0:00

I have a hard time saying

0:02

you know what I don't know about this ? Let me go learn . Let

0:05

me go learn that . I have a much easier

0:07

time putting myself into a situation where

0:09

I'm forced to learn something , and

0:13

I feel like that's how a lot of people

0:15

do learn . And so you get stuck in this thing where

0:17

you're kind of afraid to move because you don't

0:19

know about it . But if you just sort of close your eyes and

0:21

leap over , you're

0:24

not going to do anything else but learn about that , because

0:26

that's what your time is now dedicated to . So

0:29

that's how I do it . And then , once you're in that

0:31

place , it's easy enough to YouTube

0:34

, Google , read a book . So there's tons

0:36

of ways to actually figure it out once you're there .

0:38

Hello and welcome to Developers

0:40

Journey , the podcast bringing you the making

0:43

of stories of successful software

0:45

developers to help you on your

0:47

upcoming journey . I'm your host , tim

0:49

Bognio . On this episode , I

0:51

receive Elise Carmichael . Elise

0:54

has over 20 years of experience working

0:57

on high tech , big data and

0:59

machine learning based products in various

1:01

roles , spanning from software developer

1:03

and software tester to VP of product

1:06

strategy and CTO , as in her current

1:08

role at Lakeside . Elise , welcome

1:11

to DevTourney .

1:12

Thanks for having me .

1:14

Oh , it's my pleasure . But before we come

1:16

to your story , I want to thank

1:18

the terrific listeners who support the

1:20

show . Every month you are

1:22

keeping the DevTourney lights up

1:24

. If you would like to join

1:26

this fine crew and help me spend

1:28

more time on finding phenomenal

1:31

guests than editing audio tracks

1:33

, please go to our website

1:35

, devjourneyinfo and

1:37

click on the support me on Patreon

1:39

button . Even the smallest contributions

1:42

are giant steps toward

1:44

a sustainable DevTourney journey

1:47

. Thank you , and now

1:49

back to today's guest , elise

1:51

. As you know , the show exists to help the listeners

1:53

understand what your story looked like and imagine

1:56

how to shape their own future . So

1:58

, as usual on the show , let's go back to your beginnings

2:00

. Where would you place the start of your DevTourney

2:02

?

2:04

Oh , it was quite a long time ago

2:06

. I was actually a little kid so

2:09

I was very fortunate . My mother

2:11

actually studied computer science and math

2:13

at the University of Illinois

2:15

, you know the school where they had the Iliac

2:17

and some of the very first computers . And

2:20

so , yeah , yeah , so she used punch

2:22

cards and had an opportunity

2:24

to work on these you know giant room computers

2:27

. And so I grew up with

2:29

a very high tech household . We had

2:32

all the Atari's , we had

2:34

Commodore's , so we had

2:36

all the iterations after the Commodore

2:38

, but the Commodore was my first computer

2:41

. So I absolutely love

2:43

this thing from . You know , I was

2:45

in the single digits when

2:47

I had this and I remember we

2:49

would get this Commodore 64 magazine . It

2:51

came every month in the mail and as part of

2:53

the magazine it had you know how

2:55

to program games , but it wasn't really programming

2:57

. You would type in numbers and

2:59

it did this magical thing you got to the end of the line

3:02

. It would tell you if your numbers were correct , which I had

3:04

at the time . No idea how

3:06

it could possibly know that , but it had to be some sort

3:08

of hash . You know , looking , looking back in time

3:10

, and you finished . You know typing in pages

3:12

and pages of teeny tiny numbers and

3:15

out came a game or out came something

3:17

. So I thought that was amazing . But what

3:19

really blew my mind was I was sitting there

3:22

with my I have two older brothers . I was sitting there with

3:24

my brothers , five years older than me , and

3:26

I figured out how to write from the command

3:29

prompt on the Commodore a while

3:31

loop , and in the while loop I wrote

3:33

out something to the effective , you know a print

3:35

statement . My brother is a meanie head or something

3:38

you know like a seven year old would write . And

3:42

so it just starts printing out something mean

3:44

about my brother and I was sold and

3:46

I was like this is the greatest thing I've ever done . This

3:48

is the biggest accomplishment of my life . I built

3:50

that and I was totally hooked

3:52

on technology after that .

3:54

And I can't understand why . Yeah

3:56

.

3:57

It was . I just thought it was amazing . And then

3:59

I'm turning in , you know , my reports in school

4:01

with a word processor . Once I started

4:03

writing reports in middle school and they had the

4:05

you know the shiny covers and I printed

4:08

on my dot matrix printer and my

4:10

teacher was very , very impressed without having

4:12

to do anything . That I thought was particularly special

4:14

. So it started

4:16

very early for me .

4:18

Indeed , Did you ? Did you picture

4:20

your life coming into this direction right away ?

4:24

So in high school my

4:26

let's see , he was my math teacher . He had

4:28

us write ourselves a letter to

4:30

open up at the end of college or right

4:33

after college to talk

4:35

to our future selves . And at that

4:37

time , let's see , one of the first

4:39

toy story movie had come out and

4:42

I was totally sold on technology and

4:45

I knew that I wanted to do

4:47

something with computers . So this was

4:49

maybe a ninth grade , you know , in four

4:51

years left in high school and

4:54

then I knew I wanted to do something with

4:56

music . So really I wanted

4:58

to be a musician , but

5:00

I knew that I didn't want to be a

5:02

poor musician or struggling musician

5:04

. So the computers was obviously going to be my day

5:06

job and I'll do music for fun . So

5:08

yeah , I knew pretty early that this was going

5:10

to be my career in some capacity

5:12

. I didn't know what with computers , but

5:15

I knew something with computers . So I've

5:17

stuck to that pretty , pretty darn well .

5:19

Wow , this is amazing . Did you

5:21

have this ?

