What is your current position? I am a Developer Advocate at StreamNative, working with the open source Apache Pulsar community. How long have you been working in tech? I have been working in tech related jobs from analyst to web master to programmer to field engineer to sales engineer to developer advocate for over 22 years. What is your educational background? I have a BS and an MS in Computer Science from a state school. I have been coding since I was 7 on various 4-bit, 8-bit and 16-bit computers. Have you ever had a mentor? I have had a number of mentors over the years at various companies. You really need to find experienced people where ever you go and be helpful. What was the best piece of advice you got over the course of your career? Keep learning, listen and speak at meetups. How relevant was self-learning to where you are today? It is more important than college. Always be learning from stackoverflow, github, twitch, youtube, open source sites, dzone and articles. Knowing what you do now, where do you think one should start learning if they want to work in your position one day? Start with a github and pick some open source projects that look interesting. I would start with Python as a language. What is the work-related achievement you’re the most proud of? Becoming a Principal Field Engineer at Cloudera was a big deal. I also received Sales Engineer of the Year which was awesome. What do you think is the biggest myth about starting a career in tech? It’s a myth to think you need a love of math, a masters from a fancy school or some special degree. You need the interest and effort. Put in the time, if you don’t like doing it, you can still succeed but it’s going to be pretty boring and difficult. On a less serious note: What do you listen to while working? I love 80s New Wave, Goth, Industrial and EBM. Thanks so much for taking the time to tell us more about your career path. Any words of wisdom for aspiring techies? Start a blog / podcast / vlog, document your learning while sharing. Hang out on github and try some Open Source. Help yourself by helping others.

This story contains new, firsthand information uncovered by the writer.

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