1st August 2022
Written by Dave Byrne
This month, our Meet the Team segment stars another of Vinters most long-standing and high achieving employees, Dave Byrne. Dave joined Vinters back in 2013 and quickly rose into his current role as Head of Technical Projects just 2 years later. This impressive career at the firm has given Dave some brilliant insights into Vinters as a company and employer, as well as first-hand knowledge of the exciting technical projects that are in the works. In this interview, Dave shares glimpses into the world of Vinters, along with some great advice for those looking to start a career in tech.
How did your journey at Vinters begin?
I started working at Vinters about 9 years ago, back when we were known as VooServers. I joined the company as an Apprentice Helpdesk Engineer and I spent a year doing that before rising straight to a 2nd Line Engineer. From there, I progressed quickly into my Head of Projects role which I’ve been in for around 7 years now.
What does your current role as Head of Technical Projects entail?
I’m responsible for overseeing projects and deployments for our clients, from planning to completion. It’s project management at heart, but I also get to do the interesting parts of spec’ing and building the clients’ environments, networks, and servers, and configuring them prior to project delivery.
The role is also applied to our internal infrastructure advancements as I also have a hand in expanding our global networks, adding new data floors, and growing our framework and systems to meet staffing capacity needs.
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Do you have any exciting projects on the go at the moment that you can tell us about?
There’s so much going on that it would be impossible to talk about it all, but one major project we’ve just gone live with is our multi-geo Cloud Platform “Savnna.cloud”.
We launched the UK end of this platform about 18 months ago and it was a resounding success. We’ve now completed deployment of the USA side in our New York data centre, which is seeing a great uptake in the early stages too. Having a really fast, stable, and expandable cloud platform that spans multiple continents is a big feather in our cap!
What would your advice be for anyone looking to start a career in tech?
With tech being so prevalent these days, I think it’s hard for younger people to not be involved in it and exposed to it to some extent, so they definitely have a head start compared to even 10 years ago! My advice though would be to diversify your knowledge as early as possible. At Vinters, as with most other MSP/CSPs and other tech sector businesses, we are technology and platform agnostic. We benefit from all of our engineers having knowledge and experience in multiple areas in the tech industry and not just specialising in one type of technology or platform.
What do you enjoy most about your role at Vinters?
I think the ability for one week to be wildly different to the next is the key to enjoying this role. One week I can be working with our NYC team and deploying hardware for a cloud platform, the next week I could be working internally and developing our staff support and HR systems. In addition, our flexible working policy is great – having a few days a week to work from home in a Hybrid WFH arrangement really helps with work life balance.
Since joining the company in 2013, what has been your favourite moment so far?
Oooh that’s a tough one! I think traveling as part of the job has been a lot of fun, and something I’ve been lucky to get to do. I’ve been to New York to work in our NYC facility, Florida to attend Microsoft’s Ignite convention, Frankfurt to work in our German facility, Barcelona to attend Exteris’ StorageFocus conference, Ireland for client projects, and a whole host of places around England!
I also think the people you work with play a big role in your enjoyment of your job, and we’re lucky to have a team of great people working at Vinters.
What is on the horizon for yourself and for Vinters?
Personally, I’m excited and eager to continue my own growth within the role, expanding my knowledge and skill set with every new deployment that we take on. I’m also looking forward to filling our current vacancy for a new Projects & Deployments Engineer who will work alongside me on the Projects Team.
As Covid restrictions around the globe begin to fade away, I’m also looking forward to getting back out to some of the in-person conferences and conventions that 2022/2023 has to offer – I hear one of our suppliers is having a 2023 event in Miami!
