Tom Morano, Technical Lead at SMX Consulting

Speaker 0: Just like a sidebar, I noticed you had some instruments in the back. Do you play guitar? Is that a guitar?

Speaker 1: It is a guitar. It's actually a guitar case. The guitar is millimeter. But I I, I'm not the typical dev. I, sing and play in a band.

Speaker 0: Dev rockstar. I like it. Yeah.

Speaker 2: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Tech Talk. We have Tom with us. Tom, would you mind introducing yourself to everyone in the audience? Just give a brief introduction, who you are, what you do, and then we'll we'll kinda dive into the conversation for today.

Speaker 1: Name's Tom Marano. I live in Buffalo, New York, and I am currently a technical lead for SMX Consulting on a, state project.

Speaker 2: Awesome. Thanks so much. We, we had a intro conversation a couple weeks ago, and you had a couple interesting stories from your background. So if you don't mind, could you give us a little bit of your background in engineering, how you got to where you are today? We'll probably interrupt you a couple times to ask some questions, but remember a couple points that I'd I'd love to see if you bring back up just about your history.

So how did you get into engineering and kind of what's what's been your journey along the way?

Speaker 1: So I've always been a fan of technology. I was the kid who literally took everything apart in my parents' house. Yes, my dad how many times it took apart his, like, $1,000 stereo and tried to put it back together. Happened a lot. So always been big fan of just anything tech.

Love video games, obviously, growing up. And, actually got my start really building computers and everything when I was younger and CD burners became a thing. And, I quickly learned how to, get music, but that, you know, is, the legibly as possible. Yeah. Yeah.

The leg away. So quickly learn how to burn CDs, and I actually, would make CDs for people in in high school and everything and, you know, sell them to people, for, you know, 5 bucks. And, through school too, I I went on a program a little bit, did a little bit HTML and, c on the side. And then, college stuck with that as as far as school went. I did deviate a little bit.

I got into a little bit of electrical, engineering a little bit for a couple years and then decided I liked programming better. So, went back and, got my bachelor's in computer science, from an online school and got my first job, programming for a health care company here in Buffalo, learning the ropes, most of it the hard way because there wasn't a ton of guidance for me at most of the places I worked early on in my career, unfortunately. It was kind of the wild west where it was just kinda me figuring it out. And also, demands the Internet wasn't as big as it is now, so it wasn't a good resource to even fall back on. So it was always hard trying to figure my way around things.

And then as I kept growing in my career, jumping from position to position, I was able to find some decent mentors around me and, eventually ended up at a larger, health care comp well, benefits company here in Buffalo that was very, very well structured as far as their documentation organization. Had a really, really good agile practice in place. And, also, like, kinda gave me the guidance as far as, like, how to properly run SDLC and for an organization and just give me those guideposts as far as, like, how you can effectively create a really good application. And just good communication practices, good team camaraderie, ideas being spread openly around. It was all learned at this, one shop in Buffalo I worked at.

They're actually not in existence anymore. They're called Liaison, so I'll just throw the name out there. But they were a startup here in Buffalo for years, and I was fortunate enough to meet a lot of really close dev friends when I was there. All of us have gone our separate ways and had our own successes, but it was a really good group of people to work with, and I learned a lot from them. And that's where I got my first leadership role too and, learned a lot there.

One of the trainings they gave us for all of our the new team leads out there was, something called radical candor, which is a book that's out there a lot of people read. And really good, information there as how to, like, communicate with your team effectively to get get them to focus on the task at hand, find out what they need to do, but also not be a dick doing it, you know. Yeah. You don't have to roll with nigh or fist. You know, you can you can just be stern, tell them what they need to do, but also listen and understand why they might be thinking a wrong thing or in a certain direction, which could even open up your eyes if you're thinking about it wrong too.

So that that just opening up that dialogue back and forth really good. And, and when my time ended there, I ended up going to a couple other places. One was a start up I worked at about a about 6 or 7 months ago. That was a new experience for me too. Never worked at a startup that was very, very small, but, ended up being brought in as, like, the second to the VP of engineering.

