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Life inUptime
Career stories from the engineers, IT leaders, and technologists who build and run the internet.
Career signal from outages, mentors, pivots, and the real network floor.
Latest episode
Dennis Thankachan: Lightyear and Beyond
Lightyear CEO and co-founder Dennis Thankachan shares his transition from investment banking to entrepreneurship and the lessons learned from his early startup failure. He also discusses the creation of Lightyear, the im…
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The show is a career map, not a lecture.
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Dennis Thankachan: Lightyear and Beyond
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First jobsCareer pivotsCerts and studyMentorsOutagesLeadership
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24
Dennis Thankachan: Lightyear and Beyond
Lightyear CEO and co-founder Dennis Thankachan shares his transition from investment banking to entrepreneurship and the lessons learned from his early startup failure. He also discusses the creation of Lightyear, the im…
Oct 8, 2026
23
Wendell Odom – The Man Who Wrote THE Book
Renowned Cisco Press author Wendell Odom shares how he began writing the definitive guide for the CCNA exam. Alexis, Kevin, and Wendell discuss the balance between practical, on-the-job experience and certification study…
Sep 24, 2026
22
Chris Grundemann – From Pulling Cable to Network Automation Forum
Chris Grundemann joins Alexis and Kevin to discuss his career evolution from pulling cable to co-founding the Network Automation Forum. Chris shares insights on the challenges of adopting network automation, the impact o…
Sep 10, 2026
21
Justin Ryburn – The Road More Traveled with a Field CTO
Kevin and Alexis welcome Justin Ryburn, VP of Global Solution Engineering and Field CTO at Kentik, to discuss the realities of traveling for technical work. Justin explains the nuances of his role, which balances executi…
Aug 27, 2026
The format
Human stories from technical people.
Life in Uptime goes beyond the config and the command line. Alexis and Kevin ask how people actually got here, what changed them, and what listeners can use.
The break in
First job, lucky break, bad decision, and the moment the path started to make sense.
The turning point
Outages, mentors, layoffs, pivots, and weird assignments that changed the work.
The useful part
Specific lessons for building a tech career without pretending there is one correct path.
Be part of it
Your path into tech probably helps someone else.
Non-traditional background? Interesting problems? Hard lessons from the field? Bring the story.