5:22

letter still , you know , I don't . I might

5:25

be at my parents house , but I really wish I did

5:27

. I feel like I'd frame it . I specifically

5:29

wanted to work for Pixar , so

5:31

I wanted to go work and build

5:33

all the software they were using . And

5:35

then I found out , you know , once , once I studied

5:37

I studied computer science and college and music

5:39

. Once I found out what

5:42

the software folks at Pixar

5:45

did , which was create all the

5:47

software that the actual designers

5:49

of the movie and you know , the graphics

5:52

would do , I was a little less interested in it

5:54

. It seemed like a lot of math and

5:56

I thought maybe that wasn't actually for me .

5:59

But , but that's cool , cool dream anyway , to

6:01

start , to start following .

6:04

Yeah , yeah , I still remember it

6:06

, so it was certainly meaningful in my life .

6:08

So so how did you decide which

6:11

curriculum to follow and how to start

6:13

that journey toward computer science on one

6:15

hand , and music on the other one ?

6:18

So it was actually ready

6:20

to go to college before I finished high school

6:22

. I had already applied . I went to the University

6:25

of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , which is in

6:27

North Carolina , of course , and

6:29

I had a well known computer program

6:31

. In fact the gentleman that coined the term

6:33

a bite like a computer bite was

6:35

one of the professors at my school . So we had

6:37

this great program . My freshman

6:40

year was the first full class

6:42

of a computer science program . It was math

6:44

before that , but they decided they had this

6:46

whole computer science building and so it

6:49

was somewhat glamorous . You know , it was kind

6:51

of the first first seventh degree in there , about

6:53

30 to 40 kids in my program

6:56

. So it wasn't that big . But

6:58

I knew that's why I wouldn't do . I played the flute

7:00

on the side as a music performance major

7:02

and I still play , but it's not , it's

7:04

not professional , it's just for fun . So

7:07

I did that throughout college and I took

7:09

internships and things like that because I always

7:12

wanted more . I loved my classes , I love

7:14

doing programming assignments , and

7:16

so I always had Something

7:18

going on on the side , even if it was like an IT

7:20

help desk internship or

7:22

if it was a programming thing or something

7:25

for the college over the summer I did . I

7:28

Probably can't even tell you how many internships

7:30

I did , because it was always like a three-month thing here

7:32

and there . I enjoyed

7:35

that .

7:36

Do you remember when you started I'm not

7:38

sure the right term entering the workforce . I'm

7:40

sure that's the right destination , but , um

7:43

, how you pictured the , the

7:45

work of an IT professional

7:48

, to make it very generic Before

7:50

and after starting seeing this

7:52

in the in the in the

7:54

industry .

7:56

Yeah , you know , I , I , I

7:58

knew that you know I'd be sitting

8:00

at a desk all day and writing code and I

8:03

thought that sounded great . I like building something . I sort

8:05

of thought of it as the white collar way to

8:07

build something and that was what I really like

8:09

building . Um , but my first

8:11

job that was full-time

8:13

was not really what I anticipated and

8:16

I didn't go after what everyone else went after

8:18

. So a lot of my

8:20

Um friends from college went

8:23

to Silicon Valley . They went to

8:25

glamorous jobs at as

8:27

consultants and they got paid quite

8:29

a bit of money . I , on the other hand

8:31

, met a boy . And I decided

8:34

I was going to move to Florida and

8:37

so I looked for whatever computer

8:39

jobs I could find in Gainesville

8:41

, florida , which is where I live . So it's Um

8:43

, a small college town in

8:46

the middle of Florida . It's not near anything

8:48

. I'm not near a beach , I'm not near Disney , I'm

8:50

two hours away from anything you can imagine

8:52

here . I'm nowhere near Miami . Um

8:55

, so I I

8:57

went what's what's in Gainesville ? So I

8:59

looked and applied for basically every

9:01

job I could find . I looked at like the chamber

9:03

of commerce website , like the government website

9:06

, to see what , even what , what

9:08

companies could even exist there

9:10

. Um , and I finally

9:12

found a job at a

9:14

blood bank , um , you

9:16

know , like , kind of like the red cross

9:19

, but A smaller version in

9:21

the southeastern us . So

9:23

I took a job in their

9:26

, their IT department . It was pretty small , maybe

9:28

25 people . I was the

9:30

only only woman there . Um

9:32

, and I was a software developer

9:34

, slash test automation

9:37

engineer , and

9:39

it was not at all what I pig pictured . It was

9:41

kind of a cube farm . Um

9:44

, we wrote software

9:46

for the blood intake

9:48

process . So someone comes in they say I want

9:50

to donate blood and

9:53

you have to fill out forms , and it would used to all be

9:55

manual by hand , and so we

9:57

made a computer program that was , um

10:00

, all kinds of HIPAA compliant and you

10:02

know very much in the healthcare space , because someone's

10:04

putting in their name and their medical

10:06

history and and all that . So we

10:08

worked on this intake form and

10:11

it was Not

10:13

the most pleasant work environment for me , um

10:16

, I probably have stories for for days

10:18

, um , but it was a very interesting

10:21

job . So after Three

10:23

months of being there , I'm a 22 year old

10:25

Kid straight out of college . After three

10:27

months of being there , my boss promoted

10:29

me to a manager role . I

10:32

managed something like five people . Uh

10:34

, there was someone in their 40s , other people

10:36

kind of in their mid upper 20s , um

10:39

, and it was a super awkward

10:41

position for me because I

10:43

didn't know anything about managing people , um

10:46

, and the only reason or at least what

10:49

I assume is the reason that I

10:51

was offered this role is because

10:54

I could translate what we were doing From

10:56

a tech perspective Into

10:59

what my boss cared about , which

11:01

I now know , of course , is managing up

11:03

, and there's a whole art to managing up , um

11:05

, but apparently I did that naturally , um

11:08

, because why else

11:10

would he give a 22 year old with no

11:12

other prior full-time experience

11:15

a manager role Three

11:17

months after starting in a new position

11:20

in a new industry .

