09 DevOps Engineer
What is it Like Being a DevOps Engineer & Team Lead
On this episode of the Unboxing Careers Podcast, we unbox the career of a DevOps engineer and team lead.
Guest: Todd Cretacci is a Lead DevOps Engineer and team lead at KeyBank. With a high-level understanding of infrastructure services, he’s recognized for designing and delivering high performing systems while showing passion for performance and teamwork. In his day-to-day work, Todd helps the delivery of architect level solutions to complex problems in different corporate environments such as call centers, service providers and financial institutions.
Connect with Todd:
Connect with Todd on Linkedin
Listen: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music
What We Discuss:
Introduction to DevOps Engineering
The Importance of Continuous Learning in Technology
Exploring Interests and Having a Plan for a Tech Career
Gaining Experience and Exposure in DevOps Engineering
The Value of Networking and Joining Clubs in College
Proactive Approach in Job Interviews
The Importance of Empathy and Holistic Thinking in DevOps
Adapting to Constant Change in DevOps Engineering
Key DevOps Engineer Career Takeaways:
A DevOps engineer supports Kubernetes clusters and focuses on infrastructure management.
Kubernetes is a scalable infrastructure that allows applications to run on less infrastructure than traditional setups.
Continuous learning and adaptability are crucial in the field of technology.
Exploring different interests and having a plan can help in choosing a career path. Gain experience and exposure to different technologies to broaden your skillset as a DevOps engineer.
Join clubs or organizations in college to network and gain valuable connections.
Be proactive and show interest during job interviews to set yourself apart from other candidates.
Develop empathy and holistic thinking to understand the interconnectedness of different components in DevOps.
Be open to constant change and be willing to ask questions to continue learning and growing in the field.
Full Interview:
Greg
Welcome everyone to the Unboxing Careers podcast where we shed light on what different careers are really like so you can choose a career you'll really love. Today we are unboxing a career of a DevOps Engineer with Todd Cretacci.
But before we do, let’s talk briefly about unboxing thoughtful gifts. At ThoughtfulCollection.com you can shop from a wide selection of curated products you can feel good about, helping you express friendship, gratitude, and love.
The next time you need to, don't just gift. Gift thoughtfully at www.ThoughtfulCollection.com.
Greg
I'd to welcome to the show Todd Cretacci, a lead DevOps engineer and team lead at KeyBank. Todd, welcome to the Unboxing Careers podcast. Thank you for being here.
Todd Cretacci
Thanks Greg, thanks for having me.
Greg
Always love to have you, so thank you for making the time. Let's start with this. What exactly does a DevOps engineer do?
Todd Cretacci
Well, in my case would be a lot of different things, but primarily I support Kubernetes clusters. mostly Google Cloud, things in the Google Cloud. We have our own Kubernetes clusters in our data centers. And primarily that's what I support. Building, tearing down, upgrading, setting up and migrating workloads, helping teams move their workloads or even getting their workloads running more efficiently.
So more on the infrastructure side of things in my case.
Greg
So, okay, so I was gonna say, if you're going into any sort of computer science, you probably know exactly what you just said. Layman's term on Kubernetes, like what does that mean for an organization? Like does that just help me use Excel better or Google Sheets better? Like what exactly does that mean? Like Layman's terms.
Todd Cretacci
I think on a high level Kubernetes is a scalable infrastructure. She's layman's terms. Wow. That threw me for a loop. I think it's more using work. An application will run on less infrastructure than a traditional setup, like say a physical server or a virtual server, things like that. More bang for your buck, less paying for infrastructure at the end of the day.
Greg
Wonderful. And let's talk about your path there is engineering, computer science, anything that related fields, something you've always wanted to do. Is it something you kind of fell into as you're going through school after school? Kind of walk us through when you knew you, when you knew you knew what you wanted to do or when you knew you were studying something else and you realize I don't want to do this with my life. Like walk us through kind of that early stage to kind of where you're, when you got into your career,
Todd Cretacci
Yeah, that's good question. I've been in technology since the 90s, but this role that I'm in, that I've been in the last five years is certainly a left turn for me. In the past, I've done a lot of server work and desktop work and infrastructure work on all different levels. But as much as I liked working for Key, I was just getting tired of it. And that's not a shot at Key, I just was ready for something new.
