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Understand the Fundamentals Stay Curious and Never Give Up with Tobias Macey
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Tobias Macey
Tobias Macey currently manages and leads the Technical Operations Team at MIT Open Learning where he designs and builds cloud infrastructure to power online access to education for the global MIT community. He also owns and operates Boundless Notions where he offers design, review, and implementation advice on data infrastructure and cloud automation. And he’s the host of the weekly Python Podcast.
In this episode, Phil and Tobias Macey discuss some of the assets MIT offers free of charge to the global community, including Open Courseware and the Open edXplatform. They talk about how knowing the fundamentals makes it easier to learn the latest tech.
Tobias also talks about the advancements in the ability to gain insights in real-time from data and how data engineering will be the biggest driver for our global economy.
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Resources
podcastinit.com – Check out the Python Podcast!
2 Top Career Tips
1) Make sure that you are always learning. But, also have a deep understanding of the fundamentals. Those are the things that never change and will make learning new technologies far easier. They are the foundations on which most new tech is built.
2) Stay curious. Treat challenges as if they are puzzles, especially the more difficult ones. There is always an answer, you just need to keep at it to find the answers and solve the puzzle.
Show Notes
Worst Career Moment
Practically everyone that has ever worked in operations will have at one stage taken down the production system. Tobias shares an example of when he did exactly that and what the fallout from that was. As well as how he fixed it. That particular mistake taught Tobias to put in place strong guardrails. It also taught him not to panic when things go wrong. Worrying gets you nowhere.
Career Highlight
Having the opportunity to run his podcasts and ask the industry’s innovators interesting questions. In the podcast, Tobias shares the story of how he got started and how you can potentially do something similar.
The Future
As our economy and the world around us becomes increasingly digitized, the number of opportunities for everyone increases. Tobias is excited by the fact that it is now far easier for people to self-actualize and get involved in changing things. Tobias also talks about the advancements in our ability to gain insights from data and do so in real-time. As well as how data engineering is set to drastically change the way the world works.
The Reveal
What first attracted you to a career in I.T.?
Initially Tobias wanted to be a physicist, but the opportunities were limited, so he tried IT instead.
What is the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Put yourself out there, speak to people, and build a network.
What is the worst career advice you’ve ever received?
No specific worst advice.
If you had to begin your career again in today’s world, what would you do?
Tobias would start by using free courses to learn the basics, then dive in and push himself to build something.
What career objectives are you currently focusing on?
Building out a viable data platform that provides clean data for analysis. As well as keeping his podcast going.
What’s the number one non-technical skill that has helped you in your career so far?
Being good at self-directed learning and knowing what questions to ask and how to ask them.
What do you do to keep your own career energized?
Keeping an eye on other areas of the industry and running his podcast.
What do you do in your spare time away from technology?
Tobias enjoys spending time with his family. Right now, he is getting his kids into board games and dungeons and dragons.
Contact The Guest
Contact Tobias Macey through the following social media platforms:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Podcast_init_
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tmacey/
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