 Check Mike. Good morning. If you coast down with rack space. I'm a private cloud evangelista, and I decided to turn my session into a panel Partially to drive attendance, but partially because there are a lot of great things happening in an open stack career-wise and One of the great things about open stack is it's helping old companies become new and helping new companies get off the ground And I think it's a really really exciting time. So I'm gonna take you through a few slides and then We'll have our panelists share their stories and their career path. I think Another great thing that's happening in open stack today is not just creating technical jobs, but it's creating jobs That kind of run the gamut. You know, there's there's marketing. There's PR. There's Sales there's all kinds of great things happening that isn't just limited to a technical scope So my legal department wants me to display this fine statement since we're gonna talk about careers Barbara if you're watching at home, that's for you All right, so let's look at cloud job postings and what I did is I did a quick search on Simply Hired and I'm not gonna really say much because I think it speaks for itself But congratulations to all of you because you're doing it, right? Oh, I see people taking pictures all paws on that So you can tweet that tell Peter. I love them You might be watching this too. Hi, Peter all right, so It's not just the US right I did a search. There were 901 job postings in the US Just for open-stack related careers If I looks globally, it's simply hired. There are more than 20 there's about 23 countries represented that have postings that have open-stack in them So it's not just limited to the US There's you know tons of things that are happening all over the world and there's traction in almost every major country that you can think of And that's that's exciting. It's it's truly a global effort. You want to take a picture of that Jeff? Well, I can send this to you. All right, so now that's all the way I'm going to introduce our awesome panelists to their Twitter's are up here. We'll go ahead and start with Gretchen But the question is Tell me about your career path to open-stack And I know they've been kind of different. I have a lot of folks here representing a lot of different things There's a common denominator with three of these folks as to where former rackers and Mike is a current backer But we'll we'll start with Gretchen down at the end. I'm sure how I got here Literature major having a background in sorts of that sort of segwayed into To's for IT me it seems like it's kind of this this mysterious space agency that you know has you know big walls around it What was that like? It was thanks Gretchen. Anyone have any questions for Gretchen? I have another follow-up question for you here in a minute. Let's turn it over to John Purrier. Hi guys So I didn't actually know who was gonna be on this panel until I showed up today I've now figured out why Nikki asked me to be on here because I'm the great there for seven years I went to Microsoft. I was there for 40 exchange server open source This is this is the the wave of the future and so startups around a zealot if you will for open source 2007 so this is what the Texas my friends thought I was crazy but It's worked out pretty well rack space to run the conversations with the decision Fertuitously we saw the announcement from the NASA guys saying that they were gonna do a compute project Based on Python got the teams together And basically launched open stack with sitting there with this is like my specific things for open stack The open source project worked for me and that was that was fun I became a doesn't exist anymore Service the question is once you know once all these 6,000 people that are in the open stack foundation actually stand up the clouds and they have them I don't see any end in sight quite as a convoluted as with stack is my third professional I started I Grew up in Texas and I went to school in central Texas and after I graduated Looking for computer for personal reasons I was looking to stay in that area for the time being in 2002 looking jobs right after the tech crunch in central Texas And that didn't go really well, so I ended up installing cable for a year But after that I I did get a job in a life insurance company in central Texas and Learned an incredible amount there far as learning how to take things from start to finish Developing a lot of and even still to this day when I think of use case and the user for Open stack and all of the things that we do policy calculations being able to do computing resources Very large storage needs as far as some lots of unstructured data, which is I like here because I decided to move on from there and I was applying around and saw a job posting at rack space and applied and Was hired and it turned out the first day. I started at rack space was the first day that coding began on Swift and Was able to jump in from the very beginning about files team at rack space Tremendously amazing experience as some of the smartest people have ever worked for were on that team are still on the team at rack space Worked with John a little bit as he came in After I joined rack space and then use a the develop production and then open stack happens And especially on our clouds our cloud division And so we suddenly saw that there were so many people being excited about what was going on This was this was we we had the tools and the technologies to provide Everyone with this the great solution to real problems that people had and so I've always been Developer that's not just focused on the developer stuff I've always enjoyed talking to people