And I was sitting at the Lerkin building, downtown Buffalo, and on a meeting, and I'd been working with a team that was doing very exciting projects with cloud and setting up cloud services and such. And the manager at the end of the meeting said, hey, we're hiring, we're willing to train, we're looking for anybody that's willing to do something new and has the wherewithal to not only work hard, but to have drive to succeed and learn new things. And for the first time in a long time, I felt those butterflies in my stomach and I reached out to the manager and a few months later, here I was, DevOps engineer.
Greg
All right, so right place, right time, right desire, which works for you. High school, did you know you wanted to go into technology side? Was it post high school? Did you start going to college specifically for this or did you transition later? Walk us through like that moment of education when you decide you want to go into the tech space.
Todd Cretacci
Sure. Yeah, I was very interested in cars and automobiles, or excuse me, automobiles, believe it or not. In high school, I was taking courses on auto technology as far as collision work, engine work, all different kinds of things. My father has that background. That's something I really wanted to do. But as I approached midway through college, I had found that I didn't want to do that with the rest of my life. And I was kind of searching a little bit.
The internet was really taking off. Things were just brand new. And I just started reading books and learning things and I got a job at a call center. I took that job and long story short, I just kept reading, kept studying, got to know people and I got a job fixing computers. And it all took off from there, which is a long winding road. But generally speaking, that's where it happened out of high school.
Greg
That's pretty cool. So you're like every single other person I've interviewed on this podcast, with maybe the exception of one that went to school for something or were studying something and then at some point realized this is not what I want to do and made the pivot, which is the reason this podcast exists so we can explore these things a little bit more. So I would say it's pretty typical for everyone, myself included. Okay, so you're a DevOps engineer working for a big company.
Walk us through what a typical day -to -day or week -to -week looks like, whichever makes more sense for you. Balance it with how much, how many meetings you might be having, is there paperwork and admin type stuff, are you researching stuff, are you hands -on? Kind of walk us through what that looks like from a practical sense.
Todd Cretacci
Sure, yeah, absolutely. Being a DevOps organization, we follow out the agile way of doing things, the methodology there, tracking work, either things as they come in or just a broader plan, like a story, on a bigger plan, like a migration or new infrastructure or things like that. So breaking that down in a week's time.
Several meetings right now, I'm actually in the middle of setting up all brand new infrastructure for Key. So lot of my meetings are with project managers. Where are you on this piece? Let's look at the overall plan, make sure we're reaching our goals. Everything's time boxed. Everything in a project of that scale is going to have dates. We expect, you know, the network set up by the end of July. We expect the hardware set up by mid August.
All those meetings each day are not only keeping us on track for that, also teams that need additional help. put in tickets to us about having a problem with their application as it runs on their infrastructure. We have chat programs like Slack and Microsoft Teams and things that we use as well. But sometimes it's just good to get on a call and just break down and share screens and diagnose error messages and things like that. That's about a week.
Greg
So if you had to say, I'm gonna unbox that bow a little bit and see what I did there.
Todd Cretacci
I did.
Greg
If you look at the meetings, would you break that percentage wise? We're doing 30 % meeting. I know this is going be hard because if you're talking to an I'll call them an internal customer, but an internal employee and you're trying to diagnose something for them, I'm going to rope that into a meeting. Is this 40, 60, 70 % of your time? Is it 20 % overseeing other people? How would you percentage wise this if you could?
Todd Cretacci
I'd say about 60, 70% meetings. Well, actually at the moment I would say that because this migration we're doing is pretty big. I'd say on a general scale I'd say about 50% half and half work and meetings, but right now a little bit higher.
Greg
Okay, very good. Let's talk about when you're doing this at the office, what does work -life balance look like? are you in the office, are you at home, are you working late hours? Is it pretty much, the most part, nine to five with some typical basic flexibility there? What is it, if someone goes into a career like this, what should they expect from a work-life balance?
Todd Cretacci
Well, I've been mostly remote since 2011 in different roles that I've had. Well, actually even longer than that, probably like 2008, I think actually. But anyways, mostly been working from home. I've had a job in the middle there where I was going in three, four days a week, one day at home. But now with KeyBank, I'm completely remote. The work-life balance can be stressful. You know, I have twin boys, my wife.
