Скачать или смотреть Follow and Commit: A Player Coach Discovers FinOps with Brad Christian (1/2)

This week in episode 263 we’re joined by returning guest Brad Christian. In this part 1 of our discussion with Brad you will hear why he chose to purse a role at a startup, what it was like learning FinOps as a cloud economist, thoughts on managers as both players and coaches, and Brad’s views on the benefits of technical certifications.



Original Recording Date: 01-15-2024

Topics – Welcoming Back Brad Christian, The Attraction of Startup Life, The Player Coach and Staying Technical, Becoming a Cloud Economist, Certifications Provide Structure

2:47 – Welcoming Back Brad Christian




• Brad Christian (  / vhipster  ) now works for Computacenter.



• Brad is a repeat guest and was featured in the following episodes:



• Episode 113 – A Series of Humbling Experiences with Brad Christian (1/2) (https://nerd-journey.com/a-series-of-...)


• Episode 114 – Career Insight from the Manager Lens with Brad Christian (2/2) (https://nerd-journey.com/career-insig...)





• Computacenter is one of the largest VARs (value added resellers) you may not have heard of. They started in EMEA and have grown into the US markets due to a large reach in supply chain.


• Brad is located in Frisco, Texas and services customers in the TOLA (Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana) region.





• Brad’s career revolved around the VMware ecosystem for a long time. He was the Dallas / Fort Worth VMware User Group (https://www.vmug.com/) leader for a long time and achieved the VCDX (VMware Certified Design Expert) certification at one point, which led him to working at VMware.



• Most of Brad’s work at VMware was in the Networking and Security business unit.


• Brad was promoted to front line manager at one point and did that for a while, being what he calls a player coach.


• Brad started to feel technically stale and that it was time to move on. He tells us he will always have found memories of his time working at VMware.





• Brad mentioned he has loved Linux his entire career, and at one point he was given the opportunity to work on Apache software at a startup. He had never done a startup and felt he needed to go for it.


5:10 – The Attraction of Startup Life




• Brad felt like working for a startup was a gap in his resume to this point, but he was still nervous about it. Brad had worked for large customers in the past, for a VAR, and then at VMware up to the point of joining the startup.



• Brad was going from a large, process driven organization into a startup.


• “But it’s something I felt like I needed to do to just understand the way the world works.” – Brad Christian, on joining a startup





• What does Brad wish he had asked about startup life before taking the role?



• Many processes we might find in a larger organization do not exist. If you complain about a gap, be aware you may be asked to fill the gap you’ve just vocalized (i.e. a new task on your plate).


• “The reason I went to this particular company…it wasn’t technical. It had to do with people.” – Brad Christian, on making the move to a startup


• From a leadership perspective, Brad has experience as a front line manager / front line leader. He has never been interested in moving up to the director level (managing managers) or higher.


• Brad shares a pattern he has seen where “herds” of people move from company to company normally centered around a specific leader. You may have seen this at a company that has a leadership change. A new leader brings in their people.



• “I think it’s just a perfectly natural part of life that you want to work with people that you know and trust, that are going to have your back, so you can build out organizations. And when somebody’s built a dream team, you know, they like to keep the team together….” – Brad Christian


• Brad has observed this pattern at multiple levels in different organizations.





• Brad was invited to join one of these “herds” going to an Apache software company that was a startup with some proven leadership.


• A leader at VMware asked Brad to come...