LIU005: The Importance of Community In a Networking Career

Kevin

Welcome to Life in Uptime, the show where we talk with the people behind the network that keeps our world connected. I'm Kevin, joined by Alexis, and every week we sit down with engineers, leaders, and builders in tech to uncover the stories behind their career, how they started, what they've learned, and where they're headed next. Our goal is simple, to help you see how far tech can take you, no matter where you start from.

Alexis

Well, we have a really exciting guest today. We are joined by AJ Murray. Now, AJ is currently a demo architect at Zscaler, and he has more than 15 years of experience working in the technology industry, and I believe he also has a bit of experience podcasting.

Am I right, AJ?

Kevin

A little bit.

Alexis

Wow.

AJ Murray

Yep.

Alexis

A little rusty now, right?

AJ Murray

And I don't know, I mean, if you're watching this on video, if you do any sort of video, you might see the cat bite marks in the microphone, because it's just been, like, tucked out of the way for a little bit, and we got some kittens, and, well, they thought they should play with it, so.

Alexis

I think you should have brought the kittens on the show with you, personally.

Kevin

You could, like, dust off the mic and get all the equipment back out.

AJ Murray

Oh, yeah, there was, like, tons of dust on the headphones. I had to clean them off as a whole thing.

Kevin

It was funny enough, your podcast is actually The Art of Network Engineering that you are no longer a part of, but it's still out there, was, like, the first podcast I ever listened to trying to find networking stuff. And it was instrumental in, like, I don't know, building that connection where, like, there are multiple careers out there that can connect different people, and it's really surreal to me that you are now a guest on my podcast, our, Alexis and I podcast, that is kind of doing the same thing, but, like, it's very cool that how things have come kind of full circle for me.

AJ Murray

Absolutely. When you asked me to be on here, I was very excited and honored, so thank you very much for having me.

Alexis

We're standing on the shoulders of giants.

AJ Murray

I think that's the right phrase. Oh, wow, I don't know. Those are, oof, too kind words.

Too kind, too kind.

Alexis

So, AJ, to kick us off, can you tell us a little bit about how you got started in tech? I feel like when I look at your career history, you've done a little bit of everything from working to a partner, working at a vendor, working in a NOC. Like, how did you actually get started working in tech?

AJ Murray

Yeah, so your career and my career have some parallels. I actually started out with, you know, my track, my original track, was to do aviation maintenance. There was a program in high school that I was attending.

They had a tech program. They had several different, like, you know, tech-focused programs, like automotive. You could do auto body, auto repair.

You do all sorts of things, but they had an aviation maintenance program. And I went through that with the intent of going on and finishing my AMP, my airframe and power plant mechanics certificate. And what happened was, was September 11, 2011.

And the first move the airline industry made was to lay off mechanics. Because for every one certified mechanic, you could have 10 uncertified folks working under that person to sign off on their work. And I watched a lot of friends continue on that path, get their certifications, and then struggle for years to find work.

And so, you know, I was just like, well, this is probably going to be an uphill battle. I got to find something else. And so, I just kind of puttered around for a few years.

My father passed away unexpectedly. And that really kicked me in the butt to, like, okay, it's time to do something. So, you know, I started to attend a local community college.

I didn't really do well in high school, if I'm being completely honest. And it was while I was taking classes at community college, I found networking. And this is my jam.

This stuff is really cool. I can see this. Networking is not going away, right?

Like computers, you know, they're connected now, they're going to be connected forever. They're obviously more powerful connected than they are. Individually, you can do a lot more fun things with them.

So, I kind of decided then I wanted to be a network engineer. And so, I continued down that path. I got an associate's, a bachelor's and a master's in IT.

And I kind of just did a bang, bang, bang, because I had that momentum after I got my bachelor's.

Alexis

That's how you got to do school. If you leave, you're never going back. I'm convinced.

AJ Murray

Exactly. I know myself well enough. As I say, if I walk away, I'm not going to finish this.

And so, I got my first IT job in 2005. I was working at a car dealership, and I needed an internship. And they decided to take me on and work in the IT department.

And the IT department was one guy. And so, I got to help him out. And even after my internship ended, I did way more IT work for the car dealership than I did at my regular job.

So, that's kind of where things started. And then from there, I kind of formalized it by jumping into a formal IT position. I started at Helpdesk for a local construction company.

And then I hopped around from different places. And the first hop I had to make was actually due to a layoff. So, it's like 08, 07, and it's really tough economic times and they have to start laying people off at the company.

And so, my boss calls me into his office and he's just like, I've never had to do this. He's like, I've had to let people go. I've had to let people go that I don't like.

I've never had to lay someone off or let someone go that I really like. And he's just like, I've known for weeks that I was going to have to let you go. It was kind of like last in first out kind of thing.

I was the most recent hire. So, I had to be the first one to get let go. And so, he did the work and I'm so incredibly thankful for this.

He told me he had to lay me off and then he gave me a job. I had an opportunity to go work with a consultant that we had been working with for basically the entire time that I had been there. And he said, if you want the job, it's yours.

You just got to call him up, talk to him a little bit and he's already interested in hiring you. So, it's yours. So, there was like a month of in between.

I got let go. The next contract wasn't starting for a month. So, I got to take some time off, relax a little bit, recharge and then start the new job.