You know, we have things that we do as a family and other things like that. Working from home, I think a lot of people have a misconception that it's easier or, know, you've got your feet back with a bowl of bonbons in front of you, just kind of like waiting for the work to come in. And that's actually furthest from the truth, at least in my experience with all the jobs that I've had over the last bunch of years.
Anyone that works from home, I think should consider it a blessing because you can do those things. You need to run to the store or the doctor. You can do that. But I think it's very dangerous in the sense that you can't shut off. It's very important that you do that. So someone that goes in the office may drive in at eight o 'clock, may leave at five o 'clock. When you work from home, you don't have that ride home and people don't always realize it, but that's the time that you have mentally to decompress. You might get stuck in traffic. You might hate the fact that you gotta run home and throw dinner in the oven or take your kids somewhere or do that thing that you've been putting off forever. But that 10, 15, 20 minutes, wherever you ride home is that's the time that your brain separates your work from your personal life. And when you work from home, sometimes,
A lot of times you don't have that decompression. So the things that can happen that can be difficult is having that one thing that you know isn't done yet, you know you can finish and you hop on your laptop for a couple hours late at night after dinner or whatnot and that's fine. I'm not talking bad about anybody that does that, but talking strictly work-life balance, it's important to shut off and at least decompress.
And think about your personal life and what's important there when the workday is over. It may be a late workday, you might be behind on some work that has a deadline, it happens to all of us, right? But work-life balance, it's so important that you draw a line at some point. Whatever that is for anyone, everyone has their different schedules and jobs and such, it's very important to draw that line.
And when you're done, you shut off the laptop and you walk away.
Greg
Very good. And I'm being a terrible interviewer today because I want to jump, jump back to something you said 10 minutes ago, which I should have just followed up on then. So anyone listening or watching bear with me. I'll get, I'll get us back on track. You mentioned you were, you were going to work and sitting in a meeting previous to this role where you were just unfulfilled, right? You were just kind of, I'm gonna put words in your mouth, going through the motions, but you just weren't overly happy with the position you were in. Can you talk to me a second about what that particular role was?
I don't want to say why you got kind of why it became monotonous, but like what were some of the factors that kind of led to the work being
Todd Cretacci
Yeah, so it really wasn't the job or the people that were the problem. I just was tired of doing the same thing. I like new challenges. I like meeting new people. I like doing things differently. I'm a person that doesn't want to stay stagnant. I may have done something 50 times the same way. And you may say, hey, did you ever think about doing it this way? Oh, geez, no, that's an awesome idea.
You always have to be learning. You always have to be challenging yourself. I feel very strongly about that. And this job was what I had mentioned a little bit earlier. So I was working at servers, up applications, user accounts, security through authentication, things like that. I like the job. My boss is one of my favorite people, and he actually mentored me in a leadership.
class that I took. it wasn't anything like that. just I was tired of doing the same thing. It's really what it was. Some people, you know, they find something like and that's great. Just for me, I wanted something more. I was starting to see the turn towards KeyBank and technology as a whole leaning more towards the cloud. And I found that very exciting.
Greg
That's awesome. Thanks for the insights. I appreciate you diving into that a little bit. I'm going to shift gears slightly to kind of going back to the high school days, minus the bad stuff. But there's a lot of people in high school now. mean, the beauty is we live in a world where there's YouTube and you can learn how to code and kind of do anything you want from the comfort of your home when you're eight years old, if you want to.
Your advice might change, but if there's someone in high school who's saying hey, I want to do something in technology I don't really know what I want to do Maybe they know they want to go into kind of what you're going into What advice might you offer them and that could be in terms of like a skill they should learn or maybe sharpen? Classes that take be classes that take that have nothing to do with engineering, but you look back now and go you know what? If I would have taken XYZ, it probably would have helped me in my day-to-day profession now as an adult.
Any piece of advice you might be offering to any high school kids out there?
Todd Cretacci
Hmm. Well, when we say the term DevOps engineer, that can mean a lot of different things. You know, like I mentioned, I'm on the architecture side. We have DevOps engineers that do nothing but create infrastructure pipelines for workloads and code all day long every day. I do some of that too, but just it's a broad strait. And so I guess if you're looking at someone or someone sitting back and really wants to get into technology and not sure what they want to do. A lot of companies.
That's my phone talking to me, picked up my voice.
Greg
You gotta unlock that Todd.