And, eventually, he ended up leaving and, you know, a role was offered to me, and I got thrown to the wolves trying to learn how to run an entire software organization by myself. It was small still, but learned a lot of things the hard way and how to really keep things organized from a very high level. And so direct people down, empower them to run the other parts of the team that I can't have my hands in all the time because I have to think of things from the higher level and think forward as far as, like, getting the product out.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1: Awesome. Yeah. Unfortunately, that one folded too. But, I then got this role as a consultant for SMX and, Ceramic.

Speaker 0: That's awesome. Nice. I I'd love to hear a little bit about your path from you know, obviously, you've worked for the larger organizations, the startups. I'd love to hear your perspective on the difference and what the problems are, if they're more similar or more different between those, like, large scale organizations or small ones. Like, I know coming from, you know, most of my background was moving to San Francisco, working for a bunch of different startups and ad tech, all kinds of different technology startups, music as well.

But then I went to work at Juniper Networks. That's actually where I met John. And, obviously, Juniper Networks is a 10,000 person organization. So it's it's fun to see the mess from, you know, the the small problems and the startup land versus, like, the more corporate bureaucracy stuff. But I'd love to hear from your perspective, like, which which you enjoyed more, and just how you kind of see the difference in those, organizations and and building and growing.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I will say the one common theme that almost every company I work for has is organization. Like, it's hands down, it's it's the number one issue that most of them have. And

Speaker 0: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Depending on who's in charge, it could go good or bad if they're willing to listen to change, if they want to move and pivot. I'm learning that a lot actually through the consulting work I'm doing now. This is my first consulting position I've ever held. And just seeing how the client is struggling with that, and they brought the team I'm with in to try to help them just use agile, which is, you know, pretty common in what most of us devs do these days. Most places use agile.

Some better than others, but they at least try. And, the biggest thing there is just breaking the problem into smaller pieces, which is more digestible and doesn't seem like the world is gonna fall apart because this this problem is just so huge. Like, that's the one benefit of agile. You know? And it's if if you don't have people at the top that can see that and there's no one voicing it, you just have a bunch of, yes men all over the place just nodding their heads and saying, yep.

We'll get that done. We'll get that done. The weight usually falls down on the people at the bottom doing the work, which is the devs. So then you don't get a good team of devs because they don't wanna be there and deal with that crap. You know?

Speaker 2: Yep.

Speaker 1: You know, they they they just wanna do their job most of the time and go home and feel like they've built something cool that day for the most part. You know? And that's that's like the feel I've loved. And the the first time I really got it was at that, dev shop I worked at in Buffalo for that big gap, where I learned most of what I know today. And, before that, it was a lot of chaos.

Like, the IT department was always just like those guys in the corner. They do their thing. Nobody really cares. And and it it there wasn't really any organization around it. There there was just yeah.

Can you guys get this done for us? You know? We need it soon.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: And and being part of that, large organization that was very well structured really showed me the benefit of just working together collaboratively with people and not just saying throw it to that guy over the fence and he'll figure it out. You know? That that whole, like, planning phase of building the product that you're on became more enjoyable. Learning more about the architecture patterns became more enjoyable because I was I felt more invested in the work.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: And that was that was a big thing. Like, just feeling like what I did made a difference was like a huge eye opener to me. Like, oh, this I can make a difference doing this stuff. This is cool. I have my voice matters.

I'm not just the guy in the corner. You know?

Speaker 0: Yeah.

Speaker 1: It's it's always the that that's that's the thing that just made work enjoyable for me.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to go back to something that you mentioned from your childhood that kind of peaked you started your curiosity. You mentioned taking things apart and trying to rebuild them. That's something that my dad used to do.

He used to take apart things back in the sixties, and, that was something that I did when I was a kid. I would take apart things, and I I would usually not rebuild them. I would usually take them apart just to see how they worked and then leave the parts everywhere. Mhmm. But I've I found that that kind of curiosity has transitioned into adulthood still with physical things.