11:23

Did you , um , in hindsight really understand that , or did you

11:25

understand it back then ? Uh

11:28

, when did that happen ? Understand

11:32

which which part he's rational for promoting you .

11:36

Um , I just thought I was amazing . You know , I

11:39

was really arrogant , right , like I thought I was doing a very good job . I

11:42

didn't understand that I was managing up , necessarily , but

11:46

I did know that I was able to communicate things

11:48

to him that maybe the team Wasn't

11:51

communicating well . He thought I was responsible

11:53

, I was always on time and , um

11:55

, it was a very , um , very lockdown

11:58

place when you

12:00

know , some of the the folks to my team

12:02

would go to espancom and

12:05

they were monitored

12:07

and so they would block websites

12:09

if you went to certain websites . So

12:11

it was a very toxic place . So you

12:13

know , it wasn't . It wasn't the greatest experience for me

12:15

. I didn't stay there for super long . However

12:18

, having that experience becoming

12:20

a manager , of course I'm gonna take

12:22

very seriously and try to understand all

12:24

the things that I don't know anything about I

12:29

am actually . My next

12:32

job in technology was following

12:34

one of the people that I managed to

12:37

another company , so is how I found

12:39

out about my next tech job .

12:41

Okay , take us there maybe .

12:43

Yeah , so fun fact , I

12:45

didn't go straight there . I decided that

12:48

because it was such a toxic place I'm

12:50

skipping out on technology

12:52

jobs . I went to pre

12:54

med . I took pre med

12:57

classes . I was like gonna be a doctor , yeah

12:59

. So I was like forget this , is it for me

13:02

? I had other experiences of

13:04

being the only woman there where people kind of treated

13:06

me in a not super pleasant way when

13:10

they found out I had a boyfriend

13:12

, and it was a little toxic

13:14

for multiple reasons . Yeah

13:17

, I wanted to go to med school wow

13:20

.

13:20

So it was bad enough

13:22

to really Discuss

13:24

. You enough to stop being

13:27

in this industry and go do something else .

13:29

Yeah , yeah , I did take a short job after

13:32

that . That was remote , so

13:34

I did have a remote job for maybe another

13:36

year after that , but it was in the multi

13:38

level marketing space and that

13:41

was a different kind of toxic , because I thought the product

13:43

was terrible and I didn't like how they approached

13:45

it . So I learned about multi level marketing . So at

13:48

that point I was like software is not for

13:50

me , this is not for me . Everywhere

13:52

can't be like this . So I actually

13:54

took a job at a doctor's office . I

13:57

learned how to draw blood and help with

13:59

minor procedures and was

14:02

a medical assistant in the family practice office

14:04

while I was taking pre med courses

14:06

at local school in florida .

14:09

Holy moly , I have a

14:12

. First of all , I want to apologize for whatever

14:15

happened and all the men who , yeah

14:17

, but wow , and

14:20

how did you find your way back

14:22

into the end ?

14:24

So , fun fact , I

14:26

was working at the doctor's office and

14:29

I heard someone talk about this company

14:31

that's in town here who one of the

14:33

people that had worked for me previously

14:35

told me he left for any city

14:37

love . This company is a company called info tech Not

14:40

the big info tech in india , but a local , florida

14:42

info tech and this person

14:45

that I worked with said what absolutely

14:47

love working . There was a wonderful place . It

14:49

was nothing like where we had worked before , and

14:52

I heard someone come to the doctor's office saying that they

14:54

work there and I overheard this

14:56

conversation . So me being the super

14:58

shy person that I am , I walked up to them

15:01

and was like who are you ? What do you do there

15:03

? You know , tell me more about yourself

15:05

. I do . You know this person ? I know this person

15:07

. They said it's great , turns out she

15:09

was the head of hr there and said that there were

15:12

a couple open positions and that I

15:14

should come back and come

15:16

back into tech and apply form . So I

15:18

said what the heck ? I

15:21

had an interview , phone interview , maybe

15:23

. A couple of days later they said come

15:25

on in for an in person interview . In fact , there's

15:27

two different jobs open . Why don't

15:29

you interview for both of them and

15:32

at this point I've been out of writing code

15:34

for I don't know you're gonna have because

15:36

I was pursuing this other side

15:39

thing , because I thought technology was just so toxic

15:41

and terrible everywhere . So

15:44

I show up for the interview . It went really well

15:47

. I got offered both jobs . They

15:49

said , pick whichever one you want . It was for

15:51

, you know , hundred

15:53

and forty percent pay raise from what

15:55

I was making previously and

15:58

I said , okay , well , this sounds great

16:00

. I maybe , I'll , maybe I'll hop

16:02

back in here and , to be fair , after working

16:05

at doctors office dealing with health insurance

16:07

companies and the general

16:09

population , I thought

16:11

maybe I gotta give technology another chance . I did

16:13

pretty well . So

16:16

I took a job at this company , info

16:18

tech , and stay there for about six

16:20

years and worked in different roles

16:23

, but I started out writing code . I

16:25

really love the team I worked with . Software

16:28

we are working on is really interesting , even though it

16:30

was in the construction management space , which

16:32

doesn't scream interesting . But I

16:34

learned a lot about that industry and so

16:36

when you learn about industry it's always

16:38

kind of interesting . So

16:40

much you don't know I can tell you now . You know

16:42

how much it cost to build a road

16:45

and all the components I go into building a road

16:47

really interesting .

16:50

That I understand as well . I joined a

16:53

company doing main elevator maintenance

16:55

two years ago . I never imagine

16:57

I would be in the living I

17:00

have so many questions .