Alexis

I think that just goes to show how important doing good work and your brand and your reputation is. I mean, you're the... We are early on in this podcasting journey.

I think we've interviewed maybe 4 people so far and this is the second story. So, 2 out of 4 that have had something like that happen and been immediately referred just because of the quality of their work.

AJ Murray

Yeah. I decided very early on in my professional career, not just my IT career that I'm going to treat myself like a business. And a lot of people talk about, well, I'm a customer facing.

I talk to interact with customers all day or I'm not customer facing. And I just decided, I'm always customer facing. Whoever I talk to, whoever I interact with, those are my customers.

They might be other internal employees, but those are my customers. And so, I just decided I'm going to try to handle things a little bit differently. You see stereotypical IT folks, they get annoyed when there's a problem.

And some people tend to talk down to some other people like, oh, you don't know how to fix that. And it's just like, there's so much to learn in IT, you can't possibly know everything. And when it came to the help desk thing, I tried to never make a person feel stupid because they called and asked for help.

Let's face it. Let's have some appreciation for that. If IT was so easy, anybody can do it.

You wouldn't need a help desk. You wouldn't need engineers. You wouldn't need architects.

If anybody can do it, then there goes our job. So, I appreciated the fact that people didn't understand what they were doing with IT stuff. It gave me a reason to be there.

Alexis

I mean, even like working at a technology company. I've worked my two jobs out of college have been in tech and I still call the help desk. You never grow out of it.

There are some things you need the help desk for.

Kevin

Absolutely. I can't bring myself to do it. I would spend hours, hours Googling something, trying to figure it out myself before I call someone for help.

I just can't. I can't do it. My pride won't let me.

Alexis

Kevin, are you saying you've never opened up a help desk ticket?

Kevin

Not for something that was a technical issue. If it's like a procurement or something like that, that I have to do, I don't have the access. I literally don't have the access to.

But if it's something that I should be able to figure out, there's no should. But if it's something that I'm technically able to do within the system, then yeah, I spend hours. I'll go to a co-worker before I'll go to a help desk just because it's so embarrassing for me.

Alexis

Oh my God. It shouldn't be.

Kevin

It shouldn't be. Everyone needs help. No one knows everything, but there's still a bit of my pride in there that I'm like, I can't do it.

Alexis

AJ, I had a question that came up when you were talking about you got your bachelor's and you got your master's in IT. I feel like something that Kevin and I get asked a lot is about certifications and degrees and what path to take. If I want to end up here, what degree should I study?

Did you take certifications in line with your degrees or did you do them at the same time? Did you do one before the other?

AJ Murray

Yeah. So I got my degrees done before I got my certifications. I actually had my master's degree before I had my CCNA.

If I had to go back and do it all over again, I will tell you that I would put more emphasis on certifications. And that may simply be because of the track that I was on. I eventually went from the customer side and started working for a partner.

And partners, just like OEMs, really value the certifications. That's what makes them the money. If you're going to have somebody work on your Cisco switches, you want somebody Cisco certified doing that work.

So that may not apply to everybody. Getting the degrees was a ton of information in a very short amount of time. And I was fortunate enough that I could go to class, and most of my classes were night classes.

I was working full-time the entire time I was going to school. So I could go to my night classes, walk into work the very next day, and apply the things that I was learning, which was great.

Kevin

Would you say that your master's degree was worth it? I get asked that question a lot about, you know, you have a degree already, a bachelor's degree, you're already working. Does the master's degree actually benefit you?

Have you found that in your career at all?

AJ Murray

So that's a really interesting question. Because when I was doing my master's degree, I thought it was this like, holy grail, this is going to unlock the next level of my career. I'm going to graduate, and my boss is going to be like, congratulations, AJ, and slap me on the back and give me a big raise, because I did this thing.

But that didn't happen. There was no monetary reward tied to me getting my master's degree. And my master's degree is in managing IT and it's like, master of science and innovation and IT management, right?

And I was an IT manager for a global company at that time. And I just kind of thought like, you know, yes.

Kevin

Makes sense.

AJ Murray

Yes, this makes sense, right? But it didn't immediately benefit me in the ways that I thought it would. Immediately, I have a ton of debt, right?

I've got to pay for my master's degree. And this could just be like happenstance, right? Whereas when I completed my CCNP, I was immediately rewarded and promoted, right?

Like, we're going to make you a team lead. We're going to give you this. Now that you have the CCNP, you have the credentials, it makes sense to promote you into this position.

You obviously have the leadership experience, but it really hinged on me having that credential before that promotion happened. And so, just again, from my experience, it seemed like or it felt like the master's degree didn't really benefit me as much as getting my CCNP. Now, I think in the long run, having a master's degree does separate me from probably other candidates, right?

And I think when I go to eventually apply for a director level position, a C level position, something like that, having that degree will help me stand out in a crowded room.

Kevin

Is that part of the plan? Or is it going to be C-suite AJ soon?

AJ Murray

It's always been the plan, right? I've always wanted to do CIO, CTO, and maybe that'll happen eventually. I don't know if I'll be the CIO.

I'll just go out and say, I'm not going to be the CIO Zscaler.