Like, if the weed whacker is broken, I'll just take it apart. I, you know, I don't wanna go buy a new one, so I'll fix it. But I find that some people are just scared to take things apart and try it, not only with physical things, but also with software or leadership or organizations or you know? As as you grow in leadership, you have to wear many hats. So do you find that that's also a similar case for you that because you were able to have that curiosity when you were young and did first off, did it continue to these days, you still kinda tinker with things like that.

But do you find that the ability to be comfortable taking things apart and dissecting things has helped you grow into a leadership position both in bigger companies and start ups?

Speaker 1: Definitely. The the curiosity to not be afraid to try things on my own, that's the biggest thing I think that probably helped me become a leader right now just because I I will I'm not I'm not scared to speak out. Like, I I will let my voice be heard if I don't agree with a point. Sometimes through a fault, I might Yep. Not I might put my foot in the mouth sometimes, you know, and yeah.

But at at least I'm not scared of expressing my point of view and trying to get it across. Not always right. Nobody's nobody's ever always right. That's that's the one thing And, you know, when I was younger, I was definitely more hard headed. Definitely more hard headed.

As I got older, it I just slowed I would say probably slowed down is the best way to put it and wasn't so like go go go go attitude. It was more like, okay, let me listen and figure out what other people are thinking. Yeah. And try and get their point of view. Like that's that was the biggest change, beginning into the leadership role was like trying to change my mindset that way and, the the one like, I'll bring back up Radical Candor.

That's one of the big points in there is to be a good listener and understand your people, understand their points of view, understand why they think this way or approach they're taking is right. You know, might not be right, but at least you can understand the point of view and can then, if they are wrong, you can then tell them, well, it's that's not exactly right because a, b and c. Because you can then understand why the thing is. You don't just yell at them and say, no. You have to do it this way.

You know, you you could talk to people that way. They usually can come to some, rapport with them a little bit easier than just saying get this done or you're in trouble or something.

Speaker 2: Yeah. There's a differ difference between a boss and a leader. So Mhmm. I I totally agree. Do you find those types of yeah.

We hope our boss isn't listening, but, but, yeah, yeah, do you do you find that you're able to then also see those types of characteristics in people that you're now leading? Or when you were climbing the ranks, did you see those traits in nobody else, and that's why it was potentially easier for you to also climb into leadership? And then do you see that those types of traits in those that are around you, whether they're other leaders or people who work for you?

Speaker 1: Definitely for sure. It's it's not everyone either. Like, there's there's a lot of devs, obviously, who are very introverted. It's just the nature of what we do. You know, a lot of our stuff that we work on is solo by ourselves, and that's the way a lot of us like it.

Not everyone's born to be a leader. They just, like, wanna get their work done or work on something cool by themselves. Don't really care too much about anything else. I definitely have some of those on my team right now. I will say they are sometimes the hardest ones to manage because you have to pull information out of them most of the time.

But the ones that do have that curiosity to go the extra mile without having to be told exactly what to do, Those ones definitely have those traits in them because they they wanna go the extra mile. They wanna look at the next step without having to be told to go look at the next step. They they wanna understand why they just did and created the, went through the business roles. They just added into the app. They wanna know why they had to do that.

So they're going to go down the path, understand the whole process, the whole business process they just had to implement and not just the little piece they worked on. Yeah. And that that helps give them a bigger picture so that they can maybe go into designing a whole system next time and then leading that design and so on and so on. Just building those steps because they have that curiosity to get their head around the whole thing, which is, I think, another part of being a good leader too, to understand everything involved with the processes that you're managing and going through. Because if you if you don't understand that, you're just some guy talking in the back telling people what to do all day.

Speaker 0: Right. Just issuing directives. Yeah. How do you when you identify these traits in folks, as their leader, like, how do you take those skills and and build on to them to, you know, train the next, you know, generation of leaders or or help build them into something like your role that you have now?

Speaker 1: Slowly giving them more responsibility, I think, is the first thing. Like, gaining that trust with them, and even letting letting them fail too sometimes is good because they need to be able to deal with some of the failures too that come with it if they maybe pick a bad decision. Learning how to bounce back from that or pivot to a different direction if they realize, oh, this isn't gonna work. We gotta try something else. But, yeah, it's slowly giving them more and more responsibilities and eventually even letting them lead certain projects or whatever you happen to be on.

