Curiosity, Adaptability, and Career Growth with Ryan Jeziorski

Summary

In this episode of Automox Insiders, Maddie Regis speaks with Ryan Jeziorski, a Solutions Engineer at Automox, about the importance of IT adaptability and resilience. Ryan shares his diverse career background, his current role at Automox, and insights on how organizations can maintain uninterrupted services while adapting to changes in technology. He emphasizes the significance of continuous learning and patch management as key strategies for IT professionals. The conversation concludes with a fun game about companies that have successfully adapted their business models over time.

Transcript

Maddie Regis: 

Hey everyone, this is Maddie Regis, Paid Media Manager at Automox, and I'm bringing you a new episode of IT Insiders, our first of 2025, so happy new year everyone. And this is Automox's podcast that introduces you to the people behind the product. So this month we are talking about IT adaptability with Ryan Jeziorski one of our Solutions Engineers here at Automox. So thanks so much for joining us, Ryan.

Ryan Jeziorski: 

Yeah, Maddie, thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

Maddie Regis: 

Awesome. So kick it off. is what I ask everyone to get a little bit of your background on the podcast. So tell me a little bit about your career background. And then I ask everyone the name that you give our company if it was not called Automox.

Ryan Jeziorski: 

Awesome. Yeah. So as noted, I'm Ryan Jeziorski and I've been with Automox for just over three years. Prior to joining, I worked at a Fortune 500 property and casualty insurance company. So my background has mostly revolved around IT operations. However, I've worn a number of different hats in this area over the years. I've been in network operations, security operations, telecom engineering.

I've even had a couple of IT financial consulting roles. that role was kind of interesting. It was really kind of taking a step away from day-to-day technology and focusing more on the business side of IT. But part of my experience included patching our call control servers, media servers, really any of our telecom specific infrastructure. So coming from a primarily legacy and on-prem old school patching solution is really what drew me to Automox.

I was really just impressed with the simplicity to get up and running, the ability for customization when it came to managing not only server infrastructure when I was doing, but also more of the user workstations, desktops, all those different things. So just a little bit about me. But now as far as a name for Automox, I'm a big golfer outside of work. So if I were to give Automox a company name, I'd do something cheesy and like golf themed. So what came to mind was, was EagleOps.

Automox helps teams do more with less resources. So coming in under par would be something that I'd be looking for, you know, trying to get an eagle.

Maddie Regis: 

I love that. That's awesome. That's again, that's a creative one when I have not heard yet. So super fun. And yeah, lots of

Lots of interesting roles. can't say that I've heard that a ton in the IT space, some of the ones that you mentioned. So obviously you've, you've got all that experience. but now you've come to Audimox. So take me through your current role here and what you do, generally what you do, what your day to day looks like, all that good stuff.

Ryan Jeziorski: 

For sure. Yeah. So my current role as a solutions engineer really revolves around the customer. I'm a technical advisor for them at the end of the day. As they evaluate Automox during the pre-sales portion of trying to decide if Automox is a good fit for them to solve their pain points, I'm there to help them through that way. So my day-to-day can include meeting with new customer, understand their problems, trying to understand what we can solve for them.

potentially delivering a demonstration of Automox and how it could actually solve these problems. And then from there, really kind of moving more into the proof of value phase. So I'm there to guide teams through deployment, through setup, troubleshooting any issues that do come up, and overall just making sure that potential customers of Automox are really maximizing their experience during their POV, making sure they test.

every bell and whistle that we provide and making sure that they feel comfortable with us as a solution for them at the end of the day.

Maddie Regis: 

Awesome. love it. So yeah, you've, you've talked a little bit about that. You've talked about how, um, how interested you were in the product, obviously, and that kind of crosses over with the theme of the podcast for this month, which is IT resilience and adaptability. Um, so I'm curious what that means to you from a general standpoint and kind of your perspective as a solutions engineer for Automox, how we, tend to do that.

Ryan Jeziorski: 

For sure, for sure. So, you know, I think resilience and adaptability are really kind of essential qualities of any IT organization. I think, you know, we can all agree that when it comes to IT, it's really only a matter of time before Murphy's law strikes. You know, we can't predict everything that's going to happen. And to me, IT resilience is the ability for a team to...

you know, provide uninterrupted services to its stakeholders. You know, teams do this by preventing issues from happening and then, you know, quickly recovering from them when the unexpected does strike. So, you know, how quickly they are able to get back on their feet and provide those services back to their customers, whether it's internal facing, external facing, whatever, you know, product or service they're providing. Whereas, you know, adaptability is more about how we get there, you know, what method the team takes to get there.

whether that be through some type of...

you know, new technology that needs to come in, whether that is through just remaining flexible, embracing change, really anything that they can do to stay on top of being, you know, efficient and performing really well. So I think those kind of two obviously go hand in hand when we talk about them, you know, individually, it's easy to define them, but as a whole, it's a little bit more cumbersome. And, you know, I think that Automox is there to support teams that are looking to create, you know, a resilient environment.