Todd Cretacci
That was strange. So I think it's important that while you're looking at different technologies, it can be overwhelming, especially for high school students, because there's so many different things. Open source products, one company may use this stack, another company may use another. I think it's less about what technologies to learn and what you find interesting.
So it sounds kind of backwards to say that, but in my experience and people that I've mentored and talked to, a lot of companies now are more willing to train the right mentality or a person that has some background in the thing. Right? So all the different technologies that are out there, I think it's tough to say, okay, well, know, Python looks cool. I'm going to write some stuff in Python or I think I would code some stuff and make some YAML files or JSONs or something like that.
That's all helpful. But I think the technology almost takes a backseat to the role that a person might find them be interested in. And then that all comes with it because it's very hard to find someone, okay, I need a guy that knows Python and C, I need that guy. And if you look for that person, you're probably not going to find them, but you might find someone that had background in the banking industry and maybe did a little bit of a ansible on the side. Well, that person probably has the right mentality for that role. So I think bringing this around, I think it's important that a person kind of knows what direction in technology they want to go in. And then the skills kind of fall from there.
Greg
Very good. Any, if you look back at yourself now, I mean, you were studying, you said you were, you were pretty much disassembling car, I'd say disassembling, but like you were studying mechanics, right? So figuring out how things work. It took you a while, but you eventually got to the point where you're like, I don't really want to do this with my life anymore. If you look back and you said you've always been involved or interested in technology, is there something in your past that you could look back at now having hindsight being 2020 saying,
You know, there were signs there all along that this is what I wanted to do, but for some reason I went in this direction and then figured out, is there anything that you could think of from back then that you kind of resonate now and go, I should have just listened to my gut back then because these four things were telling me to do this thing.
Todd Cretacci
Yeah, I think for me, I wish I would have had more of a plan. And what I mean by that is coming out of high school, wanting to do auto technology, I liked it, it was cool, I liked working on my cars and stuff, but I never had that fire inside. I was like, I'll do it, I'll go to college, just do it, whatever. And I was kind of thinking, well, maybe I'll just do a couple of years of college and then get picked up at a shop and whatever.
I wish I would apply more time not to having my long -term goals in my first year of college or my senior year in high school or whatnot, but just that I gave it more thought. Because when I got to the point where I realized that auto technology wasn't something I wanted to do, I panicked a little bit. And my family, myself, my family, we've always prided ourselves on being hard workers. And when technology took the turn and really became more of our in our daily lives.
Like I said, I studied, I talked to people, I listened, I got my foot in the door. Sometimes I think I'm lucky. Well, a lot of times I think I'm lucky. But you know, lot of it's hard work too. I guess if I was talking to the younger me, I would want younger me to stop and just have a plan. It may not be college, it may be a trade school, maybe an electrician or a plumber or a construction engineer or anything.
Instead of maybe winging it day to day, maybe just taking a little bit more time and just thinking, okay, I'm a senior in high school. I'm going to be starting college in the fall. What interests me looking out in the world? yeah, electrician look might be cool or, you know, going into a tech field and get take going, getting a computer science degree or something like that. I just, I would tell younger me just to think about options a lot more than I did.
And have more of a plan. Your plan could change 100 times, but just devoting brain power to that, I think would be something that I would tell younger
Greg
So I want to break, I want to try to break this down a little bit if I can. With a plan, you mentioned some of this, I'm going to try to kind of package it a little bit more, but if with a plan, look at yours specifically, like you mentioned, okay, maybe I'll go to a shop, get picked up a little bit, right? So it doesn't have to be a long -term plan, but that's a very short -term plan. That's kind of like next step. And you don't think beyond that high school kids.
I mean, there's some, high school kids out there much smarter than I am today, know, 30 years younger than me. But most high school kids are not thinking 30 years ahead. It's just the nature of the beast, right? So would a plan for a high school kid be more apt to go, all right, what's my next step? Kind of like you talked about, what's the step after that? Or is it really just going, okay, what are 10 things that interest me and jotting them down and seeing where those interests fit into kind of what the current thing is, I don't want to ask you to take a side, but I'm trying to figure out a practical way for a high school kid, the majority of high school kids who are not looking 20 years out, like how they develop a quote unquote plan. Does that make sense how I'm framing it?