That's that's a good step to try to let them spread their wings a little bit Yeah. I think.

Speaker 2: Do you ever do you ever miss being an or do you still individually contribute, or do you ever miss not being a leader? Are there other times where you're you just say, man, I wish I was just plugging away at code or or developing something today and not having to deal with bureaucracy or just some sort of issue that arises that leaders have to deal with? Or do you just love everything that comes at you, deal with the things that are pain in the ass, and and or or, you know, how do you feel about being a leader in your future for yourself as well?

Speaker 1: I mean, I'm human. I'm gonna have days where I just don't wanna deal with some stuff going on. Like, if there's a 1,000,000 fires going on and I just wanna rip my hair out, it's like, I can't do this today. Gonna gonna have those days. It happens.

But, I do love just leading the project and deciding the direction that, say the team goes or say technology paths that we investigate and go down. It it does it is harder for me sometimes to to pull away. Like, I I do wanna get involved and, like, actually do some coding once in a while. I I get to once in a while. I do it on the side still.

Did mention this earlier. I know we talked about it in our pre call, but I do kind of run a a DJ business on the side that I like, always use as, like, a testing ground for some of my, project some of just my skill and expertise, like, growing that. I did a lot with dotnet in there at in the Azure world. And, it's it's helped me just experiment with things in the side and understand more, especially around, cloud architecture and design. I learned a lot of that just on my own ad hoc, and I was able to apply it when I got to that startup role.

I did in the role before this.

Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. I guess the side projects are a good way to, like, flex those coding muscles still where you're not able to individually contribute to a project you're managing or leading, at least, like, on the side. Mhmm.

Speaker 1: Yeah. They keep you

Speaker 0: so that's really cool.

Speaker 1: Yeah. They keep you up to date too with some of the the cool new tools out there as well, you know, because you don't always get to use those in your job. Yeah. Sometimes it's good to know that because then you can even say, hey. When some problem comes around, maybe it can be solved by this thing I messed with at home.

Speaker 2: Yeah. That was that was actually gonna be my next question was what, you know, what is some new tech that you've been able to find in those side projects or in just general browsing the Internet that you find cool with others? We've talked about cryptocurrency and and Bitcoin and random types of things and AI, obviously, but are there some tools out there that you've started to uncover personally or in your regular job that you really see some potential to have a really cool use case for yourself?

Speaker 1: I mean, Python is the new hotness everybody's learning these days, mostly just for the big data stuff, especially with Fintech. I've I've started dabbling with that. The the client expressed an interest in it. So I went on the side to start learning it on my own just so I can understand maybe from a perspective that, it can be implemented with the clients. To be fair, I I don't know if it's going to work for the clients if we're looking into it, but at least I know ahead of time before just saying, yeah.

Let's do that. Yeah. Let's see. I I've I I've dabbled a lot with, a lot of PaaS and SaaS offerings in the cloud, mostly mostly in Azure, a little bit in AWS, using very, small services using, like, some of the functions in Azure along with, like, a front end. It's a very low cost way of creating, like, a a web application semi quickly.

Yeah. And then, of course, everything you can do with containers these days in even you can even wrap Azure functions now in containers. They're so handy. And running in, like, Linux Linux boxes, you don't even have to stand up Windows boxes anymore. It's always I mean, it's been around for a while now.

It's it's gaining more traction these days by more companies, which is good, I think.

Speaker 0: Yeah. For sure. I think it's it's funny you mentioned that too because I think for the side projects and and just for these, like, you know, self applications or learning on the side, that's actually how we hear a lot of developers in our community find out about about Directus, about us. Right? Like, open source technology.

It's like, hey. Let me try this for a side project. And then all of a sudden, at some point, their their business or their company has a need that it's like, oh, this might be perfect. I've been using this for years on my, you know, DJ side business. Like, maybe it could apply to this organization I'm working with.

So, that that's pretty cool to hear. I also just like a sidebar, I noticed you had some instruments in the back. Do you play guitar? Is that a guitar?

