30 Years in Tech: From Data Centers to the Cloud — And Why I’m Still Hooked
I recently crossed a milestone that honestly surprised me when I stopped to think about it: I’ve spent over 30 years working in technology. From my early days pulling cables in dusty server rooms to now architecting large-scale cloud transformations, it’s been quite a ride.
So I wanted to pause, reflect, and share a few lessons I’ve picked up along the way. Maybe they’ll resonate with some of you, wherever you are on your own journey.
💾 What’s Changed? Practically Everything.
Scale & Speed: We went from ordering hardware and waiting weeks just to get a server running, to spinning up global infrastructure in minutes with a few lines of code.
Tooling & Ecosystem: From monoliths to microservices, manual deployments to automated CI/CD, it feels like the entire landscape reinvents itself every five years.
Business Alignment: Tech used to be locked away in a back room. Now it is the business. Nearly every strategic conversation centers on how technology drives growth, resilience, or entirely new business models.
🛠 What Hasn’t Changed? The Human Side.
Curiosity Wins: If there’s one trait that’s consistently paid off, it’s curiosity. The folks who keep exploring, asking “why,” digging under the hood — they’re the ones who grow and adapt no matter how much the industry shifts.
Relationships Matter: This field runs on trust. Whether it’s clients, teammates, or partners, the bonds you build are every bit as important as the architectures you design.
Solving Real Problems: The most rewarding work I’ve done wasn’t about the flashiest tech — it was about making life easier for customers, teammates, and end users.
📚 Why I Still Love This Work: Learning & Helping Others Learn
If I boil it down, I’m still here after three decades because I genuinely love learning. Whether it’s diving into a new cloud service, unraveling a tricky networking issue, or figuring out how to automate something we’ve all been doing manually for years — it keeps me energized.
Even more, I’ve found enormous satisfaction in helping others learn. Watching a teammate’s eyes light up when something clicks, mentoring someone through their first big project, or just being a sounding board — that’s the good stuff. It’s been a privilege to pay forward all the patience and guidance I received early in my career.
🚀 What’s Next?
From bare metal to VMs, containers, serverless, and who knows what’s next (AI-driven everything? Autonomous cloud ops?), it’s clear the ride isn’t slowing down. And I wouldn’t want it to.
Because at its core, this field is about unlocking potential — for businesses, for customers, and for each of us individually. That’s what keeps me excited to show up and see what tomorrow holds.
🙏 Thank You
To everyone I’ve worked with — whether we were troubleshooting a stubborn outage at 2am or celebrating a successful migration — thank you. This career has been more fun, challenging, and fulfilling than I ever imagined.
If we haven’t connected in a while, I’d love to catch up. And if you’re just getting started in your tech journey, I’m always happy to share stories, help you puzzle through a challenge, or just geek out over what you’re building.