Todd Cretacci
Right, and what I was just gonna say is what you had just said actually. And that's a good point where, you know, high school kids aren't really thinking that far down the road, that's true. But I think it's important to set aside some brain power getting towards the end of your high school career and things that you wanna do. And making a list, certainly. It doesn't have to necessarily be ranked. It doesn't necessarily have to be...
shouldn't have dates assigned to it or anything, but I think it's important for high school students to be thinking about that in their senior year. We've all, like you said, the majority of people you've interviewed, myself included, took different directions after college. And seeing that the prices that students are paying now for college and stuff, taking that time, if college is the way they wanna go, taking the time to think about what interests them.
And just even devoting a little bit of that time thinking about that to that list, talking to people, their parents, peers on what they might be thinking for their careers, people they respect that are out working now. I think it's important to just put some thought behind what things look interesting. And who knows, like you said about too, you might end up doing something at college for 10 years and want to do something else.
GregYeah, I willTodd Cretacci
that list, that mindset could still be employed.
Greg
Yeah, would say from a mechanic standpoint, if you had 10 things on there and none of them had anything to do at all with any sort of mechanical type stuff, you might look at that and go, okay, I don't know what I want to do, but this might not be it, you know? So, who knows? So, let's transition a little bit from high school into college now. So, college, especially in the tech side, computer science, right? You mentioned before, there's so many areas you can go in. There's a lot to do. Colleges are, they're all going to have very and widely, especially community colleges versus large universities like Auburn or something, they're gonna have different offerings there.
So if you look back at your own self and go, if I was going to college again, this is what I would, not to differently, but like, this is what I would advise my son to do at college. Get involved in XYZ clubs or organizations or network with your friends more, try to do something.
What advice might you offer to someone who is currently in college and either knows they want to go into computer science or has maybe made that list we just talked about and goes, okay, I want to explore this while I'm doing something else. Anything specific beyond the same advice you had in high school with kind of exposing yourself around?
Or just if anyone has opportunities that maybe you didn't have or the same opportunities, right? Hey, we had five clubs all around XYZ and it was super helpful for me. You should get involved in something like that. Or it could be something like, I wish we had five clubs in XYZ. They would have been helpful for me …
Todd Cretacci
Being as extroverted as I am, it would have made an easy belief that I was in a lot of clubs in high school and college and I wasn't. And I regret that actually. Even if something's remotely interesting, you get a whole new perspective on whatever the point of that club is or whatever the focus is. I would highly recommend anything that even looks remotely interesting. It doesn't necessarily have to be towards a field you may be getting into.
You gain experience, you see things in different perspective, you meet new people and you might make lifelong friends or just some of you might meet down the line. know, I, I, unfortunately I didn't do too many clubs. I played hockey with my friends. may, you may know about that. But you know, when it comes to school and stuff like that, I think clubs are important. Certainly extracurricular activities, sports or whatever.
I would highly recommend it.
Greg
Yeah, that's always the one challenge with college, any sort of size is a lot of people, regardless of their major, they go and they kind of have the light at the end of tunnel. I'm going to do these classes. I'm going to do this. I'm going to get to that light. And it's all those extracurriculars that a lot of times, a lot of people will take advantage of them. A lot of people will not take advantage of them because he either pulls away from study.
They just don't want to do something extra extra focused on that degree on that diploma, whatever it is. So I think it's good that people hear things like that. you know,
Todd Cretacci
Diversity for sure. My sons are 11 and I talk to them all the time when they go they're in middle school now and over the summer they released what they're going to offer to seventh graders and what is going to be available different parts of the year. We look over together and we we don't force but we persuade them to look those over and they're both going to be in clubs next year. It just it's it's important. It really is.
Greg
Very good. Let's shift a little bit to those new in the workforce now, if we can, Todd. So it's a challenge, right? People will go through internships. They'll do things like that. Hopefully they're networking a little bit with clubs and, you know, advisors and guidance counselors, whatever it might be in college. But I might kind of phrase it this way for you. You've got one opening on your team. You've got 10 resumes or resumes slash interviews that you are doing with someone fresh out of college.
On your team, what is something, doesn't really matter, experience is all the same, which is at the end of the day what we're talking about. What is something for you that would set that person, one person apart from the other nine?
Todd Cretacci
Just by looking at the resumes or are talking if I'm talking to those live?
