vExpert Spotlight: Josh De Jong
Josh De Jong
Today’s vExpert Spotlight interview is with Josh De Jong. Josh has become a new friend of mine via Twitter as of late and I think because we share the role of VMUG Leader for our respective geo-locations. Josh is a VMUG leader for Portland, OR (PDX if you know what I mean!). I used to work in downtown PDX for about 3 years prior to being relocated to Houston, TX myself. Who knows, we may have walked right past each other somewhere between 6th Ave & Powell’s on Burnside!
OK, enough rambling from me, let’s hear more about Josh De Jong in today’s Friday Edition of the vExpert Spotlight!
The Interview
Star Wars or Star Trek?
Star Wars
What was your 1st IT gig?
After realizing there wasn’t much of a future for me in pizza (I was the assistant manager of a Dominos) I went to school for Information Technology and got a job as a Network Technician at the headquarters of an auto parts manufacturer. I did desktop support for the 125 or so employees in that location and then I was tier 2 support for all the remote locations (about 150) and users (about 2000). All of the remote sites used Citrix and most of my day was spent troubleshooting thin clients not connecting on the network and fixing roaming profile issues.
What is your current job title and role?
I recently started at a new company in April of this year working as a senior storage admin. The role was not a fit as I didn’t get to work with virtualization as much as I did in previous positions. As a result I was moved out of the storage team into the virtual infrastructure team and I’m a Senior Systems Administrator now. Given my previous experience, I work closely with the storage and data protection teams as they relate to our virtualization infrastructure. The environment is huge compared to anything I’ve ever worked in before and is challenging, but I work with a lot of incredible people that are always willing to help.
How many years have you been a vExpert?
1 year.
What advice would you give to others involved in the VMware community who are looking at becoming a vExpert?
My path to becoming a vExpert was as an evangelist with my blog and as a VMUG leader for Portland, OR. My advice is to share all your knowledge and experiences just for the sake of trying to spread awareness and share that knowledge. I started blogging just to have an external repository of the documentation I did for my previous companies. That documentation was there so anyone on the team knew what I did, why I did it, and could reference it at any time in case something went wrong.
Do you currently have a Home Lab environment?
My last job spoiled me as I had a lab with a storage array that I was able to build, tear down, and test pretty much anything I wanted whenever I wanted. That was my “home lab” because I was the only one who really used it. Now I’m exploring using Ravello Systems for a cloud-based lab.
How do you use VMware products or services in your daily work life?
As a member of the Virtual Infrastructure team I work in vCenter and PowerCLI all day. Moving from smaller shops (under 500 VMs) at my last couple of jobs to a place with over 10 times as many has pushed me to rely on PowerShell. Changing a setting on 10 hosts by hand is relatively easy, but on 100 is ridiculous.
What certifications do you currently hold (if any)?
VCP5-DCV is my only certification. When I first started my career in IT I got my Network+, but I never went after any other certs. Certs weren’t required at any of my jobs and it wasn’t until a year ago that I wanted to go down the VMware certification path.
Tell us something about yourself that the community may not already know.
I have an 8 year old son who wants to spend most of his time with me playing minecraft and playing legos. Whether I’m at work or at home I’m always building something.
What’s your go to song or music genre when work stress becomes too much?
I change bands and genres so frequently. I tend to focus on a particular band and end up listening to them constantly until my mood changes and I find something else.Right now I’m listening to a lot of old Kanye West. Before that I was mostly listening to Interpol.
Do you have a blog that you would like to share?
My blog is http://40centcoffee.wordpress.com. I haven’t had much of a chance to write this year with the job changes, but I’ll be fixing that shortly.
Let us know how to contact you via social media.
I prefer to spend entirely too much of my time on Twitter. I’m @EuroBrew
Thank You for your time Josh! Please get in touch with Josh on Twitter where he spends most of his days it seems! Haha, don’t we all? Josh is also in the VMware Community so follow him around in there too. Lastly, he will be in San Fran for VMworld 2015 this August! Make it a point to track him down via Twitter, and say hello.
Lookup and browse the current 2014 vExperts in the vExpert Online Directory
Learn more about VMware’s vExpert Program: https://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/vexpert
Please do not forget to SHARE, TWEET, REPEAT!