Alexis

Hey, never say never. Never say never, AJ. You're limiting yourself.

You don't know who's listening.

Kevin

I need to get that job.

Alexis

You don't know who's listening to this podcast.

Kevin

Yeah, they never know. And I run Zscaler in my network, so I need someone who I can go to and be like, hey, this thing's not working or this thing is great. Fix it for me.

Okay, so you got into IT, and then you are really big also, not to skip ahead a little bit, but you also are really big in the community. You had a podcast, you're big in the NUGs, the network user groups. Can you talk a little bit about how being a part of the community has really, I don't know, I'm assuming it's helped you.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I assume in your career and being a part of these social groups, it's helped you. And we have a lot of early career people who are maybe scared or nervous to go to NUGs, go to user groups, and get out there and be social. Can you talk a little bit about how that's helped you or if that's benefited your career at all?

AJ Murray

Yeah, absolutely. So before a time where content creation is all the rage, I was thinking about my brand and putting myself out there and going to events, local events is part of the marketing plan. If I want to get somewhere, I have to tell people where I want to go.

You can't sit around and wait for stuff to happen to you. You have to let the world know, this is where AJ wants to get. And through that, you can find ways to get there.

So by attending these local events, you can let people know, hey, I want to break into networking and you can have these conversations. And then as you're talking to these hiring managers, or it might not even be hiring managers, just might be people that do the work. The next time a position opens up in the team, like, oh, hey, I talked to that AJ Murray guy who said that he wanted a shot at a network position.

And he was really sharp when I talked to him. So maybe we'll give him a call and have an interview. And so I started blogging well into a decade into my career.

I think it was like 10 or 12 years before I actually bought my domain and wrote my first blog article. And I did that as a result of every time I had to troubleshoot a problem, I went to the old Google machine, and I landed on somebody else's blog that had been through a similar issue, and wrote about how to fix it. And after a while, it's just like, you know, I've fixed some pretty unique and interesting problems.

I could give back by doing the same thing, right. So I started my own blog, and I posted about the things that I was doing at work, problems I'd run into, how did I fix them? And that's, that's how I started to get back.

And then, you know, Twitter comes along, and I and I jump on Twitter, and there's this huge network engineering community on Twitter, now known as X, right? So, and that's just Twitter. Yeah, yeah, formerly known as Twitter.

And I heard about this thing called Cisco champion, and it's like, that's really cool. I think I want to do that. So I started to make more of my content Cisco focused, and I eventually caught the attention of the Cisco champions program.

And I was asked to apply, and then, you know, subsequently, got got in. And that was a really fun program to be a part of, because you got early access to, you know, what's coming, like, normally, you would hear about what's going to be announced as Cisco Live, like maybe a few weeks ahead of time. So you could prepare some content and post it when it goes live at Cisco Live.

And it was just kind of really exciting to be a part of to be like, first in the know kind of thing.

Alexis

So I will say, I've been to three, maybe four, nugs, nugs, nogs. There's network operators, groups, and then network user groups. They're, they're different depending on where you are.

There's some big ones. There's some small ones like, yeah, there's nogs, nugs, that have hundreds or thousands of people that go. There's also nogs that are like 20, 20 engineers at a brewery in the back room.

Kevin

Yeah. That's the Tampa one is literally, it's like 10 people. Yeah.

Alexis

It really, it really depends. So you can find one that suits your fancy. And also, what I've noticed, especially going as a younger person, because there's not that many younger people that go, no offense, I feel, I feel like I'm aging myself.

Every episode, you call me old Alexis. It's not my fault.

Kevin

She finds a way to do it.

Alexis

Well, I just wanted to get my perspective, Kevin. Isn't that what this is about? But the younger people kind of group together because there's not that many of you in the room.

And so you kind of like make eye contact and you're like, oh yeah.

Alexis

One of us.

Alexis

You too. And then you guys get together and a third person joins and goes, look, now there's three of us. That and that everyone that's older is just excited that you're there because there's not that many young people.

So you walk in and everyone's immediately super friendly to you because they're like, oh my God, you're under 30. That's great. Welcome.

Join us. Yeah, it's been great.

Kevin

Exactly.

Alexis

I've had a really positive experience.

Kevin

I think that's what's really cool. And AJ touched on it a little bit was that when you're looking for a job or if you're looking to advance your career, when you apply for a job, you are a faceless piece of paper. You are just a resume that blends in with every other resume.

Everyone else has pretty much the same thing. But when you go to one of these events and you put face, you become a person, you become a real person with real hobbies and real desires and all that kind of stuff. And it can change.

It doesn't sound like it would, but it can change drastically how someone perceives you. I don't know what it is. I've been in that position too, where like I've been a hiring manager, but I've met a kid who was really excited about networking and I talked to him about 15 minutes at a nug or whatever.

And like that made more of an impression on me than his resume did that it just blends in. So like I can't understate, I can't overstate, overstate, I can't overstate enough how important it is to get face time with people. And you never know who, you know, who you're talking to.

It could be a person who's a hiring manager or just someone with influence of their job. So it's really important as a, as a younger career person.

AJ Murray

I just want to emphasize your point, because if you look at my resume or my LinkedIn profile, I've, I've had a number of drops over the years. I can honestly say that probably only two of those jobs I've got through the application process. Everything else was because of social networking, networking at events.