17:01

How do they fix the police so they hold something

17:03

up while the police systems ? About

17:05

the belt systems . I actually

17:07

love how elevators work .

17:09

It's super interesting , right we can take that up

17:11

after the call . That's fair

17:13

. So back

17:16

to your story . Did that manage to cure

17:18

that ? That company info tech managed

17:20

to cure a little bit the

17:22

toxic picture you had in your mind .

17:25

Hundred percent . I did discover

17:27

other toxic

17:29

things about different kinds of customers

17:31

you can have , maybe the construction

17:33

space , but it

17:35

was a wonderful place to work . I love

17:37

my co-workers , projects were interesting

17:39

, I was constantly learning new stuff and

17:42

I remembered . This is what I love

17:44

about technology , and so I

17:46

have not jumped career

17:48

paths since I was quite

17:50

a while ago , but that was

17:52

. That was a really big deal to me . I'm still friends with

17:54

with many of the people that I work with .

17:57

Hooray . Finally

17:59

, you mentioned in passing multiple roles

18:01

in the sexy six years , ten

18:04

years that you had . What

18:06

kind of roles do you take on ?

18:08

Yes , I started off I think they called me a

18:10

systems analyst or senior

18:12

systems analyst is basically a senior developer

18:15

role , so I did that . But

18:17

what I really learned that company

18:19

was two things . I

18:21

visited my first customer on site and

18:24

I really enjoyed traveling

18:26

and visiting customer and talking to them and it's

18:29

always different seeing your

18:31

software in the real world with

18:33

a real user than sitting

18:35

at your desk and I thought that that

18:37

just gives you kind of an extra feeling of

18:39

accomplishment . And I built this

18:42

, I worked on this , I know how it works , I can answer any question

18:44

that they're going to throw at me , and

18:46

so that that was great . And then I

18:50

also learned that I liked

18:52

having an opinion on what we built , not

18:55

just being handed what we

18:57

were built , and that those two

18:59

things have really shaped a lot

19:01

of the different paths that I've gone on

19:04

. Although I'm the the CTO

19:06

at my current company , I'm responsible

19:08

for the engineering and delivery of

19:10

the product , but also I run the product

19:12

organization , so that groups

19:14

kind of deciding what you're building , and I'm

19:17

also running security , I'm also running cloud

19:19

and there's a reason that I feel

19:22

comfortable in all of those areas and it's really due

19:24

to kind of a varied career that I

19:26

have leading up to that .

19:28

Okay , I'm jumping quite far , but

19:30

, but running engineering product

19:32

organization security in cloud

19:35

, that's quite a stretch for you , even

19:38

if you can , if you can do it regardless

19:40

, it's , it's really a lot .

19:43

It is . It is , and you can only do it if you

19:45

have fantastic lieutenants in every

19:47

area . So I would

19:49

like to be not the smartest

19:51

one in the room . I want all the people that work for

19:53

me to be much smarter than I am and to know

19:55

more about that thing . I only know

19:57

enough to draw boxes , arrows , architecture

20:00

diagrams high level of these are where

20:02

the pieces connect . I can identify the right

20:04

problems and understand what they're talking to me about

20:07

, versus necessarily saying

20:09

this is how we should build our

20:11

, you know , cloud architecture . I don't know the

20:13

best practices and everything everywhere

20:15

, by any means .

20:16

I hear you understanding enough

20:19

to smell what's right and smell if

20:21

it doesn't right , and be able to ask the right question

20:23

at the right time , but having them

20:25

the experts do the right thing .

20:28

Exactly .

20:29

I hear you Exactly . Okay

20:31

so back to this organization . You started

20:33

as a senior developer and then likes

20:36

having a broad area

20:39

or broad spectrum of action . I

20:42

heard having an opinion

20:44

on thing . That means going toward

20:46

defining where the product is going .

20:49

Yeah , so we had that was the first company

20:51

as that we adopted this new

20:53

shiny concept of agile and

20:55

it was really scrum and

20:57

a kind of scrum , but it was . It was really close to

20:59

what what you would consider kind of the

21:01

mainstream scrum . Now

21:04

we had stand ups . I had

21:06

before you software to manage tickets

21:08

. We had note cards

21:10

that we wrote our quasi

21:13

user stories on . We drew

21:15

lines on a giant whiteboard that

21:17

had our names for who who

21:20

had what ticket and then

21:22

you would move the tickets long and I always wanted

21:25

to rip up the ticket when we were done

21:27

because it was a feeling of accomplishment , but my

21:29

product owner wanted to keep them . I

21:32

remember having a like

21:34

a end of year review

21:37

with my boss , who at the time was that product

21:39

owner , and he was like you

21:41

know , where do you see yourself in a couple

21:44

years , five years , something like that and I told him I would

21:46

like his job , which I thought

21:48

would go over great , and I thought he would be flattered

21:50

. I don't think he was that flat , I

21:53

comment , but I just thought

21:55

you know , I really like that , the concept of

21:57

product , and although I didn't go straight

21:59

there , after this I

22:02

did have an opportunity to lead one

22:04

of the products at that company

22:06

. I still had a product owner , but I had

22:08

a lot more influence over what we built and

22:11

how we built it . So I kind of started running

22:13

the whole product and being

22:15

responsible for delivery of that product

22:17

. So that was kind of my final role

22:19

at that company .

22:21

Awesome , awesome . That's a very

22:23

interesting place to be when you can have a foot

22:25

in on those two worlds . Define

22:28

the what and define the how at the same time . Try

22:31

to be not too schizophrenic of

22:33

mixing up the two and really letting

22:35

the how away for a bit

22:37

, working on the what , but going back and forth . This

22:39

is really a great place to be . I understand you fully . So

22:43

what decided you to leave this company ? If you

22:45

were in such a right place ?