Greg
I'll give you both so you can combine them. You looked at the resumes. I mean, if you throw something specific with the resume, great. If it really comes down to the personal, the personality side, let's talk about that.
Todd Cretacci
So I think from a resume perspective, we certainly look for, you know, certain technology backgrounds or maybe preferably coding. But like I said earlier, a background in infrastructure technology doesn't necessarily have to match up like for like for something we may be offering.
But I think what makes or breaks someone is how they talk to the interviewer. And maybe some people might feel a little stressed when I say that. I don't mean wearing the perfect suit, having your hair perfect, and speaking perfectly. I don't mean anything like that. mean, just speaking in a way where you're interested, do some work on the company you're interviewing with, learn about them, learn what their strengths and weaknesses are.
I would want to hire somebody that is interested in working for me and the company I'm working for as...me hiring them so I think it's important. I've had all kinds of interview. I've interviewed lots of people and you have people that are just kind of, you know, nod their heads or you know looking down at their phone and you can see exactly that I'm not looking at the camera right now. You meet people like that and you meet other people, “hey thank you so much for this time I'm really interested in the position,” you know, “I saw this on on the rec, you're offering this.” I think it goes a long way to show that you're interested, you're motivated, and you're dedicated. And I think that's taken me very far in my career.
Greg
Very good. How about personalities a little bit? So are there, this is a tough one to ask, but some industries lend themselves to a better answer than others. I'm gonna take it from two sides. So the first side of this is going to be, is there a typical personality that you tend to work with? You're also working across the entire organization, so you're probably dealing with different departments which have different personnel.
Like accountants tend to act a certain way. Engineers tend to be more introverted. Marketers are out there with funny hats and stuff, So are there dominant personalities you tend to work with more often, whether they could be more aggressive, they could be super polite, be more quiet, be unsure, or is it really just random and you're picking something from a hat?
Todd Cretacci
In this line of work with where I work currently and different organizations I've worked at, it's definitely a passive type of experience. I'm more, I hate to say the words I and aggressive in the same sentence, but I'm more of an aggressive, outgoing type person. And we have people that are go-getters and are kind of forthcoming a little bit more, but I think the environment kind of keeps that and check on how decisions are made, how meetings come together and things like that. So I think more DevOps as a whole is more passive and not real aggressive on the outside.
But I think it's important that your boss knows, whoever that may be, that you're willing to work and you'll do that job, whatever that is, to the best of your ability. And if you have time for more, ask for more. So I think that the public space, we're talking meetings and things like that, I think the DevOps as a whole is more of a passive environment.
But I think it's important that your boss knows that you'll do whatever it takes to, I don't want to say it that way, that you're willing to work hard for your job. That doesn't mean working 15 hours a day, that you, you're very interested in the job and you want to succeed and you want to do.
Greg
Very good, my second part to that is gonna be kind of the reverse. So you've alluded to a couple of these things already, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. So a person working in DevOps, are there either particular personality types or traits that you commonly see in, I wanna say successful people in the field, but I define success as happy. So like if you're not an empathetic, you're probably not gonna be a good therapist, right?
doesn't have to be, but chances are you would need to be empathetic in a position like that. Are there certain traits that for a DevOps engineer or working kind of in your department that you look at and go, if you're like that, you're probably not gonna be happy.
Todd Cretacci
Yeah, empathy and be able to see things holistically is very important. So, you know, going back to my job, so my infrastructure runs a lot of important key bank applications. Well, if somebody wanted to software support people come to me and say, well, I've got an issue, my stuff isn't working. Well, I can't just say, well, it's your stuff, go fix it. You know, you have to think about, okay, what are all the pieces in between the customer hitting their application that's sitting on my stuff. What are all those things that could potentially be a problem? And you break those down internally and verbally with that person that needs help.
With DevOps there's so many things that are intertwined. The infrastructure, either it be in a data center or in the cloud, the code, the network, you know, and mention the security on top of all that working for a financial institution. It's very important to understand that someone coming for you for help is not a bother. It's part of the job and it's important that you understand why they need your help and how you can.
Greg
That's a great answer. It's a great answer. How about a misconception about your job, I'll give you one. Unplug it for 45 seconds and plug it back in, right? I say that about anything in tech. How about common misconceptions about your job?