It was because of people I talked to, the connections I made that got me in to those positions.

Kevin

Yeah. A hundred percent. AJ, what, so you were talking about how your first foray into the public sphere was blogging.

What part of your career, where were you in your career when you first started blogging?

AJ Murray

I was actually an IT manager.

Kevin

Okay. So you were a little later in your career. Did you feel like you had to wait that long to start creating content?

Like, did you feel like you had to have some knowledge or have some like, you know, experience to do that first?

AJ Murray

No, I, I just don't think it was a thing to me. I don't know. I didn't, I didn't feel like I had to wait until I had certain experience.

I just noticed that when I go out looking for help, when I don't know how to do something, I'm not hitting manufacturer help articles or forums. I'm landing on people's personal blogs. They're making this contribution to the sphere.

Right. And, and I just thought like, Oh, you know, in addition to these problems that I'm solving, because somebody is helping me, I think I could give back in this same way.

Kevin

Gotcha. Okay.

AJ Murray

But I mean, if it definitely start early, right? Like even if it's just micro posting on LinkedIn, you know, like again, put the intentions out there. I'm studying for this.

This is what I'm learning. Share, share the failures, right? Like that was my big thing when I first started posting online is everyone's posting about, Hey, I passed my exam.

I passed this. I failed 10 Cisco exams in a row before I passed one. Right.

And it's just make failure like, okay. You know, every everyone's going to do it. It's okay.

Failure is not the end of the world.

Alexis

You're talking about how learn as you go or posting as you go. And that's been a big thing for me. I mean, I'm, I'm not an expert.

I cannot claim to be an expert in any means. I'm still relatively early in my career. Um, but it's funny, you mentioned Cisco champions literally right before this, I was presenting to the Cisco champions on personal branding.

And a big thing I talk about is that there's studies out there that show when you are learning something with the intention of teaching it back. So if you're studying material and you know, you have a presentation on it the next day, or, you know, you're going to have to explain it to your coworker or your boss or someone, you actually learn it more deeply and retain it better. So part of the reason like creating content was a big deal is because I'm learning all of these new things.

If I know I'm creating a video about it, where I'm explaining it in my own words, and then I have to watch myself present it, I'm going to pay much more attention to the information as I'm learning it so that I remember it later on.

AJ Murray

Yeah, absolutely. I, I love to share my knowledge. And after I got my, my master's degree, one of my advisors at the college that I was attending, actually invited me, he's just like, now that you have this credential, you, you can teach, you know, that bachelor level courses and associate level courses at the college here.

So, you know, I know you, I've advised you for the last four years, you're you've been working in career the entire time you have really good experience. Why don't you come share this with other, you know, college students. And so I jumped on the opportunity because it's something that I truly love to do, you know, whether it was through the blog and net and then to have an opportunity to do it through college courses.

And I taught college levels courses for 10, 12 years.

Kevin

And you currently are no longer in the community other than nugs, right? You're in the spot.

Alexis

You never truly, you never truly leave the community, Kevin. It's one of those things once you're a part, you can't just screw up.

Kevin

I'm not as active as I used to be. I'm trying to, I'm trying to pivot, Alexis. Let me do my transition.

Okay. Um, well, what I was saying is you're no longer currently on the podcast. You're not, are you blogging still?

AJ Murray

Um, I've, I've written a few articles that I haven't clicked publish on yet. I'm in recovery.

Kevin

Oh boy. Well, what are you recovering from? Cause that's, that's the next topic I want to get at.

Um, you, you were very big, at least in my world. I don't know. You were very big in my world.

You were, um, I was on your blog. I listened to art network engineering. And if I was just a normal viewer who I wasn't part of the podcast, I didn't have this insightful, uh, like access to you kind of like you, you dropped off the face of the earth.

Alexis

But Kevin, Kevin is saying he misses you, AJ.

Kevin

He knows that we, we, we chat every once in a while. He knows that. But my point is you had to step away from the limelight for your own mental health or whatever.

If you talk a little bit about like, why, why'd you step away? Why are you no longer in the limelight?

AJ Murray

Yeah. Uh, burnout. Uh, it burned, it was definitely burnout.

Um, so as a, as a content creator, uh, no one prepares you for the dopamine hit that you will get when somebody says you've changed my life. What you said helped me. I used to do this crappy job and now I'm in it and I've doubled my money and you know, I'm getting married and buying a house and I'm doing all these things.

Like these are the kinds of comments that I got. Um, while doing the podcast. Right.

And when we started the podcast, it was the pandemic. It was the height of everybody stuck at home. And you know, what are you going to do?

You're going to watch YouTube videos and you're gonna listen to podcasts. And we took off almost immediately after we posted our first few episodes. And so, um, you know, nobody prepared me for that.

And as somebody who likes to teach and share knowledge, getting that kind of feedback, like what you're putting out into the world is helping me was addicting. Right? Like I wanted to continue to help people.

I wanted to share my knowledge. If my knowledge and experience is helping you, that's what I want to do. And after a while, I got so fixated on doing that, that it, it shifted my priorities, right?

Like I was spending Saturday mornings, editing videos and preparing content schedules when my wife's taking my son out sledding. Right. And, and now I'm not participating.

