Yes, I will admit it. I suck at aptitude tests. I’ve been in technology for literally 41 years and have worked in many facets and industries throughout my career. And yes, I hit the calculator button on my keyboard to do that math. From a very early age, I’ve had a knack for those things most consider to be technical or hard. In fact, I was tested for gifted and talented in elementary school and was often picked on for being a “brainiac”. 

At the age of 12, early one morning, my father handed me a device which was slightly larger than a brick with a small red LCD screen and a bunch of buttons. It was a hand-held computer that his company issued to him to do inventory. He was a route salesman and very good at what he did. After he handed me the device, he said I’m not going to be able to figure this out and I need you to program it for me. A year later, he realized I had the knack for computers and purchased a TRS-80 Model III personal computer. 

Shortly after receiving this amazing device, I was not only reverse engineering games that I had saved up lawn-mowing money to purchase, but I was also writing text-based adventure games in BASIC. I can also remember purchasing computer magazines for the free games and would spend hours typing in long strings of characters to try the latest game (Z80 anyone?). I liked BASIC much better. 

In junior high school, I was showing my teachers how to use their Apple IIe computers and was writing code every chance I could get. This would include banging out code on any Commodore 64 I would encounter in stores like K-mart. Then high school rolled around, I got a job at McDonald’s and an old car which changed everything. 

I hated school, especially high school, as I excelled in all of my classes and was often the target of bullying because I was intelligent. Many of my teachers would recognize this and would give me extra work to feed my brain which made the bullying worse. I would read anything I could get my hands on and often would read an entire book in one evening. 

Soon I was promoted to assistant manager at the local McDonald’s in which I worked, the money back then was decent, and I was able to support myself although I lived in a small trailer on my parent’s property. Prior to my senior year of high school, I had aspirations of attending UNLV on a computer science scholarship. However, I was so fed up with school, I decided to make management my career. 

Several years go by and I have had a successful career in fast-food and retail management often times holding either the first assistant or store manager roles. I also had a knack for sales and ended up working for various companies as an inside salesman and even as an outside salesman selling hydraulic seals to huge drilling companies. For a short period of time, I also did automotive body repair work and sold tropical plants door to door. My most interesting position during the years directly after graduating high school was working for the National Institutes of Health entering grant data into an application called HyperCard. 

There wasn’t a lot of money in sales, and I got burned out fairly quickly chasing the carrot. While I was working for one of the places in which I was doing outside sales, I would often pitch in with helping figure out issues with their BNC network, installing new computers, and software. Eventually I found myself conducting photo shoots of products, producing brochures, catalogs, and even newsletters. Quickly I moved onto helping with extracting data from their AS-400 as the in-house technical guy couldn’t make it work. I started to feel that passion again that only computing could seem to bring. 

One day, I decided to reinvent myself. I brushed up my resume and applied for a MIS Management role at a small company that sold prepaid phone cards and landed it. I handled managing all network infrastructure, computer hardware, and all aspects of the help desk. Applying what I had learned from managing people and establishments served me well. 

If you’ve made to this point without bailing, thank you. Honestly my left hand is numb from typing out my life’s story albeit the Readers Digest version. Now you have a bit of my history and my humble beginnings as a technology professional. Without boring you with the nitty-gritty details, I went on to hold positions as director, manager, network engineer, lead software engineer, freelance technologist, managing consultant, and many other positions in between. I’ve had clients from all over the world including Iceland (that’s a story for another time). Let’s just say that I am a seasoned professional and have just about done it all. 

After getting fed up with Wells Fargo after 13 years, I once again started my own tech company, Knight Technologies LLC with the hopes of being my own boss again. Things weren’t moving fast enough, and I ended up joining a small company that staffs government contracts and became a Senior .NET Developer for the USDA. Obviously, I took a huge pay cut, but with that came less responsibilities and I could focus on what I love the most about technology which is building software solutions utilizing patterns and best practices. 

Currently I work for Guidehouse on a different USDA contract which is ending soon. There aren’t many things I hate in this world, however, finding something new to do ranks #1 on the list of things I hate the most. I often will make jokes about choosing between being physically tortured and finding a new job. I’m more comfortable with the former. It’s not that I’m not capable or don’t have the skills to find something new. I interview very well and have no issues with most interview questions. Mostly because I am typically the one doing the interviewing and screening applicants. 

Aside from the pure drudgery of resume blasting across the various job boards and answering the same questions over and over again, there is the long wait and uncertainty. The worst part, however, for me, which is another thing I truly hate about the process, is those aptitude tests. 

Yes, I will begrudgingly take them and answer all of the questions like “if Jane can work on Tuesdays, but not with Nick who works on Thursdays, when can Laura work?” or “which shape does not belong in this group”. Or, all of the math questions dealing with how many houses can John build if he can build 1.5 houses in a week. If John hires Larry, and Larry can build a house in two weeks. How many houses can they build together in a month in a half. Arggh! 

I suck at aptitude tests, but I have had a highly successful career in technology across many verticals. Although I consider myself an expert in C# coding, I can read and understand many other programming languages easily. I can refactor just about any code base to introduce concepts like SOLID, DRY, and true object-oriented principles. I can figure out and correct obscure bugs across layers of infrastructure leaving clean code while reducing technical debt practically in my sleep. And I am adept at building teams and mentoring developers at all levels. 

I will close this incredibly long blog post with this. Currently I am looking for something new to do and I am really motivated to find the right position. I really don’t want to go to work for a place that just hires warm bodies that can pass an aptitude test. Many others like me will agree that companies that use these types of tests to cull the flock will be left with people that are good at taking tests. I’ll take my skills, vast knowledge, and experience to a company that values people and what they can do and what real-world technology problems they can solve. The types of problems that don’t require knowing what shape comes next in a sequence or what days Jane can work. 

Thanks for reading! 

P.S. This is post is also available on LinkedIn.