Consulting and Content Management: Blinking Lights and Big Impacts with Tad Reeves (2/3)

Nerd Journey: Career Advice for the Technology Professional

How can a technology become our focus area unexpectedly? For Tad Reeves, it started when he said yes to the right opportunity. After doing back-end systems work for hosting providers, working in web design and development, stints in contracting and consulting, and experience with web analytics platforms…content management systems seem like a logical next step in the progression.

Tad Reeves, our guest in episode 297, returns to share his experience doing both consulting and contract work. We will also hear about the genesis of Tad’s exposure to Adobe Experience Manager and content management systems and how placing focus in this area allows for making a big impact that keeps the work purposeful and fulfilling.

Why did Tad continue to incorporate his love of design into his work? Listen below to catch the full story.

Original Recording Date: 09-12-2024

Tad Reeves is a principal architect for Arbory Digital. If you missed part 1 of our discussion with Tad, be sure to check out Episode 296.

Topics – A Flip Back to Design, A Framework for Solutioning, Contract and Full-time Work, Out of Balance, Adobe Experience Manager and Content Management

2:33 – A Flip Back to Design

• “I think flavors and harmonics of that thrill you can find also in debugging – when you have something that is affecting a broad swathe of people and then you fix it and it’s jammin’ now and suddenly it’s all working for everybody. I think every time that I’ve found myself in a job where suddenly I’m doing something that doesn’t really matter, that doesn’t really affect anybody, then suddenly I’m almost like a solder pulled back from the front line…. What am I doing here, guys? Only one person used this app that I’m writing. Do I have to do this?” – Tad Reeves, on making an impact in his work
  • Nick suspects a drop in energy when one feels the work they do is not making an impact.
• Tad worked with other engineers but was overall in charge of some projects for UUNET, often being tagged as the lead.
  • He could pull in other engineers to help rack the gear or help with network cabling as needed and did not have to do it all on his own.
  • This role was more of an implementation engineer and was not within the scope of what we might now call an architect. Tad would be given a specification and new equipment that had been procured. His job was to get it up and running and to pull in others as needed to make that happen (i.e. people from other teams like networking, technology vendor personnel, etc.).
  • Tad highlights this role as fulfilling but also a place to grow from and from which to expand a “sphere of responsibility.”
• What made Tad want to expand his sphere of influence? Was it working on those specific projects and being the lead?
  • Normally one would say yes. Tad had several interests he would bounce between. At his point in time, Tad had not completely given up on the idea of design work. Tad tells us he still likes design work, finds it fulfilling, and he tries to do it when he can.
  • Tad flipped back into web design at one point and worked for a firm that did web development work (HTML, CSS, JavaScript). He used tools like Dreamweaver at this time.
  • Tad tells us he enjoys contract work like this and built a website for the US House of Representatives and the Veterans Affairs Committee. Tad not only built this site but designed it as well.
  • “I look back fondly on a lot of that experience because I enjoy understanding how the whole cycle works. So getting a chance to do design work and that whole end of UX work…it’s a completely different problem. But that doesn’t make it any less fulfilling to solve.” – Tad Reeves, on returning to design work
  • Tad did some web analytics projects at the web development firm based on his Webtrends experience. It was an area he still found very interesting.