We're very adaptable. We're very scalable. It's very easy tool to use. So using Automox really kind of allows teams to deliver those updates, configuration changes, software packages with minimal disruption to business operations and end users. So overall, just being there to support teams from start to finish when it comes to being resilient and making sure that you're providing everything that you need to provide to your customers as a company.

Maddie Regis: 

Yeah, I love that. Definitely, I see that in our internal IT for sure. They've researched some things and dove head first when I've needed some help, which is awesome. So yeah, I would definitely agree that all those things have been super beneficial for me personally.

Ryan Jeziorski: 

Yeah, definitely.

Maddie Regis: 

okay. So to wrap up before we jump to our game, you know, obviously you've been in this space for a bit. You have a good amount of experience. So if you had one piece for, one piece of advice for it professionals, you know, maybe some people that are earlier in their careers, what would it, what would it be from you?

Ryan Jeziorski: 

Yep. Yeah. So I think first and foremost, just patch, know, continuously patch and stay up to date. It really is the primary line of defense when it, when it comes to security. software vulnerabilities are going to be your most common entry point for cyber attacks. you know, it's easier than ever to keep software and systems up to date. there's no excuse not to do it. Let's get it done, stay up to date, stay patched. and I know you asked for one piece, but you know, for some, like you said, some of the listeners that may be,

early on in their careers, my advice would really just be to stay curious. You know, very rarely are IT careers linear. There's a lot of different ways to go. My career is one of those, like I've jumped through many different hoops over the years. And I think continuous learning is just a great way to get to that next role. You might not know where it's going to be or when it's going to present itself. So staying up to date on industry trends, new technologies, and just, you know, just staying curious in IT is a really great way to

to make sure that you're prepared next time it does come up for you.

Maddie Regis: 

Yeah, I love that. think that's, that's great advice for really anyone in any field. Stay curious, keep learning. Awesome. Okay. So, as some previous listeners will know, we always end this podcast with a game. So the game this time, obviously we're talking about adaptability resilience. so I looked up some fairly famous companies that actually started out selling one product and then adapted to become another. So.

I'm going to give you the name of a company and then a couple of options for what they originally started selling. some of these are very, very different than what they're actually selling today. So Nokia, which is famous for their absolutely indestructible phones, did they start out selling mail services, paper or picture frames?

Ryan Jeziorski: 

that's tough. I'm going to completely guess and say picture frames because it sounds so random.

Maddie Regis: 

You're close. It's paper. So it's still kind of in that, you know, that like stationary type situation. all right. Yeah, we learn something new every day on this podcast. all right. And then Nintendo, which I'm sure obviously I think everyone in the world has heard of Nintendo and their video games, but that is not what they started out selling. Did they start out selling playing cards, noodles, or soap?

Ryan Jeziorski: 

Yeah.

Yeah, that's cool. I would have never known that. Yeah. Let's go playing cards.

Maddie Regis: 

Yep, you are correct. Which I think that kind of tracks, know, sort of makes sense, the jump. It's still a game. Yeah, for sure. Okay, two more. So the next one is Taco Bell, which, quite surprising, but they did not start out selling tacos. So did they start selling chicken sandwiches, root beer, or hot dogs?

Ryan Jeziorski: 

Yeah, on the gaming aspect,

Hmm, I'm gonna go hot dogs. All right.

Maddie Regis: 

You're right again. You're

great. See, this isn't even an IT and you're crushing it.

Ryan Jeziorski: 

I was just thinking convenience on that one. Hot dogs an easy one. Taco Bell's easy. Let's stay in that realm.

Maddie Regis: 

Yeah. Very true.

Very true. All right. Last one is one that we're, very familiar with, Amazon slash AWS. So obviously that's a common one in our space, but, you might know this one already. I feel like that this is one that's more talked about, but did they start off selling books? Did they start with image hosting or vinyl records?

Ryan Jeziorski: 

books.

Maddie Regis: 

You got it. Yep.

All right. Well, awesome, Ryan. You did great on the game. Thank you so much for sharing a little bit about your career background and some advice. And thanks everyone for listening. Make sure to tune in on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the Autonomous IT podcast. And I will see you all next month.

Ryan Jeziorski: 

Thanks, Maddie