No, no, I, I 100% talk to myself all the time. The drive over here, I was talking about some potential Manny questions that I might get and how I would answer them. I don’t record myself. I don’t know. I have a weird, I don’t like, I don’t like the time. I don’t like to rewatch the thing. So I just kind of just say it out loud, but I wouldn’t, I would never record myself. Still don’t. But write down questions I think I’m going to get or both personality based or like job based and then the technical ones as well. Like they’re probably going to ask, what have you done that’s similar to this? So make sure you have an answer. You don’t want to like freeze up on the spot, even though you might have perfect answers. If you hadn’t thought about it ahead of time, you might say it in a bad way or present it wrong. So just practice saying how you’re going to say it, how you’re going to word it. They might ask some negative questions like me at job hop. That’s, that’s going to come up. How do I answer that when they’re like, look here, you’ve had, you’ve had eight jobs in four years. What’s going on? Like I need an answer. So you put me on the spot and I might just say, oh, more money. That’s a bad answer. [Laughter] So have a, have a good response. And I think doing that practice, I’ve absolutely gotten jobs where I was not as qualified as other candidates. Just that, just because I interviewed better.

Manuel: Just as communication skills and being able to go through.

Matthew: You gotta read the room. You’re talking to a person. Some people, there’s different personality types. Some people are really technical. Some people are like confrontational. Some people are just pure managers and they don’t know anything about anything. So you don’t need to like harp on all the tech details with that person. Where the confrontational guy, you got to almost like lower the tension, joke about some things, make fun of like, you know, he obviously doesn’t like Linux. So make a joke about Linux, like stuff like that. You just got to be able to on the spot, read the room and see what the other person wants to hear. And I think that’s, that’s a learn. I think anyone can learn that. And that’s what I did after that. I said the Architect job next job was Sales. Really? Sales. And yeah, that was a good one. What type of sales? Pre-sales for pre-technical sales. So I worked at F5.

Manuel: Okay.

Matthew: They’re mostly known for their load balancers, but they sell all security stuff. Like they try to, they try to rebrand themselves as a Security company. But being able to do that, read the room stuff was, I saw that ahead of time and I was like, you know what, let me try my hand in sales and see how it goes. And it was great. I, timing went bad with COVID. So all the, the fun sales person traveling around and going to stake houses and bars every day that, that died down with COVID. But the sales part was fine. The job was great. The company was great. I definitely had a good time in sales and I probably will go back. I probably will change hands and go back to the sales because I liked it so much.

Manuel: And what is it that you liked about it? Is it the interacting with people? Is it the actual selling part? Like what, what made it so enjoyable for, or to you?

Matthew: I think it’s that you have to have a little bit of everything. So you have to know the tech, right? You’re going to get into these calls. People are, they’re, they want your recommendations. They’re expecting you to be expert and you’re not. Trust me. Like you have so many products. You don’t know everything about everything. Half the stuff you’re just looking up or you’re asking the guy behind you, hey, they asked me this on this call. What’s the answer real quick? Cause he’s asking me right now. So go, go, go. And you have to, you have to have the, the technical side and be the expert. Everyone assumes you know everything. That’s why they’re talking to you. So that kind of, there’s a little prestige there. It feels good. Like they’re coming to you for recommendations when they might even know more, because they know their specific situation better than you do, but they want your recommendation. But then the, I like to travel. I like to sit down with Execs. It’s a different game when you talk to, start talking to Sales folks and like C, C-Suite kind of people. It’s a different, it’s a different vibe. Like they, their concerns are so different from the stuff I’m worried about. I’m worried about, is there enough throughput? Do we have enough memory? Is the, I’m looking, I’m thinking tech, tech stuff. They’re not thinking about that. They’re like, is my thing going to go down? Are you going to cost me money later? Give me the peace of mind. And like you have to, okay, that’s what they care about. I don’t need to come in there spouting off stats. They don’t care about specs and stats. They care about, is it going to work? And where are we going to play golf later? And the golf part, I can never, I can never get pretty any good at golf, but it’s fun going out there and just being the free, the free win.

Manuel: So the stats that they’re more worried about is things like, and this is probably things you would bring up, like, Hey, here’s our uptime. Here’s our, you know, we’re not vulnerable. We’re not those types of conversations.

Matthew: If they’re, if they’re publicly traded, they, they, they, they care about their image a lot. So, and that’s an angle I hadn’t thought of before I was in sales. But when you’re in sales, like, you got your, you know, your quarterly reviews coming up, you know, your earnings meeting. Do you want to be on the news for, you know, a crypto malware hack? Probably not. So we got this thing. [Laughter] We got just the solution for that. We can sell you this add on for low, low price of, you know, whatever. And that’s, I mean, I wasn’t that guy. I usually come in after like somebody’s already made the pitch and then I come in and talk about how it worked. But understanding that that’s what they care about is a different mindset for me that I had to learn. And I think I liked it a lot.

Manuel: And how did you balance the, again, you just mentioned like, Hey, we’ve got this thing balancing that of, Hey, I’m really trying to help trying to earn your trust and make you understand that, Hey, this is something that really is going to help you as opposed to buy this thing because I’m in sales, right?

Matthew: Like you got to get in. There’s, it’s, it’s almost like you have to worm your way in and do some grunt work to earn that, to earn that foot in the door. So some, some companies you already have, they already, they’re already buyers, like they’re, they’re customers. Some customers are considered white space where they don’t, they don’t have any of your stuff today. They’re either they’re worth a competitor or maybe they have nothing that does what you do. So to get into those stuff, you guys don’t have to do