22:48

Oh , money , money , I gotta I

22:50

. So I've been very fortunate

22:52

my career where , other than my

22:55

first job when I first moved to Florida

22:57

, I never really applied

22:59

for a job . Everything

23:01

has sort of happened and I have attacked

23:03

it like that person at the doctor's office . I

23:07

didn't send a resume and I just

23:09

talked to her and was like , can

23:11

I , can I go apply for that ? And

23:14

so the next company I worked for , they found

23:16

me on LinkedIn . I said

23:18

, sure , I'll interview . It was in . I know about trucking , so

23:20

it was in the trucking industry , so I

23:22

know about logistics and trucking and it was

23:25

really purely for money . They paid me quite a bit more money

23:27

and I didn't think my other company

23:29

would match and I thought I'd been there six years . Let's

23:31

break out of my comfort zone , do something

23:33

brand new that I don't know anything about , because

23:36

that's been my other MO

23:39

throughout my careers to take on something that

23:41

is harder than

23:43

what I'm doing or more unknown . So

23:47

I worked at that trucking company

23:49

for a while and then , kind of the next big thing that

23:51

happened in my career is I get a phone call from a

23:53

gentleman named Daniel Cohen and

23:55

he was running engineering

23:58

at a professional services company called

24:00

Mope Equity and they specialized

24:02

in mobile app development , which I had no experience

24:04

in , and responsive

24:07

web apps , which I had no experience in , and

24:09

Alexa skills

24:11

was their other big thing . So he

24:14

said I want you to come work for

24:16

Mope Equity . We're building an office in Gainesville . And

24:19

I said you don't have an office area

24:21

. I don't know , I have a small child . That seems kind of risky

24:23

. Maybe I'll think

24:25

about it . So I

24:28

didn't take it right away . But he kept pestering

24:30

me . He and someone in their

24:32

HR team kept pestering me in a good way and

24:36

finally I said OK , ok , let's

24:38

, let's talk again . They had started

24:40

opening the office and he

24:42

asked me to run a program at

24:45

that company called on ramp . So

24:47

it was something that Daniel had

24:49

just kind of come up with and it was a

24:52

training program for new software

24:54

developers and testers who were straight

24:56

out of college or had done a boot camp

24:58

and could pass a very difficult interview

25:01

, and the program would basically teach

25:03

you how to build software on the team for

25:05

a large organization . So we

25:07

would put together these small teams and work

25:10

for a CVS or work for the

25:13

weather channel or name brand

25:15

companies that people have heard of . So

25:18

I said , ok , I've never done any

25:20

kind of training before . I

25:22

don't think I've ever done any public speaking

25:24

before . That sounds terrifying . I

25:28

don't have any idea what I

25:30

don't know about all of this . Sign

25:33

me up . That sounds great . So

25:39

I started at this company running

25:42

this training program that he had started

25:45

and I also

25:47

did . I would hire people

25:49

to come in and teach how to

25:51

program in Objective C and then Swift

25:53

later for iOS , because that

25:56

was not a skill set that I was an expert in . But we would

25:58

actually go hire people who were absolute

26:00

experts in it and pay them a

26:02

crazy amount of money to come in for three weeks

26:04

to leave whatever they were doing for three

26:06

weeks , to basically live

26:09

in Gainesville and teach this . We did

26:11

the same for Android . I

26:13

taught the software test one because

26:16

I knew a lot about software testing and test automation , so

26:19

I taught that one . I ran a bunch

26:21

of these programs . I ran in India one time

26:23

, so I was in India for like a month , and

26:25

so it was completely different than

26:27

what I've been doing , and while I was

26:29

there I also changed roles multiple

26:31

times . I started taking over projects

26:34

if they were on fire , because I really liked working

26:36

with the customers I found out . I really

26:38

liked working with angry customers . For

26:40

some awful reason , I

26:43

just wanted to make them our biggest fans . You

26:45

know , hey , you're really angry about how this project's going

26:48

. Let me take it over . I have your

26:50

back , I'm going to help you . And I just over

26:52

communicated with them . I would tell them no , we're

26:54

not going to do that , that's not what your statement of work

26:56

says . And then I

26:58

ultimately took over QA

27:00

. I took over engineering . I eventually took

27:02

Daniel's job when he left the organization

27:05

, so that was a

27:07

very eye opening company . I

27:10

stayed there for quite a while and had lots of experiences

27:12

in different industries . From working

27:15

on healthcare software , which has its

27:17

own kind of compliance , I worked

27:19

on the first FDA approved mobile

27:21

app , which was kind of interesting

27:23

, so it actually delivered medicine via

27:27

an app . I don't think it was

27:29

, in the public , super well received because

27:31

it was scary , sort of like a

27:33

self driving car was . You know

27:35

, I don't trust this thing , but

27:39

it was a very , very interesting

27:41

experience getting to work with all these different types

27:43

of companies and different industries .

27:47

You mentioned twice . Hey

27:49

, it's hard to sign me in . Is

27:51

this the way you motivate yourself ?

27:53

or you push yourself , or I

27:55

have no idea why I do this , but this has

27:57

been absolutely my thing . If

28:00

it's something I'm uncomfortable with , a little

28:02

bit uncomfortable with , it sounds

28:04

hard . I'm not sure what I'm doing

28:06

. I am so committed that I will figure it out

28:08

and find a way to do

28:10

it , because you have to

28:12

. Someone's going to figure it out why

28:15

not me ? So

28:17

that role was very much

28:19

. Daniel

28:23

was a great mentor to me and

28:25

he was very motivating

28:27

. He knew that someone with

28:29

my background could figure that out and

28:31

I think he really helped push me in

28:34

that direction . That

28:36

was such a big deal to me and throughout my career

28:38

there he always pushed me into things

28:41

and I think I really appreciated that and I've taken

28:43

that with me everywhere I've been since

28:45

in every role and what I encourage my

28:47

team members to do .