I'm not doing these things. Right. I, I, I really remember one time I put out this article about, you know, like I'm a father, I travel a lot.

And when I know I'm about to travel, you know, go away for a long period of time, I ramp up, like I really try to help out with my son and, you know, try to take the pressure off my wife so she can relax a little bit. And then, you know, I go away and she's shouldering everything. And then I come back and I try to, you know, do the same thing.

I really tried to dive back in. And she said to me, she's just like, that's not you. Wow.

You don't do that. And I was just like, Oh, Oh, okay. Yeah.

Uh, and you know, I, I honestly, you know, through, through the content creation and losing that shift in priorities, like whenever, you know, my, my wife let me, and we can get into that, right? Like she, she let me do the editing and I thought that that was this nonverbal, like, okay, like I approve kind of thing. And it was just this unspoken, like, oh, you're doing that again.

Okay. Well, uh, and so after a while that kind of boiled over and it really only almost cost me, my family is what it comes down to. And so there had to be this big adjustment and okay.

I'm not the father that I thought I was. I'm not the husband that I thought that I was, I was putting way too much effort into this thing. And I'm really not getting the return on investment on that.

And that's where the burnout comes from, right? Like when you're putting way more into something than you're getting out of it, it's like, gosh, why am I doing this thing? I mean, for a while, the views and stuff were up so high that it always felt like that big moment of, you know, I'm going to be this major content creator or, or, you know, we as, as the A1 team, uh, was always just around the corner, right?

Like just one more video and we're going to make billions of views. And the, this'll be like this, this side hustle thing that I can finally, you know, yeah, go full time and pour more energy into it. And that just never, it never happened.

It always felt like it was just too far out of reach. So, um, at the end of 24, I left the podcast. It, it had to happen.

Um, you know, there was some talk about shutting the podcast down, but you know, Andy stepped up and he's just like, I want it, like, I want to take the brand and I want to run it with it. And it's like, I'm not going to fight you. I just want to walk away.

Kevin

I'm tired. Yeah, absolutely. I relate so much to what you're saying about content and just like having to spend hours.

I was telling before the podcast, Alexis and I were talking about editing and the other night I spent, I have a hard time letting other people control stuff. Cause especially when it's editing, when it's like, this is what is being put out there. I want to have control over what's being put out there.

So I spent the other night just editing all night. And my, my wife was in her room and she's watching a TV and it's usually the time we spend together and like connect and stuff. And I didn't because editing was the most pressing thing in that moment.

Um, and it just, I really connect with that.

Alexis

It's hard to make those decisions too, because sometimes at the, in the moment, it feels like the most important thing, right? When, I mean, we're talking about content creation here, but I can also relate, you know, when it comes to work, right? I look back or studying for certifications or anything, it seems like you're, you're pouring into this thing because it's so important to you.

And like you said, it's just around the corner. If I could just do this thing, then I'll be happy and then I'll get the promotion. Then I'll get the raise and then I can go full-time and then people will love me.

And you know what I mean? And it's always, and then I'll go back and spend more time with my family. And sometimes it really is a drastic life change or a shift or whatever it is that happens.

It really forces you to go and put things back into perspective or your priorities back into perspective and go, wow, is this really actually that important to me? I mean, in a not unsimilar situation, I just walked away from a seven-year relationship, sold all of my things and now I'm traveling full-time, right? And it was for so long work was, you know, oh, I just have to work a little bit more.

Oh, same thing. Saturday, Sunday, I'm editing videos, I'm doing content and work was so important. And my partner, I mean, same, same.

We were, we both worked in high-stress jobs. He was always working too. And now I have work and travel, which are both great things that I love, but man, you know, it just really forces you to put things in perspective.

And sometimes I think it, it takes a big wake up moment like that.

Kevin

Yeah. Yeah. Time is finite.

You know, it's, if you're, if you're adding stuff to your life, that means stuff has to be taken out of your life and you have to choose what that stuff is. And not always an easy choice and not always what you pick it to be. Like, like if you're married, no one picks, Hey, you know, I'm not going to spend time with my wife tonight.

I'm not going to spend time with my kids. No one makes that conscious choice, but if you don't consciously do the opposite, then you will consciously like unconsciously make that choice.

Alexis

Yeah.

Kevin

And that's true. Like, how do you balance? So we've all been in the industry, at least AJ and I have for a while.

Alexis, as she reminds me over and over again. But there's always going to be another certification around the corner. There's always another project that you're want to spend extra time doing outside of work and all this other stuff.

How do you, how do you balance that? I know that the content creation was too much. And so you stepped away from that, but you can't always step away from it.

Sometimes it is work. Sometimes it is a certification that you have to get by a deadline to keep your job or something like that. How have you and your career kind of managed that where it's not taken over your life?

AJ Murray

It's, it's boundary setting. Right. And for a while I was really good at that.

And then, and then I let it like overcome and I made some poor decisions. But, you know, if you have to grind for a little bit and we all have to grind every now and then, right, there is, like you said, there's work that's got to get done. There's deadlines you got to meet.

Get to those things and then take a break. Right? Don't, don't get to that thing and then be like, okay, what's the next thing, right?

