Welcome to a little slice of my crazy and bizarre world!
Well hello there! If you've followed anything I've done online over the last handful of years, you know my head is stuck in the cloud. To take it 1 step farther, my head is stuck in Azure specifically. Being a long time Microsoft fan girl, Azure seemed to be the spot to hang my hat and I have yet to be disappointed in everything I have learned.
I often joke if you would have told me 10-15 years ago that in 2020 customers would trust the cloud, that I'd be working at Microsoft, and I'd be hitting REST APIs like developers, I wouldn't have believed you. I thought there would be no way enterprises would adopt cloud and trust anyone else to run their environments. Turns out I was flat out wrong and now that things are more software defined, I have so much more appreciation for my dev colleagues and friends!
I am a a not-so-typical technologist, as my roots are grounded in public speaking and writing. I was a Communication Studies major and English minor in college. On top of that, I participated in competitive high school speech tournaments prior to collegiate life. I gravitated toward technology through music, by way of being a DJ and needing to record demos for club promoters. By taking the time to develop troubleshooting skills (which stemmed from learning how to connect a mixer to a computer), I quickly found myself in jobs that started to push me toward deeper levels of technical skill. A self-described tinkerer, I worked with technical mentors and colleagues who helped me develop proficiencies in infrastructure. From my initial roots in help desk, to Windows systems administration, to VMware administration, to Exchange, to Exchange Online/Office 365, and finally Azure, I have carefully combined the right levels of technical skill that propelled me into working for Microsoft (or the mothership as folks affectionately refer to Microsoft in the community). I am coming up on 3 full years of working at Microsoft and I am currently a Cloud Advocate on the Enterprise Tools and Platform team. I am currently focused on community outreach for the Azure VMware Solution platform (and everything that bolts onto the platform) as a way to get IT pros comfortable with the cloud.
Some colleagues and friends are shocked at my background. I joke that IT often brings the most unlikely cast of characters together. The unique perspectives and personalities are what really continue to keep me enthusiastic, plus the ability to continually learn more and more helps.
So stay tuned. I will be filling out my blog more over the next few weeks and months to give you more content to consume on the regular. As my blog states, if I can Azure, so can you!