My time in Linode Support was amazing. I was learning so many new things on a daily basis through osmosis, and hungry for more. Every opportunity to help a colleague was exciting. Of course, most of my colleagues were well beyond my technical expertise early on.
Nearly a year after being hired, we finally brought in a fresh group of Support hires. I was over the moon excited to share all of my institutional knowledge with them and pay forward all of the assistance I had gotten along the way. Doing this in Slack gave me quite a bit of visibility, and attracted the eyes of our Training team. I was friendly with many of the team members just from daily interactions, but as we approached a time where they were going to need some new part-time trainers, I started to get hints that it would be in my interest to apply for a role should one become available.
When I say that my experience as a trainee was the absolute best of my working career, I mean it. I’ve had some decent jobs and have been part of some good trainings in the past. There was a level of dedication and thoroughness at Linode that I’ve never seen before. These folks were passionate about making sure that you learned the job well and would be self sufficient.
I spent a day with the training team to learn more about what they did on a daily basis and locked in on getting this role. roughly a year and three months into my employment, I became what we call a Training Expert. This allowed me to split my time between Support duties and Training tasks. Working with new hires and being amongst our Leadership was incredibly rewarding for me.
I’ve since been promoted to a Training Specialist (a full time trainer) and now get to have a larger impact on our new hire training, curriculum, ongoing training content, and general assistance to the Support team. Additionally, I oversee our All Hands Support team, which is a group of people that get to take non-Support hires through a day of what exactly our Support team does, and show them the magic of why we are literally (in my humble opinion) the best in the business.
These days, I’ve become quite obsessed with my own personal growth. Enhancing my technical skills, communication style, and overall value are priorities to keep me far away from the Retail Hellscape that ravaged my soul for so many years prior.