getting and so when I as I had those opportunities at rack space to Go to different conferences to get involved here at the design summits I really enjoyed that and through there. I was You know seeing other small companies start up People like piston nebula and finally Swift stack Starting and focusing on this product that I've been involved in since the beginning It was an opportunity that I found was incredibly exciting and so This summer I moved on to Swift stack and out to San Francisco from Texas Your journey's kind of still relatively fresh and new I guess yes. Yes. It is. Yeah. Tell us about about your journey So first off. Good morning. My name is Mike Metron and I'm a solutions architect at rack space in our private cloud division My background is computer science. I kind of got started into the whole cloud business If you will want to pipe research for distributed systems and so because of that I was back in 2006 2007 These so you know the recession if you will didn't really lend itself to a lot of open job opportunities So I got recruited by the US government, which was my previous employer Specifically I was with the Department of Energy working for Sandy and national laboratories, which is a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin While I was there a lot of my key responsibilities include performing cloud technological assessments building up a general knowledge base and At the same time just doing a lot of technological vulnerability analysis on these systems for government adoption and usage And I think you know kind of in the same period Everyone was kind of trying to define what cloud was and even the government It's funny to hear directions and touch that with regards to NASA A lot of the government also interested in cloud But we don't know if we should stand up our own or if we should you know learn from what was currently out there or part of the People so a lot of the same, you know similar problems that people were encountering but I'm a much distributed and Way more red tape if you will so my journey in towards towards rack space is actually kind of interesting because What happened was I started Playing around with a lot of you know cloud technologies as I was normally doing In an open stack camp on my radar about a year bit of a year ago and You know, I thought whatever source I could find in the dogs on there on the web So I kicked the tire so to speak but it still wasn't enough, you know still an early phase for open stack So I looked for any training that I could find just to kind of fill the gaps that I had And I stumbled upon rack spaces website. They were offering a training course That looked great, you know, I had a deep dive into Nova and to Swift I signed up for and I joined the class and while they are our teacher Tony Campbell is actually sitting in this room He's a director of training at open stack at rack space and He just had just literally Every single question that I you know that I had he had the right answer for it And he did it with a smile and on top of that he just had this very upbeat and positive vibe about open stack Which you know, it's almost What's the word? It's it's almost enchanting in the sense that he can he can speak so positive about a project That's so open and so that got me excited that got me very interested in and as the class went on you know, my engagements just kind of went from you know Usual participant took you know trying to promote and help the class out and I enjoyed doing it and Ironically enough I happened to cash attention to Scott Sanchez who's sitting here in the audience as well And he's a director of strategy and just overall business development for product cloud at rack space and overall badass business and cloud ninja so we got the talking and About the possible opportunities that could exist between rack space and myself and six months later, which was this past June I became a racker officially so I was drinking the magical support Kool-Aid I was a I was you know highly highly motivated to work with open stack and you know And now I'm you know sitting here being hugely honor and privilege to sit amongst this panel of great cloud experts And for me, it's very nice, especially Given the fact that I was government for about four years We did a lot of great work, but at the end of the day It's very it's very tight in it, right? There's a reason that we do great work, but no one hears about it and given the fact that The precautionary stuff to have to take it kind of created a black hole if you will on my career So being able to be with rack space has opened up a whole new world. So I'm almost a born-again cloud computer person So it's nice because you know, I'm getting to be Such as this one and just participate more publicly and try to get my voice out there. So it's been great I know I've had a great success in just four months with rack space and I'm highly looking forward to you know No, where you were but kind of where you've worked in the past Tell me about the culture at your companies. I know piston has a tremendous brand I mean, they're the hats. They're very well dressed the bow ties Josh McKinty socks matches his tie Tell tell me a little bit about about the culture at the companies that you work at or the companies that you're building When you're starting a company cues from stashes, they have monos we work with groups inside NASA What about you John at a fog? I know you guys kind of work in a distributed fashion. You guys are kind of all over the place right exactly right so I think I'd reiterate a lot of what Gretchen said in terms of These that are excited about what you're doing space, which is very Interesting