7:19 – A Framework for Solutioning

• Tad worked a contract gig for Georgia Pacific focused on selecting a web analytics platform. He was involved in activities like requirements gathering / discovery, research projects, stakeholder interviews, and developing success criteria.
  • At this time web analytics was changing. People wanted to use more than just web server logs to do analytics and started leveraging tracking beacons in JavaScript, for example.
  • Tad had to figure out a framework to use for selecting and recommending the best web analytics solution for this company. He wasn’t given a specification to implement like before. This was architecting a solution based on a problem / problems.
  • “Develop a framework for coming up with requirements from scratch. And then who would you ask? What questions would they have? What would they need? …Come up with that framework and figure out how…you map products against a framework. And then how do you rank those? And how do you then present that back…? …It was completely open ended, and it turned out really well. But, you’re figuring out the entire cycle from one requirement of ‘we need web analytics. Figure out how to tell us that it’s the right one.’” – Tad Reeves
  • Did Tad have the same fear taking on this role as when he first got the systems administration job?
    • Tad thinks it was even more fear inducing in this case. He knew a great deal about the product landscape and would not be starting from scratch.
    • Navigating corporate meetings and talking to stakeholders was a new experience for Tad. It was out of his comfort zone, and he had to figure it out.
    • Tad traveled to Georgia to conduct the stakeholder interviews in person. There was no other member of the team to back him up on this project.
    • “It was just ‘figure it out.’ I think some of those sink or swim moments…necessity can be a driver in some cases.” – Tad Reeves
  • What did Tad have to learn quickly when communicating with these stakeholders? Nick is imagining it was a range of people from the very technical to perhaps high level executives.
    • Tad says he listened to the interview we did with Max Kanat-Alexander in Episode 287 – Scope Creep: Evaluating Impact in Career Decisions as a Principal Engineer with Max Kanat-Alexander (3/3). Really at first the goal is to understand what the problem is, and once you understand, you are essentially 90% of the way there.
    • “I don’t even know what their problem is. All these tools look great, and they all have price tags that make me cry. So I just need to understand what their problem is. And I just started talking to people to understand what their problem was.” – Tad Reeves
    • Tad tells us he didn’t have time to doubt himself or get hit with impostor syndrome. He knew the only way the work would be accomplished was to start talking to people. It was a focus on understanding the problem so he could then find a solution.
  • Was Tad’s approach to understanding the problems the same across the board or different and customized based on a person’s position?
    • Tad feels like it was a unified approach to stakeholder interviews, but he also tells us he did not fear a conversation with any person because of their high-ranking position (i.e. a lack of intimidation due to position).
    • Sometimes not having any thought of a need to be intimidated in speaking to someone removes all pressure and supports a much better conversation.

12:15 – Contract and Full-time Work

• After doing contract work, what made Tad want to move back to being a full-time employee at a company and away from being a contractor?
  • Contract work and full-time work have their pros and cons, and Tad has done plenty of each type of work.
  • Tad says working full-time within a large organization can lend stability in knowing where you sit within the organization and understanding your job responsibilities. Often times people can “stop and cut” at the end of the day without trying to figure out where their next job is going to be.
  • Being a contract worker means you need to complete the work assigned to you, and you need to spend time “hunting” for your next role to prepare for when your contract ends. Some people enjoy that hunt while others seek to avoid it entirely.
  • Tad would tell us there are places in life where both contract work and full-time work could make sense.
• Is one of these choices (contract vs. full-time) safer than the other right now during a time of layoffs across the tech industry?
  • Tad shares a story of learning someone he had worked with for 10 years was laid off.
  • “How do you summarily lose somebody who’s got that much skill, knowledge, and drive and passion for their work? I really feel for folks like that. I don’t know that there’s a formula for never getting laid off because in some cases it’s not under your control. Especially when you’re working for a large company, you can be doing everything brilliantly. You can be at the peak of your career and still be at the adverse end of a layoff.” – Tad Reeves
  • Tad has found security in his ability to get a new job when needed or desired.
    • This can, for example, come down to how we present ourselves publicly.
    • “Do you always have your ear to the rail so to speak on…is the work that you do valuable? Is there lots more work of that around? And if something should happen to your job right now, do you have skills that could be in demand?” – Tad Reeves
    • For a long time Tad would brainstorm or cultivate possible careers based on his skillset. If Tad just learned load balancing, he could go work in networking should something happen to his job, even if that wasn’t his first choice. He still knows server technologies as well.
    • Tad also highlights his willingness to go get a new job. We need that willingness when it is time to take action.
  • Did experience doing contract work make Tad better at job seeking than someone who has not had to look for a new job every few months / years?
    • Tad says it has to a degree.
    • “I’ve had waves of necessity that have driven a lot of the career changes that I’ve made. I would love to say that I’m just an ambitious technologist, but technology isn’t the only ambition that has driven my career changes. It’s been a lot of family and things like that too.” – Tad Reevesp
    • Working at a large company for many years may lull us into a false sense of security and make us think the company resources can never be exhausted. We might even think the work we are doing will not make or break the company. Tad contrasts that with working in consulting or for a small company. He knew in those circumstances doing great work was the only way to get another job. It was the feeling of necessity and the impact he felt he was making.