What's the next certification? What's the next? If you're always looking for the next, you're never going to, you know, relish in success and never take a moment to kind of celebrate and then breathe.

Right. Like if you're just always on and you're always going, you're, you're, you're absolutely going to burn out. Right.

Consider it later. Like, it doesn't matter how many certifications you have. There's only so much money a company can pay you.

That's true.

Alexis

I mean, but at the same time, like, I don't know if you're someone, and I feel like a lot of people in technology relate to this, like, I feel like I've always been someone, I need to have a thing. I need to have a project. And if you are, I wouldn't even say like, I don't think high performer is the right word.

But if I'm not actively driving towards something, I feel like I'm not pushing myself hard enough. And then when I look back, I'm like, oh, I wasted so much time. Oh, I could have done, I could have done one more certification.

I could have done this. I could have done that. And it's, it kind of goes back to like, when is enough enough?

How do you know? Does anyone really know?

AJ Murray

Yeah, you don't, unless you put some goals around it, right? Like if you, if you say, okay, you know, getting my CCNA for right now is enough, then you get your CCNA and then have some other outlets, right? Like blogging and podcasting was a big creative outlet for me.

I might not be blogging or podcasting, but I still do photography, right? Like I've got a really nice camera. I've got a drone.

I, those are still things that I go and do. You know, right now it's fall. My son's really into soccer and I love doing sports photography.

I take a ton of pictures of him and his team out playing. I share it with the parents and it's nothing I'm going to post publicly online, right? Like I'm not going to take pictures of a bunch of kids and post them online, especially kids that aren't mine.

But, but I get the feedback from the parents because it's one thing when you order the photos and you know that you get the nice pose with the soccer ball and you hand out the trading cards. It's not an action shot, right? Like it's not somebody making this really sweet kick and you know, jumping in the air and freezing that action.

So that's the creative outlet that I have right now. So having a couple of different things, you can throw your energy at and not just always work, work, work, work, work. It really helps.

Alexis

I was going to say, I think that goes back to like, you were saying you were getting such a kick, excuse the pun, out of, you know, out of writing blogs because you felt like you were helping people. And in the same way, if you're able to take these photos of people's kids in the moment and then give them to them, I'm sure you get a little bit of that, maybe a similar level of satisfaction of, well, I was able to give Sally this photo of little Bobby and it's going to hang on their fridge and she's going to be so happy. Yeah.

AJ Murray

Yeah. I mean, you're definitely not wrong, right? Like there's the appreciation and the gratitude that comes from, oh my gosh, like, you know, it's one thing to watch them play.

It's another thing to like see this awesome freeze frame of them, you know, making an incredible save or making a really awesome, you know, kick or something like that. So there's, there's definitely that kind of same appreciation feedback loop, right? Like if I posted an article, hey, you really helped me.

Thank you for posting this. Now I was able to do, you know, this project at work. It's, it's very similar, right?

It's, it's very satisfying.

Kevin

Um, we are getting, we're over the halfway point here. And before, before we get too far away from what you're currently doing, um, I have a question about a demo architect. Like what is, like, that seems like you're just creating slideshows, like demos, like demos, like what do you actually do as a demo architect as a Zscaler?

AJ Murray

So I would have to say that my current job as a demo architect is the most fun job I have ever had. I absolutely love it. I love working here.

Um, the, the people are great. The company is great. They take really good care of us.

Um, and demo architect is just really different. It's, it's the culmination of all of my years of experience working in enterprise IT and part content creator. My, my audience is not public facing, so you might not ever see any content that I create on a website or anything like that.

Um, but it's directed towards our internal teams, right? Like our Zscaler SEs. In my role, I manage, I help to manage a large environment.

We have a demo environment. It's, uh, it's referred to as the solutions demo center and it's a tenant of Zscaler that has just about every bell and whistle that you can think of that we produce, right? Uh, and we have a bunch of enterprise workloads that make it look and feel like a business, right?

We have, uh, you know, data centers with applications, internal labs, and stuff like that. And we enable the Zscaler features that our SEs can then turn around and demo and, you know, sell to our customers and prospects. And so, uh, I get the, I don't know, the benefit of, of my experience of running enterprise environments, but I don't have maintenance windows.

And if, if something breaks, it's just a demo environment. You know, when I was a partner, I used to have these really tense moments of, I'm doing a maintenance window and I've got like four people staring over my shoulder, watching me enter in these codes. Like, I don't have that anymore.

Kevin

It's great.

AJ Murray

And you know, we're a very large global company. So if there is a maintenance window, if there's something I have to do, well, I do it during my normal business hours. I don't have to, you know, wait and do it, you know, outside normal business hours.

Now I still have to support things outside of hours. So, um, we, we have demos and labs that are customer facing that, um, you know, there are some conferences going on, uh, in Singapore, Tokyo and Australia right now. And, uh, I had to stay up late last night and support those a little bit.

So, you know, there still is that part of it, but that's, it's very far and few between compared to what it was, uh, in, in the past. So, you know, I still have deadlines. I still have things that are stressful, but nowhere near the level of stress that I used to have, you know, working in, in enterprise IT or at the partner doing cutovers and stuff like that.

So it's, it's very different.

Alexis

I think it's also really interesting. Um, it is still a creative role. Like you're still creating demos, you're still making videos or resources for customers.

