My title is Technical Lead, which in practice means I'm the person the team comes to when something doesn't make sense. The cases that have stumped everyone else, the ones where nobody's sure where to look next.

As much as I love getting my hands on a weird, messy, complex problem, the real win for me isn't fixing it. It's turning around and showing my team how they can solve it too. Less about being the expert, more about helping everyone else become one. I coach, I translate between the support and engineering worlds, and I write the kind of practical playbooks I wish I'd had when I was starting out.

But I also started noticing patterns beyond individual cases. Gaps in how we worked, how we shared knowledge, how we asked for help. Instead of flagging them and moving on, I started fixing them.

Some fixes were simple. Others turned into scoped projects, built out with a team and delegated accordingly. One started as a tool I built without asking permission, shared with the team, and watched quietly become the new standard. It's now part of how we measure success globally.

The imposter syndrome from joining during Covid hadn't fully faded, but something had shifted. Management started routing the harder cases my way. Complex database and backup issues that needed more than a standard playbook. I didn't wait to be asked twice.

I also knew early on that I wanted Tech Lead. So I stopped waiting for the title and started doing the job. Mentoring new hires, sharing what I knew, making myself useful beyond my own ticket queue.

I joined Cohesity in March 2020. Two weeks later the world shut down.

Starting a new job remotely, on a new product, in a new company, after years of being the go-to person at Nuix. The imposter syndrome was real. I'd built a reputation and a network over four years, and I walked away from all of it to start from scratch somewhere new.

I spent that year proving to myself that I could do it again. Learning a complex product from scratch, building new relationships through a screen, and finding my footing in a company I'd never set foot in.

My years as a Technical Support Engineer at Nuix gave me a completely different perspective on what technical support can be. Working with a powerful product and incredible customers, I learned that the role could be so much more than just closing tickets.

While my title was TSE, I was much more than that. I became a dedicated support resource for one of our largest customers in EMEA. This wasn't just remote support; I was on-site with them, working shoulder-to-shoulder to troubleshoot complex issues and help with implementation. My product knowledge grew to the point where I was stepping in to run demos for the sales team and diving into the Engine APIs to write my own scripts, solving unique challenges that went far beyond the standard playbook.

It was a role where I learned that great support isn't just reactive; it's about becoming a trusted expert who can proactively guide, teach, and build solutions.

I'd done an internship at Dell EMC during college, so when I graduated in 2014 joining the Global Services Associate Program felt like a natural next step. My first proper job.

The GSAP program laid the essential foundation for my entire career, giving me the practical skills and professional mindset that I've built on ever since. Systematic troubleshooting, high stakes customer situations, learning to communicate clearly when things are broken and someone is waiting on you.