Hi, I'm Ruan Bekker a DevOps Engineer for a Blockchain Startup, and this is my story on how I got into the tech industry after a primary school teacher told me I would never be good with computers, after studying, multiple employers telling me "if you only had more experience", and working my way up to companies like ISP's, Amazon Web Services, Fintech Startups and really passionate about sharing my knowledge and hope that this post inspire people out there, with similar background.
What inspired me to write this?
A 22 year old individual reached out to me on Twitter about a month ago, seeking for some career advice. Fresh out of college and struggling to get a job, as everyone says: "If only you had more experience"
As we were chatting about this topic, he mentioned something to me that took me back to my roots: "You are lucky, you have over 12 years of experience", as I smiled, I asked him if we could have a call instead, as 13 years ago, I was the one getting feedback: "If only you had more experience", and I would like to talk to you about my journey and see where I can provide some motivation and assistance.
Back to 2007
Fresh out of college and busy hunting for jobs. At the time I stayed in a small town about 240KM's from a city where most businesses operate. So I got my first interview and it's about a 2 hour drive, after the interview I drove back home and felt positive.
I got a call the next day to inform me that I unfortunately didn't get the job, as "I don't have enough experience**". So I kept applying and after the 3rd interview, the feedback was the same.
So I got another interview, and another 2 hours drive, and while we are busy with the interview, the interviewer said: "If only you had more experience**", so at this time this is the 4th interview when I heard this, I responded:
My best question ever
"I do understand, but how will I ever get experience, if no one wants to give you a chance to prove yourself?"
The interviewer paused for a good 3 seconds (which felt like an hour), and said to me: "You have a valid point. I tell you what, I have another position for you. It's not entirely what you applied for, but if you start there, you will be in a position to prove yourself and depending how hard you work you can work yourself up into the position that you applied for"
You need to walk before you can run
I applied for a IT Support Engineer Position at a Internet Service Provider (ISP) and the position they proposed was a Night Shift Call Center agent, where you log tickets for the ISP and you are only allowed to log tickets, you are not allowed to help them.
So I immediately said yes, without even thinking about the position itself. I took the drive back to my hometown and for a full 2 hours, I sat and mapped out my goal, and my goal was to work for the Operations department at the ISP as a IT Support Engineer, and I wont back down until I get it.
Inspirational Colleagues
The first 2 weeks as a Call Center Agent was during the day to get the required training, and this is where I met Adam Boyd (we are still friends today), he started a week before me. He kept me motivated and was amazing working with him.
Then one of the most kindest human beings on this planet, Creshenda Oliphant was our team lead and she gave me training on how to speak to customers, difficult customers, how to handle difficult situations, and I have to thank her up until this day, as she set me up for success when it comes to customer excellence.
So I felt like there's a lot of people and if I work hard, I will be noticed and I could already map out my plan how I will work my way to the position I initially applied for.
Starting Night Shift
So I started night shift, and thats where I realised I work alone and that it's not busy at all. You might get 2-5 calls a night and the rest of the night you have to look at monitoring dashboards to see if theres outages. The rest of the night I just consumed calories to stay awake and picked up weight :D
So I realised it's going to be really difficult to prove yourself and I started emailing my manager and mentioned that I would like to request if I can swop out with someone in the day shift schedule as I would really like to do more work and get more experience from other individuals.
Trying to get back to Day Shift
They responded that I unfortunately signed up for this position and that they don't have anyone that they can remove from day shift. So I continued with night shift, and after a couple of weeks I emailed my manager again, and got the same response. Then I started communicating with the day shift group via email and asked them around who will be willing to swop with me.
That's where Brian Alexander opted in to swop with me, he was such a great person, always friendly always willing to help out and you really helped me out (RIP my friend).
So I got back to day shift, yes please! This is where I realised that customers that calls in are in business pain, such as a printer that cant print and they have trucks that need to go out and they lose a LOT of money every minute due to issues like this. And I asked myself why should they wait in a queue if I can just help them over the phone.
Stepping over the line
So I started helping them and helped a bit more and next thing I know I got called in because I am not suppose to help people over the phone, as I need to log the tickets for the Support Engineers to resolve. So I backed down a little and then I heard some customers requested to speak to me, and as I answered them I realised its customers I helped before, so I started helping them again.
This time I got called in again, but this time it was from the Operations Team and I thought this is it, I can already see myself driving back to my hometown. And they asked me why am I helping customers over the phone, especially after they already warned me.
So I said: "We are all here to help customers right? So if it's customer first, if a customer is in pain, why should they wait in a queue, where I can resolve their issue on the fly."
Light at the end of the tunnel
They looked at me, the one guy looked to the other one, gave a little sigh and said, well in that case, the problem remains, you are not allowed to help customers as a Call Center Agent, so my only question is: "How soon can you start working for us as a IT Support Engineer?"
As far as I can remember I actually jumped out of my chair out of excitement. This was it, the moment I reached my goal. It was amazing to do the work that you studied for.
Working as a IT Support Engineer was amazing, and met fantastic engineers during my journey, met amazing people.
Comfort Zone
After about a year and a half, I decided that I don't want to do Desktop Support forever as it became very repetitive and didn't learn anything new.
During this time myself and 2 of my friends Jean and Westley moved into a new apartment and the internet connection we had required a broadband router, and we didn't have the money for a new router and as I was discussing this with our Internet Services department, this is where I met Kevin Adams (aka Linux GURU).
He mentioned to me that I don't need to purchase an expensive router, take an old PC, install Linux and build your own internet gateway. As I pretended I know how to do it, I said "right, let me try that". After work, I would google everything about linux, firewalls and internet gateways, until I felt comfortable to tackle this task. About 2 weeks later I figured it out. (I have to add, Jean and Westley had a lot of patience as our internet gateway was more broken than anything else)
Sidenote: This was the most important task in my career as this really sparked my curiosity for Linux.
Approaching my passion
I went back to Kevin and told him I got it working, and he said he wants to see my setup, so I even organised remote access and he was quite impressed. He asked me: "Do you want to be a desktop support engineer forever, or do you want to learn cool stuff, like building mailscanners, internet gateways for customers and do system administration on 100+ linux servers? If your answer is yes, come for a interview"
I jumped in straight for the interview, and I failed miserably, but Kevin said although you actually know the minimum basics, you impressed me, so let's give you a shot.
I am still thankful for Kevin up until this day, as you literally exposed me to the part of tech that I am truly passionate about and you kept pushing me and set me up for success, you are one amazing mentor!
Time for change
After 6 years at that company, Stefan Botha, my manager at the time, said to me he has one question, if I don't answer this correctly I need to follow his advice, I said right, ask me.
"What have you learned in this last year?" I sat for a full minute and couldn't really answer, so he said to me, once you don't learn anything new, you need to seek better challenges so you can continue learning and gain experience as you go.
Stefan, I am so thankful for your advice up until this day, as that really taught me how to learn, be curious and help me to where I am today.
And with that recipe I realised the following was super important to me:
- Sometimes you have to take a step back to be able to fly
- Never back down, set your goals and work as hard as you can to achieve them
- Don't let anyone dictate your future
- You never know enough, be curious and learn from others
- Don't be afraid to fail, that is actually how you learn
- Rather ask for forgiveness then asking for permission
- Watch out for the comfort zone, if you don't learn anymore, seek for opportunities to learn more and make impact, and remember, our time on earth is limited.
- Share your knowledge and help others
Thank you
And with that, always remember to work hard, be kind and stay humble. Thank you to everyone that brought me to where I am today, I am so thankful to all of you.
Thanks for reading, if you like my content, check out my website or follow me at @ruanbekker on Twitter.