28:50

When you say he pushed you , what do you mean

28:52

exactly ? He encouraged you , he helped

28:58

you split things

29:01

in smaller parts so that you see , hey , it's doable

29:03

, and you can go there .

29:05

He just pushed me . He just pushed me . This

29:07

is what you need to know and you'll be fine . So

29:10

, for example , when I was

29:13

doing the training , I

29:15

watched him do it or I watched other

29:17

people do it before I was sort

29:19

of left on my own one time . So

29:22

I saw one entire we called them

29:24

classes of students I

29:28

saw them go through this whole program one time and then I

29:30

was basically on my own . After there

29:33

was an area that I

29:35

knew well , but not extremely well

29:37

. So one area was Git . It

29:40

was still relatively new I

29:42

suppose at the time . Git

29:44

is relatively new still , but

29:47

it was something I was teaching everyone and

29:50

I really needed to understand

29:52

it inside and out , like how does it work

29:54

, so I could answer all these questions

29:56

that all these technical folks are going to ask me about

29:58

it , and so that was the kind

30:00

of thing . So I just practiced a lot on

30:03

my own because I knew I could learn

30:05

it . But it wasn't

30:07

something I knew . But I wasn't going to say no just because

30:09

I don't know that one technology . So

30:12

same thing with any technology I've needed to learn

30:14

in my career I'll figure it

30:16

out , and I always do or

30:18

did .

30:20

Okay , okay , now you've been

30:22

more on the other side of this

30:24

bench , probably finding

30:26

people to push and or finding

30:28

what people need and helping

30:30

them get there . Do

30:32

you have some kind of heuristic of who you

30:35

can push and for

30:37

whom it would be constructive to

30:39

push ?

30:40

Absolutely so you can always

30:42

tell when you have team members

30:44

that do a little

30:47

bit extra . Hey , I see a problem

30:49

, I just went ahead and did this

30:51

thing . It could be a small , trivial

30:53

thing Like hey

30:56

, I noticed we didn't have this thing documented , so

30:58

I started this documentation and , even

31:00

better , I asked a couple other people to help fill

31:02

it in . Those are the

31:04

people you can push because you know that they are problem

31:07

solvers . They're not just going to say , oh , there's no documentation

31:09

and then like , move on and complain

31:12

about it . The people that

31:14

are problem solvers , that want to better

31:16

everything around them , or

31:18

they see a gap in a process and they say , what

31:21

if we do it this way ? And they bring it up and

31:24

it's never , you know , it's someone else's

31:26

problem . It's like you know

31:28

who is responsible for that ? Oh , there's no one responsible

31:30

for that . Why don't I do that ? Those

31:32

are the people that you just see their

31:34

careers take off , and a lot

31:36

of the people who went through this on-ramp

31:38

program at Mobiquity went

31:42

the extra mile to find

31:44

a company that did this training program

31:47

where you had homework , and it was

31:49

a very challenging program . It lasted

31:51

seven weeks or

31:53

you would find people that changed careers

31:55

, went through this boot camp and we picked

31:57

certain boot camps that were like longer

31:59

boot camps , that were immersive boot camps , so they

32:01

really , like you could tell they wanted

32:04

to do this . One person , for example , came who's

32:06

a general contractor , so he was in construction

32:09

and it's like I'm going to learn how to do Android

32:11

development . Yeah , so he comes and

32:14

does this program and it is so amazing

32:16

to see how successful this

32:18

group of people who went through this training program

32:20

are today . It's been , you know , one

32:22

of those kind of life changing things . Every time I think about

32:25

it .

32:26

It must feel really fantastic

32:29

to look back and see those faces and see where they became

32:31

, absolutely , and knowing

32:33

that you had a forming role in there

32:35

.

32:36

I'd like to think so .

32:39

I'm sure this is the case . I have your profile

32:42

, your link profile , open right there and

32:44

your subsequent roles go

32:47

all over the place . You have VP , quality VP

32:49

, product strategy VP , enterprise

32:51

evangelist , vp , vice president

32:53

of product . Was

32:56

there a definitive move of

32:59

going in all those directions ?