Todd Cretacci
You know, I think I went into the work from home one, that's more a little bit, I guess that's a little bit tiered, but as far as DevOps engineers, I think a lot of people tend to think that we just got our heads down and never getting outside and just coding all day and, know, pocket protectors and tape on our glasses and stuff. And that's not the case at all. We've got a wide variety of different people and different personalities at different likes. And it's really a fun bunch.
You know, and on top of that, Key is very focused on diversity and team morale and employee happiness and things like that. So we see a lot of that on that level as well. But it's, yeah, I think it's, I think that's a kind of misconception with DevOps engineers.
Greg
Very good. And how about something about your industry you wish you knew sooner?
Todd Cretacci
I think, in any job, my job or any job, any field, I think you have to draw a line between what's personal and what's professional. And what I mean by that, I can think earlier in my career, getting really upset over people that didn't want to hear what I had to say or what I wanted to offer, or I can think of situations in previous jobs where security teams want us to do this a certain way. And I would get angry because how much of a bother that was or how much that would make my work harder or my day longer or whatever. think as a person, as you gain work experience, you have to think about personal and professional separately.
So if a situation comes along where things have to change because of a security problem or this application you really liked is being phased out for another one that you don't like. There's always a reason for that. And where when you inject too much personal into decisions like that, I think it adds stress and anxiety. And you just have to, you have to care for your job and you have to want to do the best you can at all those things. But I think you have to understand that decisions made above you are had for a reason. Things are out of your control. Sometimes you just got to roll with the punches.
Greg
Yeah. So I like that piece of advice, Todd, because I like it's the one common saying is you can't control other people. You can only control your reaction to them, right? To expand on what you said, Hey, we've all been through a situation where we liked a software or we like something and it was changed internally for something that was. I mean, you might never like it, but it's also new, right? So there's a learning curve involved there.
I think what, what you were pointing to was if you're negative, that negativity spreads. You start talking to your coworkers and it's, I don't know why we're doing this, or you're always negative about that particular piece of things. That stuff bleeds down, people see that. So I like what you said there, because it does, it not only internally causes more stress and anxiety, but that stuff goes outward too, and that can really sink a ship or just sink you.
Todd Cretacci
That's right, my mother used to tell me all the time, you never know who's watching. So in your contacts there, if you're complaining in the break room one day about how your boss did this or this piece of software that you liked is no longer gone, your boss might be an earshot or your boss's boss could be an earshot. So yeah, yeah, that's a really good point to make too.
Greg
Yeah, very good. Todd, what did I neglect to ask you that people should know about DevOps engineer and kind of going into the field, navigating the field, finding happiness in it? There's no way I covered everything. So why don't you give me something I neglected?
Todd Cretacci
Yeah, so it's another example of rolling with the punches, I think. Every company does things differently. Open source applications, this application to do this thing, and it's constantly changing. DevOps is never stagnant. For those of you kind of be watching this and new to the field, CI, CD, continuous improvement, continuous delivery, it's mindset and achievement in DevOps where you're constantly delivering updates and feature changes to your application for your customers and whatnot and those constant changes those feature updates those bug fixes that we all see with the stuff we use every day behind the scenes might bring a new application to play or a new way of doing things every day is a new way to learn.
When I came into this field, I was overwhelmed. was drinking from the fire hose. Everybody's talking about these applications they're looking at. What? And migrate to this open source tool and maybe this one and not having a lot of background in that. I was very stressed out and it took me a while to learn with great support from my managers. I should say that you don't have to take everything. If you drop into DevOps tomorrow, you don't have to take everything your company and learn it tomorrow.
Focus on what your assignment is. You might have cards or tickets or whatever an applicant or a team uses to sign work. If it's Todd, you're doing this piece. Learn all you can about that piece. And when you know that piece, learn another piece. Don't feel in other words that every single piece of technology is on your shoulders from the get go, because that is not the case.
Everything's changing, you'll never know.
Greg
So is that constant change, that more, do you find that to be more stressful or is it more exciting?
Todd Cretacci
I find it both, you know, it's, it's stressful from the point where you think you know something or you think we're going down a path and that for some reason we go in another. And it doesn't necessarily just mean finance or security.