Um, and there's so many of those. I mean, I didn't know what a sales engineer was before I joined Cisco. I had like a very vague idea.

I didn't know that you could be a developer advocate or a technical evangelist or a demo architect, right? Like there's all of these, um, these roles in IT where you can be, if you can be social, if you're creative, if you still enjoy technology, like there are roles for you. Um, I get asked a lot about, you know, how do I get, how do I get your job?

You're out there. And not just like technical evangelism roles, but they might go by many different titles in many different industries, including demo architect.

Kevin

And how did you, how did you find this job? Were you already, you know, a Zscaler expert and they've had this job on the, on the job board and you just applied for it and you were like, Oh, this is a perfect fit. Or did your creative outlet kind of lead you to this job or the job led to you?

Like, can you talk about that process of how you found this job?

AJ Murray

Yeah. So I, I know people that work at Zscaler, uh, or, you know, I knew people that were here prior to my arrival. Right.

And, um, one of them happens to be the person that, you know, is now my manager and she used to live up here in this area in Vermont. And, uh, him and I used to co-lead a VMware user group together. Um, and so we never worked together, but we, you know, every like once a quarter we'd get together, we'd plan these meetings, uh, and then we would host them.

We, we would share MC roles and, you know, we, we were the face of the local VMware user group. Um, and so, you know, he later took a role, he moved out of the area. He took a role working for Dell and then, uh, he was an SE, he started to travel the country.

Um, he was like a nomad with his family. It was really cool. They like, they bought, and this was before COVID times, like they bought an RV, they piled into it and they drove around the country.

And so, uh, they, they did that. Uh, and, and, you know, I, I kept in touch. I watched the adventures that they would share.

It was just really, it was really fun to, to, to do that. And then, um, he posted about a couple of different roles. Um, and he reached out to me and said, Hey, I got this role and I think you'd be a good fit.

You, you know, I know that, you know, you work in enterprise IT. So if somebody says, Hey, I need this application set up, you'll know how to do that. I know that you were an adjunct professor at a college.

And one of my duties there was to create labs that the students would have to take and complete. So neither of those things were foreign to me. Right.

So, um, he, he thought that I would be a good fit for this position. And, and so I took a look at it. I was just like, you know, this is very interesting.

I didn't think that there was a role like this out there, but it kind of was this mashup of things that I really enjoyed doing. Like I always like deploying the technology, figuring out how to work it into an environment, learning new things, uh, and then getting a chance to create a lab or write a blog article and having somebody digest it and learn it. That's, that's exactly what I do, right?

Like I work closely with product managers. I learn about the new features that are coming out and then I create content that the SEs can use to digest and learn the new features and then pitch it to our customers.

Kevin

It's amazing. So it's basically what, kind of what I do now with TikToks in that take a complex topic and break it down into more of a digestible bite-sized thing. So if you're, if you're out there listening, network architect, demo architect, Kevin at adjacent node.com.

Alexis

I keep, I keep telling, uh, I keep telling Kevin, I'm like, one of these days you could be a sales engineer or a technical evangelist or a developer. One of, it's going to happen. I'm just, I'm just waiting for it to happen.

I'm shocked it hasn't happened yet.

Kevin

We'll see. We'll see. It's going to happen.

I can, I can feel it. It's always my answer. We'll see.

AJ Murray

Now, you know, I will say that working for OEM, that's, that's one of the reasons why I'm like, I want to go back to content creation, but I don't exactly know what I want to do. And as much as I love Zscaler posting publicly about Zscaler is not what I get paid to do. And I don't necessarily want to go back to, uh, or want to go back to content creation and teach you about zero trust, because I think I would probably feel obligated to teach you about the Zscaler, but I don't want to do that because that's what I get paid to do.

I think, right. So I, I need to find my niche again. I need to find what I'm going to educate people about.

Um, you know, it would be fun to go back to do some of the Cisco stuff, but they're kind of a competitor to what I do. So I don't think that my employer would look that.

Alexis

I think there's, well, there's multiple ways we could talk about this. I started creating content while I was at Cisco. Um, and the way I made all of my content was if a customer asked me a question and I was prepping for a demo or answering an email or whatever it was, I would make a video about it once I learned it better, but two under the premise of as a customer has this question, we're due to, and that's how I grew my platform from zero to, I don't know, 50, 60,000 followers, on whatever platform.

And I do agnostic stuff too, but you can only make so many videos about what is DNS, what is ARP, what is whatever, how do you use this? How do you use that? Right.

Alexis

Right.

Alexis

And I think that Sean Nunley, if you follow cloud security office hours, um, they're another community just about cloud security. And he put it the best when he opened up cloud security office hours, he was like, we talk about vendors because the space that we work in includes vendors. And it's dumb to think that making vendor specific content can't help someone when these solutions are so prevalent in our industry.

Think about how many people use, um, I don't know, like I have cloud flare on my computer right now. Think about how many people use cloud flare or, you know, Cisco 9300 switches or Zscalers, Zero Trust, whatever. I'm tired and I can't think of the product name.

You know what I mean? Right? Like there's ZIA, ZIA, ZKA, whatever you want to call it.

