Join us in congratulating our Service Operations Manager, Jenna Barboza! On Nov. 15, 2018 she will receive a 2018 Tech Collective Next Tech Generation Award, an honor that celebrates outstanding up-and-coming technology professionals. A graduate of the New England Institute of Technology, Jenna joined Vertikal6 via our Apprentice program almost three years ago and has never looked back. She motivates her teammates and goes above and beyond to assist our clients on a daily basis. We are amazed by her everyday and this award is proof that hard work pays off! Congratulations Jenna!
We took a few minutes to catch up with Jenna and ask her a few questions about her career, how she leads her job and her passion for technology.
- You were recently promoted to Service Operations Manager. What does this job entail? In this role, I will lead the Service Desk and NOC teams and work in a cross-functional capacity with the engineering teams to maintain and enhance our overall delivery of service. I am also excited to continue to grow and improve upon our recruiting efforts and internal training methods and systems. It is a passion for me to help my teammates move along their career paths to reach their professional goals as well as ensure that Vertikal6 fosters top technical talent.
- How do you prioritize training for your team? At Vertikal6, we hire our Level I Support staff as apprentices, so I oversee the in-depth training and certifications necessary to shape these apprentices into skilled technicians with a wide breadth of IT knowledge. We want everyone at Vertikal6 to be trained to the highest industry standard while delivering outstanding customer service. My approach to training aligns nicely with our company culture - keep it fun, challenging and collaborative. It's always rewarding to see my team truly excited to come to work every day and continue to learn.
- What is your favorite part about your job? The favorite part of my job is making work fun for my team. Help Desk can be an extremely stressful job, so I am grateful to work for a company that allows me to put a stronger focus on making it an enjoyable position. Although we have a large amount of exciting company-wide perks and events, the focus I have is to make training fun. The apprentices have to complete two certifications which can be overwhelming, so making the training fun is a great way to relieve some of their stress. It’s important to me that they are excited to learn and grow their skills, so I am constantly developing new ways to train them. We often have competitions based on training videos or daily goals, and occasionally even play Jeopardy with questions based on skills, SOP’s, and even client specific details.
- How do you envision your work or innovation changing technological, business and/or cultural environments? I hope that the work I do will help change the hiring and training process within the technology field. At Vertikal6, we hire apprentices in order to train our team based on our core values. We focus a great deal of our training on how to utilize all resources available. This enables the techs to be much more independent when assisting clients and allows them to grow towards high positions much sooner than normal. If this process becomes more widely accepted then there will be more opportunities available at an entry-level. Self-taught techs and even people from different fields will be able to more easily enter this growing and rewarding field.
- How did you become interested in working within the technology fields? My passion for technology was sparked by my grandfather’s own interest in tech. He was always buying the newest machines and gear, so once he saw my interest growing he began giving me all of his older machines. I finally realized it was time to start committing myself to a career in technology when I was working in healthcare and noticed that I had become the unofficial IT technician for the company.
- Describe some of your greatest technology accomplishments. My personal greatest technology accomplishments have been with Vertikal6. Since joining the company as an Apprentice in February 2016, I have earned four major promotions. I grew from an entry-level Apprentice to a Level I Associate and then to a Support Team Lead, all by December of 2016. Exactly a year later I was promoted to Service Desk Manager, and most recently Service Operations Manager. I have always had such a strong passion for technology and Vertikal6 has made it such a satisfying career for me. I worked so hard to be where I am today, and I am so grateful to have a company behind be that supports me and rewards me for my hard work and dedication.
- Where do you see yourself in five years? I hope to still be with Vertikal6! It truly is an amazing company to work for and I hope to see the company grow while actively growing along with it. Seeing the people that I train move to higher positions has been extremely rewarding for me, so I’m excited to see where they continue to go and the amazing achievements they will have with Vertikal6. I look forward to the new and interesting positions that will become available as the company grows.