we basically take the open source Infrastructure players like open stack and then we layer source project over the top of it. So business For instance, you know, our main our main Texas San Antonio, Texas We have a couple of continuous integration continuous qa continuous deployment. We're pushing code all the time You know, so we're really accused of being shy our space, which is platform as a service Swift stack is in a slightly earlier position than both at fog and piston a little bit of a newer company And so we're still building that out but what I found at Swift stack is that the people who are there are very Very intense and very focused on making sure that we get stuff done They come from a background One of the things I really like is that there's not a lot of inbreeding at Swiss stack Most of the people and I'm not saying that necessarily always is a bad thing There's a there's a lot of a lot to be gained from sharing responsibility in the and and loading from one other in the open stack community But most of the people at Swiss stack Before working at Swiss stack actually had zero involvement with open stack And so what they're able to do is bring in their previous career history of building scale building Production products building things that are done in a distributed manner interfacing with customers building teams and so I think that what we've done right now is brought together people who are Sealerly focused on building excellent products very well with that And it's actually very similar to what I found at rack space And so you look at the team I was on at rack space versus the team of that is the company at Swiss stack I find a lot of similarities there When I was at rack space, I always told people that I work. I'm working with the smartest people I've ever worked with now that I'm at Swiss stack. I have to say I'm working with Those are I've been working with some of the smartest people because the people I've met at Swiss stack have been Blown me away quite as just as much And so we're focusing on on building out our team is focusing on other people who are willing to dive in intensely focus on the code iterate and Accept a broad range of responsibility to to get stuff done So as we as we build our team as we're growing over the next year and so I mean we'll more solidify what our Culture is and it probably won't be hats and bow ties But you know, it'll it'll reflect the team that we're on it's something that I'm so It's it's everything. You know as Gretchen said it's it's everything old rumors are true. It's very office basis It's darkly lit a lot of buildings. I spent numerous days in actually don't have windows For various security precaution reasons So that that really that gets to you after you do it for about four years. You kind of forget what the sun looks like But coming to a rack space Wow, that is night and day for me It's just so energetic and vibrant and fun At the castle. It's it's like an adult Disneyland And the castles are our headquarters in San Antonio. I know it's just different There's videos out there of a lot of Lanham. I think talking about about the castle how special it is There's there's no concept of offices or cubicles and you know and there's windows and sun comes in from the roof and all sides Oh, you know, I'm a happy camper sometimes or suntan lotion into how much how much sun I'm getting and The the exciting part is like that goes across the board for all the employees for all the high-level up executives And and that makes you know executives like to see all the CTOs all those very powerful people even just you know My own manager it makes them very Reachable and in government. There's a lot of red tape And I couldn't just talk to my director if I needed to and a rack space That's actually encouraged and and it's set up for you to do so But the same time it's it's Almost required nowadays the Googles and the Amazons they've set a standard For for how our business operates and and in a business filled with so many smart people They're gonna manage themselves So you should give them the proper environment to to be able to relax to work comfortably because when you're in these buildings for eight To twelve hours you need the right environment to support you because if not you're gonna go crazy And and so I'm just very appreciative because it's it's a whole new world for me And and and I'm excited and and for being forty five hundred plus people that rack spaces There's so many start-up emotions and start of feelings and just customs For example the cows we have a slide that goes from one floor to the other People design their their areas with all sorts of personal stuff from home. There's banners all over the place I'm in the San Francisco office and you know, we have arcade games. We have kegs on tap We have wine in the fridge We have you know, we're not as formal as piston We have formal Fridays every every third Friday of the month where we see people in tuxedos and tuxedo t-shirts So it's it really plays in the culture that you know, everyone's unique and and that should that should be a part of you Not just you know at home, but also at work and and and that's that's that's that's great for me because again We work with a lot of smart people some of the smartest people in the industry and there's no reason We should limit them in terms of you know what they need to get their job done to produce the best results that they can Possibly accomplish so a rack space. I think breaks the mold for for having enterprise-sized company and And they say they stay true to that and they're always up for for opinions they want to hear with you know what you have to say and For a