My New Job!

Remember that post just a little while back about the path from Administrator to Architect? I have taken a big step. I was offered, and accepted, a position with ABS Technology Architects to be part of their emerging Datacenter practice and team. I started yesterday and my job title is Senior Virtualization Engineer. My responsibilities include pre-sales consulting, design, and solution implementation of Datacenter virtualization and Datacenter storage.

For the past 20+ years I have been an administrator. Managing, maintaining, and building my own system. For the past 5 years I have also managed team of technicians. This job is a bit different from any other I have had and I am excited (and a little nervous).

On the technical side of things I think I am in pretty good shape. What I lack is the pre-sales experience. I don’t think I am going to have any problems working with the sales team and a client to understand their needs and then work through a solution that meets those needs or solves their problems but I that is not something I have had to do in the past. I am sure as I work on a few engagements the confidence will come and I will be able to overcome this lack of experience in very short order. I have also met many of the members of the implementation, sales, support and project management teams at ABS and they are all anxious to help. Time cards and tracking billable hours is also a task that is going to take a bit to get a handle on.

On my first day at work I was scheduled for a bunch of on-boarding. Meeting folks and learning the basics. As it turned out there was an immediate need for my skill set and I got to spend a majority of the day at a customer site with another engineer. I was able to offer technical advice to the client and determine the cause of (and help correct) a few of the issues they were having. Looking forward to more like that!

I do miss my old team (and my office) but I am very excited about this new opportunity.

Looking forward to the great adventure ahead!