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My name is Austin Guidry, and I’m a systems administrator in Peoria, Illinois (but greatly desiring to relocate).

I am former teacher who transitioned into the tech field! My journey into tech began in high school and university while working as a freelance audio-visual technician in Tyler and the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, mainly as a stagehand and camera operator. It was in that job that I was first introduced to the idea of networks and the ways that machines could talk to each other.

Connections, cabling, different levels of controls at different levels, centralized management — it was all introduced to me there. For a while I found it interesting, but my passions ultimately evolved into teaching, which I pursued for over a decade.

After university graduation, I moved into international education, moving to China in 2011 to teach.

My return to the tech field began in late 2022 in between classes during my time teaching sociology and AP Language at a high school in Hangzhou, China. I came across some free “Learn Python” apps and courses while browsing, and they sounded interesting!

I knew Python could be used to write programs, and after hearing a seemingly endless amount of —

“(insert company #1) has been hit with a ransomware attack….(company #2) has suffered a data breach…(#3) has been hacked by China”

— news stories, it all clicked!

I could become a programmer / developer, with the goal being to create automated solutions to the seemingly endless amount of security problems!!

All I knew was the constant barrage of news stories about huge companies losing their data to foreign (and domestic) entities was not only driving me crazy, but also likely affecting me and my data personally. I felt a responsibility to do something…. protect myself and mine, if nothing else.

After toying with this idea, spending a bit of money, working through a couple of short courses, and much struggle and Python wrangling, I managed to negotiate a … let’s say … uneasy truce … with my first programming language. Though not a master and still VERY MUCH a novice, I had written a few simple programs and was no longer afraid of coding or reading code.

It was at this time, while trying to further my knowledge and think of applications and project ideas that I came upon the formal concept of cybersecurity – what it was and what it could do.

I had never heard of Splunk, Crowdstrike, CyberChef, or Microsoft Azure, and I was only vaguely aware of AWS and what it could do. Active Directory to me sounded like a weird alternative band that made music for dads. I knew more than the average person about networks and tech stuff, but looking back, it turns out that I didn’t know basically anything at all in the professional world!

I had already decided to leave China and return to the USA at that point, and it seemed destined to be. I would continue learning, move back to the USA, get certified, and put my knowledge to work.

And that’s what happened! Many courses, certifications, and projects later, here we are!

I landed a help desk job at an engineering firm, got promoted to systems administrator, and here we are!

From teaching to tech…who could have ever guessed that a quick Twitter / Reddit session between classes would have led into a complete change in life and career path?

Not me, that’s for sure…but here we are, and I can’t wait to keep learning!