Speaker 1: It is a guitar. It's actually a guitar case. The guitar is in the living room. Awesome. I I, I'm not the typical dev.

I, sing and play in a band.

Speaker 0: Dev rock star. I like it. Yeah.

Speaker 2: That's a very common trait. We see yeah. We see a lot of developers who you have to have side hobbies as well. I I doubt any developers, hopefully, not too many, sit in front of a computer for 18 hours a day. Though it maybe it's gaming.

You know, that's a hobby too, but we find a lot of devs, play instruments. And maybe it's because instruments are kind of it's kind of like a puzzle and taking apart things and putting them together. Music is kind of like a puzzle like that as well. So is that something you can

Speaker 0: use for your Right? Still math and language and basically the same as, like, coding just in a different if in a different way. I think we have enough musicians within Directus to form a band, but maybe we do that one day. Yep.

Speaker 1: That big dev shop I worked at, there was a lot of guitar players a lot. Like, some of the some of the, director level guys, they all had, like, acoustics in their office.

Speaker 0: Yeah. I remember when I got to when I moved to San Francisco, I'd gone to the the Dropbox office, and, I think the CEO was like a drummer or guitarist or something. And they had set up 2 jam rooms where people could go and, like, they had the whole full band set up, and you can go at any time and just jam out and take out your frustration or whatever you wanna do on the drums. And, I thought that's a really cool idea.

Speaker 1: That is a very cool idea. I like that. If I worked at a physical office anymore, I would say, yeah. Let's do that. Yeah.

Yeah. Right. Right.

Speaker 2: What is there anything that you see that might you know, what are your takes on things like AI? Are there things out there that you see that have are overblown or misunderstood? You know? We hear a lot of people with different opinions on that or maybe a technology that you that other people use that you find overblown. Anything that you see on that side of the spectrum?

Speaker 1: I mean, I personally think AI is a big hype right now just like, NFTs before and then, you know, Bitcoin before. I mean, Bitcoin is still big now, but, you know, at its peak, it was ginormous, you know. Yeah. Now it's slowly coming back down to earth. NFTs have pretty much died.

And AI, it's it's got its benefits. It's cool, but it's it's the way people communicate about it that's, I think, wrong. It's it's not actual AI, like the definition. It can't think by itself. It's just large language Yeah.

Large language models. It's just taking it from a very big dictionary and guessing what it should be based on a bunch of other texts that it has in this thing. It can't actually think by itself.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: And that's that's the one thing people get all crazy about, like, thinking it's gonna take everyone's job.

Speaker 0: Yeah. Like, sentient stuff. Yeah.

Speaker 1: It's not sentient. Yeah. Can't do that yet. Someday it probably will, but it's it's not. And that's that's the one thing.

It's it's always I always find a little bit just annoying when people freak out about it. It's like it's it's not there yet. Yeah. Do you

Speaker 0: think the sentience is, like, years away, decades away? I mean, if I mean, it's hard to tell.

Speaker 1: Yeah. It's really hard to tell. I mean, it's

Speaker 0: I guess only the devs at OpenAI and Entropic and some of those others probably know, like, what the timeline looks like.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't even know if they're they're on the right track with that. Because, like, honestly, if they're gonna do sentience, it would have to be probably more maps like a human brain. And I don't think that's the way they're doing any of these AI model like, models. I think they're all just big dictionaries for the most part, but guess as good as mine.

Speaker 2: Yeah. So what would be some advice you give for people on your team, for example, whom you might see leadership traits in or other people who would be watching this? If somebody feels like they have the traits to be a leader obviously, you've mentioned a book that I myself have read, and that book I do think is an incredible book.

Speaker 1: Mhmm.

Speaker 2: But you've mentioned not being afraid to try things, not being afraid to fail. What is your advice to people who still might have hesitance to even try something because they are scared, Or what are some other things that you would give some advice for people looking to grow into a leadership position?

Speaker 1: The biggest thing is tell your boss. Like, communicate that with your boss. That's that's where I started. I told my boss I wanted to do these things, and they helped me get my position myself in the right place so I eventually could be moved up to a team lead and run up my run my first team. So you you really have to just not be scared to tell your boss and, like, move up that way.