17:02 – Out of Balance

• Tad spoke about self-awareness earlier. This is something we need to exercise and can help us notice things are out of balance. How has Tad experienced this experience of being out of balance in his career?
  • In 2009 Tad and his wife had their first child. He was working for a software development company at that time. He also did contract work for the State Department (developing in languages such as Cold Fusion).
  • “I was developing full-time for an application that had like 9 users. It was extraordinarily unfulfilling. That was a low point. I’m getting paid. They’re paying me. And I’m doing the work that in a normal company brings value. But what are the results of my actions doing? Even the best work that I can do will now affect just 9 users who will use this once every week. This is out of balance.” – Tad Reeves
  • After the addition of the new baby, Tad was doing JavaScript and user interface (UI) work.
  • “This was my first time…where I wasn’t really working in an office either. I was doing a lot of work from home, and I was doing work that never really stopped.” – Tad Reeves
  • At one point Tad’s wife let him know they were having another baby, and he was trying to figure out how to make that work. They were living close to Washington, D.C. It had a high cost of living even in 2009.
  • “Two things gotta happen right now. I need a lot more money, and I’m not about to go and throw away my whole ‘dadding’ time by working from home all the time and never being present for my kids.” – Tad Reeves
  • Sometimes we might wish something was different, but Tad would advise naming specifically what we want. Consider the type of company you want to work for, whether in an office or remote, the type of work you want to do, the schedule you want, etc. Only when we specify exactly what we want can we know when a new opportunity is the right one for us.
• As a result of being very specific about what he wanted, Tad said yes when someone from AARP recruited him via LinkedIn to do Linux systems administration.
  • The mission of AARP really aligned with Tad’s values. He cared deeply for the web property AARP maintained. They were at this time one of the largest membership organizations in the world.
  • The person with F5 load balancer expertise was leaving the company. Tad decided to lean in and learn F5 to become the new subject matter expert, getting certified to do it.
• Tad wanted a job where he could be finished with work at the end of the day, and he knew that meant he could not be in the consulting realm.
  • “I cannot be in the consulting realm right now. Because in consulting…you’re paid by the job. And it doesn’t matter how long it takes. You gotta do it even if it takes longer than you wanted…. I needed control over my schedule. That was an intentional life change that I made at that point. Do you have any idea how many hikes and walks I got to talk with my kids because of that? It was truly wonderful.” – Tad Reeves
• Nick says people may not know what the possibilities are for jobs and work if they have not seen it or been exposed to it.
  • Tad says if you have not been exposed to something, you may not know what you should be asking for in a new job. You may not know that there can be a different way of living, etc.

