By Ocient Staff
Ocient works very hard to bring our customers the very best in hyperscale data analytics solutions, and a large part of how we are able to do so is through our Service Delivery Team. This team is responsible for ensuring that systems are reliable, scalable, and highly available, while minimizing downtime and maximizing performance. We are excited to feature a Site Reliability Engineer from this team, Tyler Albers, for this month’s employee spotlight.
Let’s learn more about Tyler’s background and see how he fits into his role here at Ocient.
Where are you based and how do you take advantage of our remote first policy?
I’m based in Knoxville, TN. I recently moved here from Chicago after transitioning internally to a fully remote role.
How long have you been with Ocient?
3 years
What are some things you like to do in your free time?
I enjoy riding bikes, reading, taking long walks with my dog, and exploring our new city of Knoxville with my fiancée, Samantha.
What’s your go-to comfort food?
Original Oreos
What’s the next place you’d like to check off your travel bucket list?
Hawaii
What’s one item you could not live without?
My bike
Which core value do you resonate the most with in your daily working life at Ocient?
Efficiently Effective. I like to get things done.
What is one (or some) of your proudest moments while working at Ocient?
I’m most proud of leading the move of our datacenter footprint from one location to another.
The datacenter move was based around our need for a more reliable and modern datacenter footprint that had room for expansion. Our current location was outdated and had limited flexibility. The move itself was complicated, with input, design, and scheduling needed across the engineering and site reliability teams. We wanted to (and did) achieve minimal disruption for engineers and QA while moving the equipment over the course of 10 weeks. This compressed schedule was only able to be completed by using a small, experienced team that was granted the ability to make quick decisions and take risks when required – without input from extended management.
What do you find unique about working at Ocient?
Being given a relatively large amount of responsibility and decision-making power in a short amount of time.
Describe your growth journey while at Ocient.
I started as an IT Help Desk Tech while we were still entirely in-office (pre-Covid). Due to personnel changes and changing customer requirements, we required more datacenter labor than originally expected which I volunteered myself for. I quickly became the sole Datacenter/Hardware Tech while still performing general IT functions in my Help Desk role.
As time progressed, I was given the opportunity to contribute to our infrastructure as code with the Service Delivery Team. I soon made the transition from the TechOps Team to my current role as a Site Reliability Engineer. I own multiple Service Delivery Engineering projects that are both hardware and software related, while some being directly customer-related.
Expanding my skillset into more software-based tools and architectures was the natural next step in my career path to becoming a contributing SRE or System Administrator.
What career advice would you give to your younger self?
It is immensely rewarding to work hard and succeed at work, even in the lowest ranking role.
What advice would you give to someone entering the tech industry?
Ask what you can do to help. Be proactive. Be available. Learn related topics on your own time. Identify your given expectations and exceed them on a regular basis through whatever it takes.
Would you like to give an employee shoutout to someone who has inspired you or helped you out along the way?
I’d like to give a shoutout to Greg Papadopoulos. He helped me understand what it takes to be a contributing employee at any level working at a smaller startup company.
Interested in joining the team?
Ocient is a remote-first company full of efficiently effective & craft driven contributors. We are passionate about delivering the very best in hyperscale data solutions to our customers. See what open positions we have on our Job Postings page or explore our Partnership Opportunities.