If you're scared to tell your boss, then maybe you're not ready to lead because you you can't be scared to do that stuff. That would be the first thing. And, after that, it would be don't be scared. Don't be afraid to fail. Like, that's the biggest thing.

Like, because you're you're gonna make mistakes. You're if you especially if you're a new leader, you're just starting doing this. You're not gonna know everything off the bat. No one's perfect at this right away. It takes lots of practice.

And then the last thing would just be be open to criticism and people telling you maybe that's not the best way. You have to be able to change and pivot and listen.

Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.

Speaker 2: Yeah. That's that's such good advice actually is telling your boss, telling the people who have done that journey themselves because a good leader would want their their people underneath of them who want to progress in their careers to do be able to do that. So I don't think we've had anybody mention that, but it that is probably one of the most important things that you can do is find people who have done that journey and tell them. Get that guidance.

Speaker 1: Mhmm.

Speaker 0: Yeah. Are there still leaders that, that you had in the past that you still stay in touch with and that maybe mentor you? Or how how valuable do you think the community that you've built, you know, over over your career is is still helping you today?

Speaker 1: I've kinda lost touch with with, my first mentor I had. He ended up moving across the country. I haven't really kept in touch with him. But my peers, I definitely have. Like, my other, manager teammates that I had, actually brought a bunch of them in to work at that start up I was at.

And

Speaker 0: Oh, awesome. Yeah.

Speaker 1: We had a really, really good tight team there, and I've kept in touch with a lot of the other manager friends that I've made over the years, dev managers.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And a

Speaker 1: lot of them have made it even higher than me so far. So Yeah. They're really on the way too. And, like, we all have our different opinions about to how to lead a team as well. And it's good to bounce those ideas off of them to see how they would handle the situation.

What would they do different? How would they handle the communication between a problem person or someone who's a little bit or having issues? You know?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I I think community is huge both in work and outside of work. And Pedro and I have been at 3 different companies together. Not all we didn't move every place at the same time, but we've, you know, kept in contact as well as other people at other companies I've in contact with who I feel like I can pour into them some advice, and, they can do the same for me.

So I find that community is also a good answer, because Pedro and I are have been friends for a long time. So it's it's kind of good to see each other grow and encourage each other, to be able to do, you know, what we wanna do.

Speaker 0: Yeah. And a little friendly competition as well. For sure. Especially since we're both we're both in the same role, just different territories now, so that's always thrilling.

Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. We we have this East Coast, West Coast, spiff or or beef, I guess, is the right word to a little bit. Yeah.

Speaker 0: Yeah. Crazy. I mean, we Cool.

Speaker 1: No. I think by you, John. Yeah.

Speaker 0: Yeah. No. I think this is this is all really good advice. Like, I mean, I'm I'm even taking some of this to to apply to myself, obviously, as, like, an aspiring, leader in a future organization. That'd be this is really awesome help, for me as well.

So, hopefully, everyone watching is, taking notes and and learning from you, but we'd love to know, like, where where can people follow you if they'd like to you know, you got LinkedIn and maybe some other projects, if you wanna just

Speaker 1: take it off.

Speaker 2: You can shout out your DJ thing if you want to.

Speaker 0: Alright. For anyone in Buffalo. Yeah.

Speaker 1: To be to be fair, I've kinda wound down my DJ business over for years since I haven't had time to do it with my my jobs. Yeah. So I've kinda pushed the way the band stuff's kinda taken more. That's that's more of my thing these days. But LinkedIn, you can find me at Thomas Moreno, and I'm also on Facebook and Instagram.

Same name. And, yeah, that's pretty much it.

Speaker 2: Awesome. Well, thanks so much for your time today. Everyone, go follow him. We'll put his information in our notes, but go follow him for some good wisdom. You you really gave some good advice there that I've used some of it myself and some that I also will take, into account for sure.

So thanks so much for your time today, Tom.

Speaker 0: Thanks, Tom.

Speaker 1: Very much. Thanks, guys. Cheers. Bye.