33:00

100% . So while I

33:02

was at Mobiquity I bought a product

33:04

called Q-Test and Q-Test is

33:07

a test management and enterprise

33:09

quality test management solution . So

33:12

at Mobiquity we had all of our

33:14

testing teams for all the projects

33:16

that they were doing for other companies work

33:19

within this test management tool so they could have

33:21

a very unified looking test

33:23

suite . So they all had their regression tests

33:25

and their smoke tests . So it wasn't tracked

33:28

super well before this and you wanted to be able to send

33:30

what testing you had done to the customer

33:32

so they could feel confident in what they did . So

33:35

Q-Test was run by

33:38

a company called QI Symphony and

33:40

they were based in Atlanta and

33:44

I guess at that time was one of their bigger

33:46

customers . So they had

33:48

asked me hey , can you speak

33:50

at our conference ? And I'd

33:52

never done a conference talk before , so of course

33:55

I'd go . Yes , that sounds great , I have

33:57

no idea what I'm doing . And

33:59

I went and spoke at their conference about how to do

34:01

testing for mobile devices and how

34:03

we store that data in Q-Test , and

34:07

so the talk went really well and

34:09

it was their first user conference . So it was a relatively

34:11

young company still and

34:14

they had like an after party after

34:16

the event and I went to the party at

34:19

the Spurri and ended up meeting the

34:21

founders of the company and the CEO

34:23

of the company . The CEO's name was

34:25

Dave Kyle and

34:27

I told Dave probably

34:29

after a couple of drinks when I was even

34:32

more outgoing than maybe I normally am

34:34

that I really liked the product , I thought I

34:36

had tons of potential and then I was going to come work for him

34:38

one day . So

34:40

maybe three or four months later

34:43

I sent him a message . Professional

34:45

services is a very challenging industry

34:47

. It's just constantly moving , there's

34:49

constant fires and things

34:52

going on because there's so many projects . So

34:55

it's a very difficult industry to be

34:57

in . And although I do really like

34:59

it , I missed product companies

35:01

and so I

35:03

called him up one day and said okay , what

35:05

do you have , what do you have going for me ? And

35:08

so he flew me out . Maybe a week later

35:10

I interviewed from when

35:12

I landed in Atlanta , which was like 7 am

35:14

, so I had like a breakfast meeting and

35:19

, fun fact , I had

35:21

the founder of the company , who

35:23

owns another company

35:25

as well , show up as

35:27

my first interviewee and

35:30

I wasn't expecting it . He wasn't on my schedule and

35:32

he said Dave said I could talk to you if it doesn't

35:34

work out at QA Symphony . And so

35:36

he interviewed me for a role at his company

35:38

who I'd met him . The same night I

35:40

met Dave , so I thought that was amazing

35:43

. I felt like a million bucks after that . So

35:45

I interviewed all the way through dinner . So I had a

35:47

breakfast , lunch and dinner

35:50

there , Flew home that night

35:52

and they gave me a job offer for this

35:54

VP of QA role , which was actually

35:56

a subject matter expert role . Plus

35:59

I was running QA at the company

36:01

, which you know the small companies , really small

36:03

, relatively small team and so that's

36:05

when I started getting into product . So

36:07

I spent most of my time there with the product team

36:09

and saying this is what we should build

36:12

or this is how we should build it , and I started

36:14

learning about the product side of the world

36:16

and then took over the product

36:18

team while I was there . So that's how I really

36:20

got fully into kind of the product side

36:23

. It was very strange not being

36:25

as close to the code , but I did work with the engineering

36:27

team quite a bit while I was there .

36:30

Okay , okay , because that would have been the next

36:32

question . How'd you ?

36:34

come back . Yeah , it's been

36:36

. I've always stayed with

36:38

engineering to some degree because it's so important

36:41

that the product team and engineering team

36:43

work completely in sync . They're

36:46

like it's great when they're run by

36:48

two separate people , when you have the

36:50

this is what we need to build this tower building , and

36:52

you don't kind of make the decisions separately . I

36:55

have seen , like like where I am now , it does

36:57

sometimes work better when they're together . It kind of depends

36:59

on the product a little bit . But

37:02

then try , try sent

37:04

us and QA Symphony merged , so

37:06

I went through a merger and then

37:08

I was running product strategy and

37:11

we had people . We had some duplicate

37:13

roles and so I ended up being an

37:15

evangelist for the company , which was basically

37:17

was doing tons of public speaking

37:19

engagements , which I still don't like

37:21

, and yet I still do them . But

37:24

I did a lot of traveling and speaking on behalf and I

37:26

also helped run the go to

37:28

market activities for

37:30

the Q test products still . So after the merger

37:33

I was in charge of making sure the sales team knew

37:35

what they were doing . The marketing team was talking

37:37

about the right stuff . So I really started getting much

37:39

more involved in the business side of

37:43

how to sell software , and

37:46

so I spent a lot of time at QA Symphony and at Tricentus

37:48

learning about that . I

37:51

went to another software testing company

37:53

after that that did test

37:56

automation with machine learning and

37:58

AI . So I got much more . I

38:03

was more educated in kind of the machine learning

38:05

space . I realized I didn't know as much as

38:07

I would have liked to know , so I spent a lot of time researching that

38:09

. And then Dave

38:12

comes to a new company called Lakeside and

38:15

I joined back at Lakeside , which

38:17

is where I am now . So that's kind of my whole full

38:20

circle . I loved working for Dave and

38:23

so I thought it was a great opportunity I knew

38:25

he was looking at coming to Lakeside . I loved

38:27

it was a big data company and I thought

38:29

, oh , there's tons of opportunity . You have all this

38:32

data . Look at all this machine learning we can do

38:34

on this . Having data is gold

38:36

right now . So I was just

38:38

really excited to work on a product that's in

38:40

the IT space so a technical product is kind

38:42

of my sweet spot and

38:44

then getting to run engineering when

38:46

I first started . And then I took over a product about six

38:48

months ago .

38:50

Mm , I think I'm on that , thank you . So

38:52

what did you find at Lakeside

38:54

in the realm of who ? I have no idea

38:56

how to do that . That's fantastic . Let's do it .

39:01

You know there's a lot of things at Lakeside I

39:03

didn't know coming in . So

39:05

the interesting thing is

39:07

on the IT space

39:09

and but like traditional

39:11

IT so kind of your

39:13

employees , machines and

39:15

you know the digital workplace and

39:18

that was kind of a whole industry that I was not

39:20

as familiar with . Like I know your

39:22

basic help desk stuff . I know there's application

39:25

owners , but I don't really understand or

39:27

I didn't Now I do I

39:29

didn't really understand how that part of large

39:31

organizations was set up . So I always worked kind of on

39:33

the engineering and new product development side . So

39:36

that was my I don't know what I'm doing

39:38

and I better learn that really quickly

39:40

Side one joining here

39:42

. But thankfully a lot of the other stuff has

39:45

been at least

39:47

familiar enough to me , which is why I was able to

39:49

take an elevated role here . I think it's okay

39:51

, I've done this , I've done all of this stuff before

39:53

. I just have to learn a little bit on the industry of the product

39:55

we're selling into .

39:58

Having been that broad or that

40:01

yeah , broad , that's

40:03

best word I have to add . What's

40:06

the next thing that attracts you

40:08

in this regard ? And

40:10

hey , this is something I have no idea

40:12

about . I want to learn about it .

