For the past year (about), I’ve been working for Applied Materials. Overall, my experience there was a good one. Lots of exposure to Data Center technologies, something really ground-breaking for me. I got to work in a very large Data Center servicing the entire world. I was fortunate enough to get to implement a lot of new technologies in the Data Center and helped push out the end-of-life stuff. Getting to implement the Nexus 7000, VSS, and ASR platforms was great.

While the things I learned were really helping me to grow, I was still finding myself in the “daily grind”. I simply wanted more exposure, I wanted to work with new technology all the time. Once I implemented all this new stuff, I was sitting back telling myself, “ok, what’s next”. In this kind of job, I wouldn’t be doing new installations and implementations like that on a reoccurring basis. I won’t get into the minutiae for all my reasons for wanting to move on.

I had a conversation with my sister a few months back who works for NASA. I was asking her how her job was going and her response really jolted me. Her response was simply, “Amazing”. I was thinking to myself, “Hmm, I wish I felt the same way about my job”. I started putting things into perspective and realized it may be time for me to start searching for that “Amazing” job.

I needed something that’s going to keep me on the cutting edge all the time. I need to really be challenged. I’ve also realized I really want to branch out and learn something other than just Cisco all the time. It’s in my best interest to make sure I can speak multiple languages in a sense. A daily grind job just isn’t going to work for me anymore. I’m never going to feel amazed with what I’m doing unless I do something totally new and unfamiliar in some ways.

Mid-July I started working for a company based out of Houston called [1] Accudata Systems. My role is a consultant and I also assist with technical pre-sales when I have free cycles. I also deal with post-sales projects (installs) and customer incidents. My primary territory is Austin and San Antonio, but I could end up in Dallas or Houston on occasion. The company has less than 200 employees and a really great culture. The exposure in my role with Accudata is huge. It’s going to allow me to work with all sorts of different technologies from partners such as :: Cisco, Juniper, Aruba, Riverbed, Citrix, F5, and EMC. Those are the major ones on the infrastructure side, but the list continues to grow within the other areas like security. They won Cisco partner of the year for 2009 as well (in our region)!

This is definitely a change for me. I’m enjoying getting out there and meeting with the customers and partners on a daily basis. New faces and challenges every day. The great thing is that we sell new technologies, so I have to make sure I’m staying up with all the latest stuff. I’m really enjoying working with all of our partners and learning their products. It’s a little stressful at first, since there’s so much I need to learn, but it’s good for me. I think it’s a really good fit for me. I feel like when I look back at where I’m at today 6 months from now, I’ll be astonished as to how far I’ve come. I’ve met with a majority of the partners in my area and the training opportunities and their support is really incredible. Being a consultant is a definite change of direction, but I think it’s a necessary one to keep me focused on my strengths.

I definitely feel like I’m on track to earning that “Amazing” feeling about what I do for a living.

I’m sure I’ll have more to say when I’m fully awake…

Deuces,

Ted Romer
CCIE No. 21785