24:31 – Adobe Experience Manager and Content Management

• AARP was where Tad got into configuration management tools like Puppet and Chef.
• Tad tells the story of his job interview and being asked about a content management system called Day CQ. Tad had never heard of it, and the interviewer said they could train him.
• Not long after Tad joined the company, this software got purchased by Adobe and would later become Adobe Experience Manager.
  • “Little did I know that would end up basically defining my career from that point until now.” – Tad Reeves, on his first exposure to what became Adobe Experience Manager
• For the role at AARP, Tad had been commuting into downtown Washington, D.C. He tells the story of being cold called by a recruiter about a role focused on Adobe Experience Manager.
  • Tad’s opinion of Adobe Experience Manager was not high, but this recruiter was looking for a systems administrator that knew it well. The position was significantly more pay and allowed him to work remotely.
  • “All remote? I’m in. Even if I have to deal with this thing I think is a pig. I’ll deal with the pig if I can be full remote.” – Tad Reeves
  • Tad has worked remotely for the most part since getting the above role.
• What made Tad fall in love with Adobe Experience Manager? How can people be open to going deep in areas that take them by surprise?
  • This caught Tad by surprise. It was a technology he initially knew nothing about despite working on numerous large website projects which included some form content management.
  • This type of technology is used primarily for very large websites, something Tad highlighted as an interesting aspect.
  • “Even though it had a proclivity for going down all the time, it once again was scratching my itch of…there’s a lot of traffic going on it. And I could watch it go. Blinking lights…here we go. Blinking lights again drawing me in. They even let me go to the datacenter every now and then and do stuff. Alright, you got me.” – Tad Reeves
• What exactly do we mean when we say content management?
  • Think about Chevrolet or the Food Network’s website. The main content for Food Network might be recipes, videos, and things of that nature.
    • Recipes, for example, would be input by non-technical people. People writing recipes or uploading videos would not be developers. Non-technical people will maintain the content.
    • The content needs to be organized so that it is performant and everything can be stored and easily retrieved.
    • A system like this could solve the problem of translating pages into multiple languages or present a photo in multiple different sizes on a website.
  • Content management also gets into digital experience.
    • Every site visitor should not get the same experience upon each visit, for example. Think about a new customer vs. a returning customer (i.e. someone who has made a purchase) or the person who has logged in compared to the one who has not logged in. It’s important to have mechanisms to serve the different types of users.
    • “It gets really complicated, and so as a result you need a system that is complicated. And whenever you have a complicated system there’s a million ways that it can break.” – Tad Reeves
  • Content management systems are particularly interesting to Tad because they are often used for the marketing site or corporate website, which can represent a company’s hope for the future.
    • Tad feels his experience in back-end systems came into play at this point. He tells the story of being an e-mail sysadmin (systems administrator).
    • “The problem with being an e-mail sysadmin is…the very best you can possibly be is to be invisible. And also nobody is going to be attributing the company’s success to what you did…. It doesn’t matter that it’s still a fascinating technical problem to solve and I still love e-mail systems. But they can be unfulfilling as a result in some cases. Whereas, marketing systems have all this hope tied to them….” – Tad Reeves
      • An e-mail systems administrator will get complaints if people get too much spam e-mail and also then get complaints if important e-mails are not getting through as expected.
      • Tad says working with marketing systems allows you to meet interesting people who work in them.
    • Nick says working with and supporting a marketing system makes you feel like you have a greater purpose / part in the company’s success because of the contribution one can make that is NOT invisible.
    • Tad says we can get separated from feedback sometimes when we work in systems. Imagine a new website launch making conversion rates go up by 300%. That kind of feedback gets Tad excited.
  • Tad shares an interesting problem he worked on for Food Network and how their traffic spikes by a factor of 50 around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and during the Super Bowl.
    • There were a lot of things which had to be figured out to support this kind of scale. It involved learning about caching, for example, and this was one of Tad’s first big cloud migrations.
    • “These were intense things to learn, out of the comfort zone stuff to learn, but still, you’re solving a really jazzy problem….” – Tad Reeves
    • Tad got to see the scale of traffic and thought it was very cool. It got him excited.

Mentioned in the Outro

• Part of our show’s mission is to educate listeners on the types of roles they could have in technology based on their experience. If we highlight the differences in contract work compared to consulting…
  • Being a consultant could mean you work for a consulting firm, a firm who does services / consulting work for other companies as part of their business model. If you work for that firm, you are likely a resource who is put to work in a specific area based on the pipeline of projects on which the company has committed to execute for their customers. You would move from project to project over time assuming the company has plenty of work to support its staff.
    • You may or may not have a role responsible for bringing in new sales for the consulting firm. Yes, you can do a good job for customers you work with and build great relationships as a way to help your company increase revenue. But there may be a dedicated sales teams who is working to get new engagements for the firm.
  • Doing contract work means you work for a company for a set amount of time and would not be considered a full-time employee (i.e. a 3-month, a 6-month, or a 9-month contract for example). Likely it’s for a company whose business model is not doing consulting for other companies. But in this position you would need to begin searching for your next job role before your contract ends to avoid a gap in employment.
• Were you surprised by Tad getting into Adobe Experience Manager and content management systems?
  • Nick argues this looks like a logical adjacency based on past experience doing back-end systems for web servers, being a web developer, and work with web analytics using Webtrends and other tools.
  • The focus on content management allowed Tad to continue to make the impact he wanted to make and to get that feedback we all want in knowing we are making a difference in a positive way for our company.

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