Welcome to episode 137 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 share part 1 of our interview with Don Jones. Don will share his origin story in IT and the traversal through individual contributor, management, writing, being independent, and teaching.
Original Recording Date: 07-14-2021
Topics – Don’s Origin Story, Manager and Individual Contributor, Hard Experience and Career Mistakes, Writing Skills and Seeing Blind Spots, Something to Offer, Losing Tech Chops
3:38 – Introducing Don Jones

* Don Jones (find him on LinkedIn and Twitter) started in the tech industry in the 1990s as an Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE).
* He has been a conference speaker and author of around 60 technical books.
* Don is currently Head of Developer Skills for Pluralsight, determining the topics needed and how deep to go in terms of developer content.
* He currently authors fiction books to scratch the writing itch.
* Check out Don’s career project Ampere Club and an upcoming career focused virtual event called AmpNavigator happening October 7-8 2021.

4:49 – Don’s Origin Story

* In childhood Don had a Commodore 64 and liked to work on it while other kids were outside playing.

* The school guidance counselor said lack of patience with math meant Don couldn’t pursue computers. This was the 80s (so whatever that meant).
* Don switched out of an honors track in high school to a vocational school to study electronics and computer repair.

* Don was recruited by the Navy to be an civilian aircraft engineering mechanic apprentice

* He worked on the F14 Tomcat and A6 Intruder platforms.
* After doing a presentation on repairing/upgrading computers, a co-worker urged him to pursue it as a career and get out of the Navy.

* After a base re-org, he left to work for Electronics Boutique (EB Games, purchased by GameStop many years ago)

* Don went from Sales Associate to Assistant Manager to Store Manager very quickly.
* Then he got a job at the home office working the evening shift point-of-sale system helpdesk.
* Don then moved to working on an AS400 platform.
* He wrote a new Visual Basic POS system

* Don left the company to be a network engineer and had no exposure to it, learning via books until he snagged a MCSE.

* The company gave a bonus for each certification so he collected several.

* He went to work for Bell Atlantic as a network administrator.

* Don got connected with the vendor used for Instructor Led Training (ILT) and was interested in becoming a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT).
* Don started teaching night courses at Penn State University to former aircraft mechanics from Boeing.

* He loved it and hired on at the training company.
* Don eventually ran their training and courseware group and later ran the software consulting business there.