Every Tech Experience Expands Your Abilities as a Technologist
Alumni Success Story with Jay Spanos, Support Engineer at Synergy Technical
By MAXX Potential
- Posted:
- Apprenticeship, Success Stories
Meet Jay Spanos, now a MAXX Alum and a Support Engineer at Synergy Technical. He worked as an Apprentice for nearly a year, obtaining Level 2 Apprentice status and gaining valuable on-the-job tech experience before he exited MAXX Potential. We had the opportunity to catch up with him and ask a few questions.
What were you doing before MAXX Potential? What drew you to pursue a career in technology?
Before joining MAXX Potential, I spent several years working in restaurants and construction roles. In college, I studied music technology, and one of my final exams involved building an effects pedal from scratch. Between that hands-on project, constantly troubleshooting audio equipment, and learning to code, I discovered a strong passion for anything and everything technological.
Can you talk about what you’re currently working on? What are some of your job responsibilities?
I’m currently working as an M365 Support Technician handling day-to-day user support, device provisioning, and Microsoft cloud troubleshooting. My responsibilities include setting up new Windows and Mac devices, resolving Outlook/OneDrive/SharePoint issues, assisting with MFA and sign-in problems, and installing security or remote-management agents. I also handle common ticket types like printer issues, application errors, and network drive problems. Alongside this, I’m studying for the MS-102 and SC-401 to move further into M365 engineering.
What’s the most rewarding thing about your current role?
Working with Microsoft products feels like you are working on the infrastructure of people’s workflow. It feels pretty rewarding knowing that you are keeping services functional that are essential to a company’s daily operations.
How do you keep your skills up to date? What’s the best way to learn new concepts, technologies, programming languages, etc.?
Some great sources for information are documentation, Google, YouTube, Reddit but, most importantly, hands on projects. Whether it’s asking to shadow people at work on tasks that I don’t know how to do, or projects at home, or helping a friend with their projects, anything hands-on is always a good way to learn for me.
What’s the best piece of advice you can give to someone early in their IT career or looking to get their start?
There really is no such thing as bad or “wrong” experience. Even if you’re using a tech stack that you might not think is 100% relevant to your goals, you are still learning how to think and troubleshoot as a technologist.
Interested in becoming or working with a MAXX Apprentice? Attend Career Lab or explore MAXX Business Solutions, such as Tech Consulting!
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