40:15

You know , I've spent a lot of the last maybe 10 years

40:17

working on the business side and understanding more

40:19

on the business side , so that was a

40:21

gap . I really like understanding

40:23

things

40:27

around M&A so acquiring

40:29

companies , emerging with companies so there's

40:31

areas there that I certainly

40:34

know

40:36

more about now than I did before , and

40:38

that's been an area of a lot of

40:40

interest . How do I look at a company

40:42

and say that's one that

40:45

we should buy ? That would be a great investment for us ? So

40:48

kind of like a almost pieces of due diligence

40:50

I think is interesting . But honestly

40:53

, there's a couple of things that I'm

40:55

looking for next , which would be being

40:57

a CEO of a company working

40:59

in private equity or venture capital

41:02

, and that whole area is very

41:04

interesting to me . You know , one of my goals is to

41:06

be on a bunch of boards . One

41:08

day I'm started working with

41:10

a venture capital company as a tech advisor

41:13

, so I help out companies here

41:15

and there , but those are

41:17

all things that are out of my comfort

41:19

zone , but I'm

41:21

close enough where I feel like I'd

41:24

be great at that . I hope I'd be great at that .

41:27

I'm sure you would with that mentality . I'm

41:29

sure you would . I

41:33

want to keep piggybacking on this and

41:36

I'm searching for an advice

41:38

and for many people looking

41:41

at this unknown thing you

41:43

don't know , or things you know you don't

41:45

know , knowing

41:47

or finding a way to start is always

41:50

hard . Think , okay , you can be

41:52

like an animal in the middle of the road

41:54

and with two headlines coming at your way and

41:56

you can be stuck and just not moving . Or

41:59

you can have some reflexes of saying , hey

42:01

, this is what I do when I don't know . Did

42:03

you have some advice for us ?

42:05

Yeah , you know I have a hard time saying

42:08

you know what I don't know about this ? Let me go learn . Let

42:11

me go learn that . I have a much easier

42:13

time putting myself into a situation where

42:15

I'm forced to learn something , and

42:19

I feel like that's how a lot of people

42:21

do learn . And so you get stuck in this thing where

42:23

you're kind of afraid to move because you

42:25

don't know about it . But if you just sort of close your eyes

42:27

and leap over , you're

42:30

not gonna do anything else but learn about that because

42:32

that's what your time is now dedicated to . So

42:35

that's how I do it . And then , once you're in that

42:37

place , it's easy enough to YouTube

42:40

, Google , read a book , so

42:43

tons of ways to actually figure it out

42:45

once you're there .

42:46

Okay . So find a way to be in that

42:48

position , so not having it as a

42:50

side , a side , side , side gig where you

42:52

don't have time for it really being committed

42:54

, and then you have

42:56

to learn . Okay , makes

42:58

sense . Kind of

43:00

scary , but makes sense .

43:02

It is a little scary . It is a little scary

43:04

, I think . You know . Not everyone

43:07

wants to explore something new . You know , if you're

43:09

not someone that wants to travel to

43:11

somewhere new all the time you don't quite know

43:13

what to expect . This may feel extremely

43:16

uncomfortable . I'm someone that always

43:18

wants to . You know , I don't like thrill rides , I

43:20

don't like going on roller coasters , but I do like traveling

43:22

somewhere new and having a new

43:25

experience , and that's , you

43:27

know , my favorite way to kind of travel and see

43:29

the world . I don't want to do the same thing over and over again

43:31

.

43:32

That fits the picture perfectly Shocking

43:35

. Yeah , no , that's the

43:37

consistent . That's really cool , elise

43:39

. That's been a hell of a roller coaster to

43:42

reuse that world . Really really

43:44

cool seeing you Started as a developer , going

43:46

places , going into IT , saying hey

43:48

, no , I stopped this , I want to do something else

43:50

, and then never , ever , will I go back to this industry

43:53

again and then coming back to it a

43:55

couple of years later and following

43:57

this hard trail of not knowing

43:59

where what you

44:01

know and finding stuff you don't

44:03

know and you want to learn , and just going there . Fantastic

44:07

, really really cool , thank

44:09

you . Where would be the best place to continue the discussion with you

44:11

?

44:14

That's a great question . I think I probably

44:16

checked LinkedIn more than most . I'm not big

44:18

on the social media I think that's because it's

44:20

too much to check , but certainly LinkedIn

44:23

. Anyone can find me and send me a note . I'd

44:26

love to hear from anyone , or

44:28

email is always a great opportunity

44:30

, but unfortunately lots of things go

44:32

in the trash .

44:33

So we'll say LinkedIn , we'll say LinkedIn , and

44:36

I'll link your profile in the show notes just below

44:38

. Perfect . Anything else you want to

44:40

plug in ?

44:44

I wasn't prepared for this question , so I'm going to say no

44:46

. I feel like

44:48

I should plug my company , lakeside Software

44:50

. Come see what we do . We have this great product called SysTrack

44:52

.

44:53

Check that out , just

44:55

for the record . You were not prepared for any questions

44:57

for today . You didn't know any

44:59

of the questions I wanted to ask , so that

45:02

is true .

45:02

That is true , I appreciate it .

45:05

And I'll add two Lakeside Software as well . Elise

45:07

, thank you so much .

45:10

Thanks for having me .

45:11

And this has been another episode of the Updates First Journey

45:13

and we'll see each other next week , bye-bye

45:16

. Thanks a lot

45:18

for tuning in . I hope you have enjoyed

45:20

this week's episode . If you like

45:22

the show , please share , rate

45:24

and review . It helps more

45:27

listeners discover those stories

45:29

. You can find the links to all

45:31

the platforms the show appears on on

45:33

our website devjourneyinfo

45:36

, slash , subscribe . Talk

45:40

to you soon .