company of that size that is you know That is world is a way different from your your government departments and agencies are just you know So there's there's ticklers for policies and for rules and and procedures and it's just it's new It's it's awesome and that's the way it should be So I'm I'm hugely excited to be a part of them You know be able to be exposed as such an environment You know these guys are obviously saying the standards and they're on the way and that's how it should be Running out of time here very quickly if you want to start with Gretchen again. I noticed all of you guys have open recs Posted on your websites. We are hiring all the people tell tell the people in the camera who are watching Art at this conference What are you hiring for all the jobs? You do something and you're smart and nice nicely done Follow that John So I will again say everything she said I agree with we we are a dynamic startup We are we are looking for smart people right? So if you have a passion for this and you want to start looking toward the future, right? And the future is after we've built these clouds. What do you do with providing a solution to that? We're just looking for smart people and I love the comment that liked I will say that Open-source developers that are very passionate about that that want to you know be involved with open stack that want to Take it to the next level. Why is we at Swift stack are hiring like everyone in open stack? We're currently Acquiring customers growing out to meet those demands. We're looking for developers. We're looking for sales people We're looking for people with ops experience I think I think the general rule that everything I've seen in in open stack is There's a ton of smart people for is people who have experience of getting stuff. You need to be smart and get stuff done and Being able to demonstrate that there's not there's not a place in I don't think any of these companies for people who Who want to come along and say hey look? There's this open stack and it seems popular. Let's ride the coattails but let's demonstrate The ability to actually solve problems for customers and that's what we're focusing on at Swift stack We realized that there are there's an enormous need of solving storage problems Swift solves a good subset of that of those problems extremely well and So what we're looking meeting those needs the world do you swift make all the world use use open stack? I truly believe that the Storage is the foundation upon which our entire technology Stack is based you've got to be able to store your data before you can do the interesting delivery things that the entirety of open Stack delivers So let's solve that problem. Let's do it extremely well Let's strive for excellence and that's what we're looking for at Swift stack So I'd be happy to talk. We've got a table out up front as well grow a company and solve real-world problems at very exciting scales Awesome I'm gonna wrap up here very quickly anyone have any quick questions for these guys Of course, this wouldn't be a session without a shameless plug. So I'm gonna Give a shout out to Tony there in the back who's built out a rack space Certification for open stack the certification exams begin in December so you can become a rack space certified technician for open stack And the first round will start in December in San Antonio with plans to have global classes available in the very near future There's public training courses there as well So for those of you who aren't here or those of you who are here who are new to open stack if you want a four-day intensive course to get Familiar with open stack and learn how to build and troubleshoot and administer open stack powered clouds Definitely take a training course If you want to get involved in open stack, I encourage it There's meet-up groups all over the place if there's not one in your city start one We're seeing a tremendous amount of participation and specifically as San Francisco has a huge Meetup group Austin has a huge meet-up group. I got to give props to a tool in Traveled on a bus for 14 hours on his own dime to to start a meet-up group So a lot of cool things happening again, I encourage you to participate in your your local meet-ups It's a good way to stay connected to the community and find career opportunities as well If you're new to open stack or you're looking into for a career in open stack My guess is that you'll be able to network with people and find some opportunities Last but not least if you are interested in a career at rack space where we've got like 30 postings up as of today with Probably another 15 that are gonna get loaded here in the next couple days Where's Dave and Blake Dave and Blake there they are those two guys over there have offer letters ready to go if you guys are interested so It's true. We've we've extended a few offers this week So and for those of you who we might have annoyed our recruitment team might have annoyed my sincerest apologies Great things happening in open sack super pumps. The future looks bright There's tons of opportunities in open sack for those of you who are watching the videotape definitely get involved I mean, there's you know, you're in a recession or people say we're in a session the unemployment rate is high But obviously this is one place where we're not really feeling that it's Supplying in demand issue. I think at this point So just to quickly add it opens up is real, you know, this is no longer an incubated project It's only changing enterprises and saving enterprises money is changing people's careers. So leave the hype The hype is real. Thank you all for attending. Thank you panelists awesome panelists