Welcome to episode 64 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical 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 navigating unexpected career pressure with Mike Burkhart.
Original Recording Date: 12-03-2019
Topics – Your Posiiton Has Been Eliminated with Mike Burkhart
03:21 – Mike’s Career Overview

* Mike recently took a position as a curriculum developer of instructor led courseware at Nutanix but followed an interesting path to get there.

* He started off with IT help desk work, which often involved testing DSL lines.
* This led to a systems and networking background. He also did software testing.
* He stumbled upon ESX 2.0 at some point and got an introduction to virtualization, which was extremely interesting.
* Mike’s journey involved him following his passion / interests and making some bets on following them.
* He became a consultant around the ESX 4.0 days. This involved heavy travel…but not to places you might envision.
* The consulting firm was a VMware training partner, and Mike was asked to be an instructor.

* He said yes and decided to try it.
* "If given an opportunity, take the opportunity if it is something you can imagine yourself doing."
* Mike is an extrovert and stage musician.
* Mike believes we are all here for the purpose of love. To love someone is to share experiences, impart knowledge, and have them impart knowledge on you.

* Education is the pursuit of this connection and pursuit of growing as an adult.

* Pursuing this instructor role opened his eyes to a completely different passion. Ever since becoming an instructor for a brief stint, Mike has focused (as time allowed even after he became a Solutions Architect) on many different things in the education space.
* At one point in the last several months, one of Mike’s friends suggested he talk to someone who had an opening in an education related role.

* The person who referred him was a fellow instructor and VCDX candidate with Mike.

* Mike has been a VMUG leader for several years and an avid public speaker. His current role is a mixture of all the experience he’s had to this point.

14:23 – Necessity of Career Analysis

* "I wasn’t looking for an employer. I wasn’t looking for a role. I was looking at how I want my life to operate for me, what skills I want to flex, what skills I want to learn, and what I want to leave behind."
* Mike was in field Pre-Sales as an Architect before taking his current role.
* He did a current vs. future state analysis on his career.
* This process was something Mike needed to do because of circumstances with his employer.

* This is the second time in his career he was being "made redundant in the field."
* In this instance, Mike was given the job of applying for the same / other roles within the company as a result.
* For the architects out there, be wary of the changes you help make within a company having ramifications you may not like.
* Mike believes he took the right role to support what he wants at this point in his life.

* The first time this situation happened to Mike was when he worked for an aircraft ma...