Team
Member
Spotlight
Describe your role at UT and ITS.
I am senior lead team member of the Enterprise Systems Management Team (ESM) part of the Campus Solutions (ITS). I have been with the University for roughly eighteen years and have been with this team for the last seven years.
I wear a number of hats: Application Delivery Controller (a central resiliency hub for many of the services on campus) service lead (coordinating the operation and support of this service). Serve as a lead for the Web Application Monitoring service (monitoring services for performance trends and notifying service leads when their service needs attention before it goes offline). Serve as team lead in the documentation of internal services (writing hundreds of pages of documentation), designing templates that enabled teammates to document their services quickly and easily and have that information incorporated in the larger scope of a team documentation. I lead a team in the management of certificates (securing data transport or ensuring the identity or authenticity of sender or provider of information) and work to help various service leads and departments automate a very manual task that has becoming increasing more difficult as industry changes require more frequent certificate renewal and generation. I am an automation advocate, helping team members and documenting and developing code and processes that help remove tedious and repetitive tasks from day-to-day activities allowing us to stay focused, improve productivity, and reduce mistakes.
What led you to pursue a role at UT?
I jumped at an opportunity right out of college to work for Apple, Motorola, and several other companies – learning the ropes or working in corporate world. I was happy and excelled in my roles but did not like the constant drive to make money as the deciding factor for obtaining resources and training as well as determining job functions. I needed a change, a role in the academic world opened, and I decided to try it out. My first opportunity was to manage a team with a University Affiliated Research Center (UARC) at the Institute for Advanced Technology (IAT) at the University of Texas at Austin. I loved the job, loved the team I had put together and the work that I did. Unfortunately, it came to an end, and I sought out other employment at the University, with no luck. So I settled back into a similar (non-academia) job. It worked for a short while (new boss, new friends, colleagues, opportunities), but I yearned to work at the forty acres. Then an opportunity presented itself to come back to UT - this time, on campus, a new experience. I worked with the Networking team - enjoying a new love of documenting and developing tools and code to help improve the building access services. With some restructuring, I joined the team I am with now, transitioning and shifting until I found Splunk, the F5s, Puppet, Ansible, and lots more. I continued to hone my skills and the type of work I enjoyed, which has landed me where I am now – waking up and looking forward to going to work and learning something new every day. I love working within academia, especially the University of Texas where the primary goal is to perform research and help our faculty and students achieve greatness.
What has been your most enjoyable or memorable job experience at ITS so far?
While my work is very enjoyable, most of my memorable job experiences happened pre-pandemic times. I remember vividly the presentation my children made (explaining Pokémon Go) during one of team-wide meetings and the many presentations I gave at various meetings. I involved myself in various organizations, spending time with colleagues in fitness and environmental events (football waste redirection, Green Office Initiatives, Poker Walks, Walktober competition, and much more).
What learning would you like to share with your colleagues?
Document, Document, Document. The time you take to write down many aspects of your job, services you run, processes you follow, policies that you must enforce, will make your life so much simpler and happier down the road.
Never hoard information as a form of job security. It can lead to lost productivity and resentment in an environment where sharing is encouraged. Instead, document and share everything, using tools designed to provide a collaborative and sharing work style. Colleagues and management will really appreciate it and see a lot of value and knowledge coming from you.
Automate! Review the tasks that you complete on a daily, weekly, or even monthly basis and how much time it takes you to complete them. Time consuming and tedious tasks should be considered for automation if possible. The time spent researching and investing in automating tasks will be rewarded by giving you more time and productivity that you can use to learn more, document, share, and so much more.