I know those are the actual, those are the actual solution names. Anyways. But to think that there's, there's hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands or thousands of people who are using those solutions, implementing those solutions in charge of managing those solutions and putting that content out there can help them too.

Even if it's not vendor agnostic, right? I try to circle around. That's part of the reason I came to Megaport is so that I could talk about other vendors that are not just Cisco.

It was Megaport or a partner or start my own thing. I'm at Megaport because they're great people. But, um, I try to circle around to a lot of the vendors when I can, but that vendor specific content is equally valuable in my opinion.

Kevin

It is. And I can tell you, AJ, so my company just recently adopted Zscaler and I can tell you the majority of people have no idea how it works, like the basics of how it works, like where their traffic flows. And so, I mean, I don't know if this is related to podcasts at all anymore at this point, but just in general, I would benefit from you making content.

Alexis

It's become life advice in uptime podcast.

Kevin

Which has given us advice at this point. But if you could start making just basic content of basic how Zscaler works and access and all that stuff and make it in a digestible way, I will be your first follower, your first subscriber. And I will paste that to everyone in my company because it is, it's a good product, but it's very complex sometimes.

Alexis

Just don't turn into a AJ Z. Murray.

Alexis

I was going to suggest that. Dang it.

Alexis

So AJ, I know we've been talking for a minute here, but for someone who's listening to this and maybe they're in a hands-on role, but like you said, they really enjoy teaching. They want to get into content creation or evangelism. You know, what is your advice for taking that first step?

AJ Murray

Well, that's a good question. I should have known that you were going to ask me something like this and I, I probably could have prepared an answer, but I didn't. So find, find a way to convey that information that you're comfortable with, right?

Like there's a hundred different ways that you could put information out on the internet. I feel like there's a couple of platforms that you guys might recommend, but you know, I think whatever you do, it has to feel natural because being authentic is a big part of putting yourself out there. Right.

And that's to protect yourself as a brand, protect your brand and protect yourself really. Right. If you're, if what you're doing is not authentic and you have to, you know, turn on into a person that you're not actually doing sooner or later, like you're just going to gas yourself out being something you're not actually.

So, you know, if, if writing comes naturally blog about it and you don't have to like buy domain and start your own blog. Like there's plenty of, you know, micro blogging websites out there that you could just sign up an account for and just, you know, put the content out there and start out, just do it for yourself, right? Like just, just type for yourself and see how it feels.

Like, is it, does it feel good? Does it feel forced? Does it feel fun?

Um, you know, if you're, you're comfortable with video, record yourself, you know, pitching a few things or sharing a few ideas and get comfortable with that before you start to put it out on the internet. But at some point, and especially if you're early in career, put it out there and don't let, you know, perfectionism stop you. Right.

Just get it out there. Like the first one's going to suck. The second one's going to suck a little less than the third one's going to suck even a little bit less than that.

Just get it out there and you'll start to get comfortable with it as, as time goes on. You know, I think letting the world know what you want to do and where you want to go, somebody's going to find you and they're going to help you get there. Um, but if you, you just like sit at your desk all day and do your job and wait for somebody to, to find you when you're not talking about what you want to do, like that's, that's never going to happen.

Alexis

Yes. Yes. I want to stand up and applaud literally, literally.

Um, and I don't know if this is a specific, like Alex Hermosi take. Um, but a lot of what he talks about is just net volume, right? You can't do something a hundred times and still suck as much as you did the first time by the hundredth time.

You are going to improve by force of nature. Um, and heavy, heavy on the, if you are talking about what you're doing and where you want to go, someone will help you because there's AJ Murray's in the world that really like helping people. And that's where they derive their personal satisfaction from.

And if they find you and go, Oh, I can help them get there a little bit faster. They will help you just because they get personal satisfaction out of seeing someone else hit their because they felt like they had a little piece in your journey. They will help you.

Kevin

I feel like technology as a career, there's a lot of people who gravitate towards technology or at least last in technology because they do enjoy helping people. We all have to go through the help desk, like the, the basic customer support era in our life, where if you don't, if you don't like helping people, you get really annoyed by people. You typically don't last.

You typically get burned out early in your career and don't make it past the help desk era. So if you make it that far, it's probably because you do get a little bit of enjoyment of helping people. So I think tech just gravitates.

We have the people who want to help, but to do that, we have to be able to find you. You have to be visible. Exactly.

Alexis

Well, AJ, super insightful conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the show. If people want to keep up with you, when you finally do start creating things again, where can they find you?

AJ Murray

Well, I, I will say I have been using the same name, brand name online for a while, and I don't think I'm ever going to change that. So you can find me at NoBlinkyBlinky on most social platforms. I have a blog blog.

NoBlinkyBlinky.com. You can find me, of course, on LinkedIn. And if you're interested at all in the photography side, I'm I've got AJMurrayPhotography.com and my Instagram is AJ.MurrayVT. Awesome.

Kevin

Well, thank you. And then I think that's it for this episode of Life in Uptime. Huge thanks to AJ for sharing his journey.

And thanks to you for listening. If you've enjoyed this conversation, be sure to follow the show so you never miss an episode. And if today's story gave you something to think about, share it with a friend or colleague who might need it.

Until next time, keep learning, keep building, and keep your uptime high.