We might find a better way to do things. There's different app, there's different teams that are responsible for their piece of the pie in DevOps. And they may change their way of doing things and you need their help and you're used to them doing it this way. And now they're doing it this, so it can be stressful and it's not for the faint of heart at times, but for me personally, it's an opportunity to ask questions and interact. And 98% of the time, both sides, all teams involved are wanting to get to the same goal. So where that stress can come from a long day of figuring out some code or something works or reading some documentation, knowing that the end goal is understood and people are willing to contribute makes it worth it.
Greg
How often when you're going through these changes where you don't know, you mentioned asking questions multiple times. You said, you know, I'm going to paraphrase, but like you can't be stubborn. You can't be stuck in your way. You've got to be open to learning new things all the time. Be more holistic. How often does asking questions come into being successful? Like, can you go through this and just try to learn everything and figure it out on your own without asking questions?
Or do you eventually hit a roadblock at that point and you're going to limit your growth? I'm not sure I asked that the best way,
Todd Cretacci
No, you did. I think I think there's a misconception from people that asking questions shows weakness. And I think that's furthest from the truth. DevOps can be siloed where if you're given a project, you kind of just put your head down and figure it out. Or it might be just your piece of the puzzle. In that case, you do a lot of things on your own, but there's always other people you can bounce things off of
Sometimes I'll pull my team together on a meeting. My manager is also a senior engineer who's got great insight on things. We have a couple guys on our team that have different insights on different things that are very skilled, but maybe not on the exact thing that I'm doing. But bringing those minds together and having a similar mindset, background, and responsibilities usually gets the problem figured out.
I can't stress enough that never be afraid to ask questions. you can't be in a situation where, hey, I don't know how this works, and you ask me, how does this work? When everybody, including yourself, knows there's a document one Google step away of how to do
Your question should be smart and intuitive, but don't be afraid to ask questions.
Greg
Don't take the easy way out. There you go. So Todd, I appreciate the insights, everything awesome here. I have no idea what a DevOps engineer did to any degree. I work with them, but I still have no idea. So I have a better understanding today. Thank you for that. Todd, before we go, you can't work in tech anymore. You're out. What do think you would do as a career and why?
Todd Cretacci
My gosh, I've actually thought about this. It'd be one or two things. So the first would be probably running an 80s style retro arcade somewhere. I've always wanted, I've always thought about doing that. But honestly, I would get into culinary arts. As I've gotten older, I really enjoy cooking and baking. I don't do anything crazy in the kitchen, but early on in the relationship with my wife, she hates cooking. She doesn't mind cleaning.
I like cooking, I hate cleaning. It just kind of worked out that way and I really enjoy it. So I think if I didn't get in here, I probably would be a cook or a chef somewhere.
Greg
What's your favorite thing to cook or bake?
Todd Cretacci
You can never have, you can't have a house without a chocolate chip cookie. You gotta have a really good chocolate chip cookie. I make a good one, I keep them in the freezer. When they're gone, I make more. They're always there.
Greg
There you go. How long do they normally last to batch in the freezer for you? Like you get them for two months, two weeks.
Todd Cretacci
Well, they don't last two weeks in our house, but as far as how they should last. Yeah, it's important to freeze them because if you just have them on the counter, know, store -bought is full of preservatives and stuff. But if you're making them fresh after a day or two, they start to dry out. You can do tricks like put pieces of bread in your cookie jar and it keeps them moist, but they're still not as fresh. You keep them to freeze you a good three months out of it. Two, two and a half, three months. They last forever. And you take them out of the freezer, they're thawed out in a couple of minutes or, you know, you just eat them cold.
Greg
Awesome, love it. So Todd, thank you for your time today. Pleasure having you. Anyone wants to reach out, ask you questions, talk to you, what's the best way for someone to get a hold of you.
Todd Cretacci
I'm on LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out. Greg, I think this is a great medium. I think you've touched an area that is sorely lacking. So if any of you watchers have any questions, any comments or anything, feel free to reach out. I'd be happy to speak to anybody.
Greg
Wonderful, and thank you for the kind words, I appreciate it. We'll also link the LinkedIn and the show description, show notes, however you're consuming it, and on the website. Todd Cretacci, everyone, Lead DevOps Engineer at KeyBank. To find out more about Todd, check out that show description. Hope you all enjoyed today's episode. If you'd to unbox your career with us, we'd love to have you. And until next time, be kind to one another.
(Interview transcription provided by Riverside.fm. May not be 100% accurate.)
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