Career News and Advice
Q&A: Austin Williams, Lead Support Technician
As a lead technician at Arcadian Management Services in Oakland, Calif., Austin Williams is responsible for providing IT technical support to over 350 users in 18 remote sites, as well as several external partners. Sonia Lelii talked with him at length about his work.
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Posted at 11:04AM Nov 09, 2009 in Trenches | Comments[1]
Movin' On Up!
It's a pretty common story: a boy wants to get into the Information Technology field but has little technical experience.
[Read More]Posted at 02:12PM Oct 01, 2008 in Trenches | Comments[0]
What the Heck is an Operations Manager Anyway?
During the 80's, I became enthralled with computers and what they could do.
[Read More]Posted at 02:06PM Oct 01, 2008 in Trenches | Comments[0]
Wireless Cell Site Acquisition Specialist
My job is to find the sites that wireless companies (Verizon, Sprint, ATT, Alltel, T-Mobile, etc) need to expand their networks. You've seen the towers and fake palm trees out there, but many sites are also on the rooftops of the tallest buildings in an area.
[Read More]Posted at 01:00AM Oct 01, 2008 in Trenches | Comments[0]
IT Business/Systems Analyst - For Those That Like to Do Everything
As a business analyst, it is rewarding to be able to see a project through to completion. My roles range from facilitating requirements and design work sessions to authoring the project documents, diagramming data flows and business processes, and developing functional and technical specifications.
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Posted at 01:00AM Oct 01, 2008 in Trenches | Comments[1]
SaaS Web Developer
My job as a Web developer is to keep up to date on as many emerging technologies as I can so that we can use the full power of the Internet. Core technologies, like a server-side language (in our case, PHP), SQL, and HTML are always in use, but other technologies like Ajax, Dynamic HTML and Web services also come into play.
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Posted at 01:00AM Oct 01, 2008 in Trenches | Comments[0]
Incident Management: The Ministry of Truth
I've been a grunt, a senior manager, and everything in between, at mom-and-pop companies, venture capital-funded startups and Fortune 50 conglomerates. What I do now is the most exciting, interesting, well-compensated, and, frankly, entertaining job I've ever held: I manage the incident management team at a large financial firm.
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Posted at 01:00AM Oct 01, 2008 in Trenches | Comments[0]
Shooting for the Stars - Maintaining a Satellite Uplink
Satellite communications remains one of the backbones of the telecommunications industry. It can be rapidly deployed to parts of the world that remain unconnected to our modern infrastructure via terrestrial links. This makes it far more flexible and efficient in responding to the changing needs of media, business and government.
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Posted at 01:00AM Oct 01, 2008 in Trenches | Comments[1]
Lead Structural Design Engineer
My position is the lead structural design engineer for Scaled Composites¿ Empennage Group, which is working on a new airplane design. Scaled Composites is a small, fast-paced company that does what larger companies do - only quicker and with fewer people.
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Posted at 01:00AM Oct 01, 2008 in Trenches | Comments[0]
How and Why I Took a Step Down the Ladder
If you want to be a supervisor, be sure you are suited to this type of work and for the pressures that come with this position. Oftentimes, if you do a good job, you will receive a promotion as a reward. But sometimes this promotion will move you away from what you are good at and enjoy.
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Posted at 12:33PM May 01, 2008 in Trenches | Comments[0]
A Software Developer's Career
About five years into my career, I went back to school part-time to earn a masters degree in software design and development. The program focused on engineering techniques for designing, building, deploying and supporting software. Students studied software project management techniques and discussed experiences with people from a wide range of industries.
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Posted at 01:00AM May 01, 2008 in Trenches | Comments[0]
Professional Services Consultant - Web Content Management
My job is to facilitate the implementation of the CMS at the client site post-sale. This involves approximately six months of both on-site and virtual classroom sessions. Sessions will cover everything from launching the project to going-live.
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Posted at 01:00AM May 01, 2008 in Trenches | Comments[0]
Life After Leadership
I now know that leadership isn't tantamount to authority. That leadership is less about titles and more about people. I now believe that the greatest leaders don't succeed based on their authority but probably in spite of it. Leadership without authority is hard work.
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Posted at 01:00AM May 01, 2008 in Trenches | Comments[0]
On the Job as a Computer Support Representative
There really is no such thing as a typical day when you are working as a computer support representative for a small company. Although I work in an I.S. department with ten employees, only three are on the help desk. We take calls from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and support about 300 end users in what is primarily a Windows environment.
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Posted at 01:00AM May 01, 2008 in Trenches | Comments[0]
Senior Technical Writer
The term "writer" is misleading; writing is probably the least time-consuming duty of my daily routine. I spend most of my time trying to influence others: to cough up information, to review documents, to attend meetings, to share software builds and hardware prototypes.
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Posted at 12:24PM Sep 01, 2007 in Trenches | Comments[1]