Tales from The Engine Room

[00:00:00] Caroline Beavon (host): Hello and welcome to Tales from the Engine Room where we meet the people who make up the skiff, a coworking community in Central Brighton,
[00:00:08] Jack Tracey: Where I left one of my roles, it was like, well, you're too young to be an architect. And I was like, well, why? Why am I too young to be an architect? Like if I'm capable of doing the role?
[00:00:17] Caroline Beavon (host): I'm Caroline Beavon. I'm a digital storyteller, and I'm a member at the Skiff too.
Across this series of interviews, we'll meet freelancers, remote workers, solopreneurs, and small team leaders asking the question, what are you working on today?
This week we meet Jack Tracey, a cloud solution architect who's followed his heart all the way to Microsoft.
[00:00:39] Jack Tracey: I actually manage a product at Microsoft, so I manage something called Azure Landing Zone. So it's part of our public cloud offering and it's all about how customers get started adopting the Microsoft Cloud and how they should set it up and make sure it's secure, compliant, available, those things.
So I'm the technical product owner of that product, so my week is always busy. So this week it's policy related and, you know, how do we make sure we align to CIS and NIST. And all of these things. So better focus on that this week.
[00:01:05] Caroline Beavon (host): Wow. So CIS and NIST, what are those?
[00:01:07] Jack Tracey: Ah, so they are industry standard, like compliance framework.
So CIS is the center for Internet Security Standards. And NIST is an American variation of that. They sort of partner up and they are like, 'you shouldn't do these things, you should do these things' in cloud adoption or computing in general. Okay. How everybody say compliant. So I then translate that into how we would do that on our cloud platform and then help our customers go ''push this button. Don't worry about it. We've done the thinking. You just consume our, our lovely hardware.
[00:01:37] Caroline Beavon (host): Wow. So in terms of your, your your day-to-day job, are you, are you getting your hands dirty in kind of systems and stuff? Or are you much more kind of management and strategy?
[00:01:47] Jack Tracey: That's a really good question. It varies On a day-to-day basis, I would say I still have my, my hand in the code. I still like to be technical. But am I as much as I was maybe two years ago, three years ago? Definitely not. Okay. But. I think of myself more as like strategy and like typical product ownership.
I know enough to know when development teams are saying we can't do this or this can't be done, that I know I can call their bluff or I can go, actually no, I understand why that can't be done. Okay, we need to rethink how we're gonna approach this. So I probably am typically, I dunno, 70 30 split, probably 70% more strategy and management of backlogs and sprints and stuff like that, and 30% hands on the code, reviewing code going, that could be better. Change this, that won't work. Okay. All those sort of things. So it's a nice mix. Yeah.
[00:02:34] Caroline Beavon (host): So, so imagine also you, you said about being able to call people's bluff if they say, oh, we can't do that. Yeah, no. You like, yeah, I know you can. I know you can. Yeah, I know you can do this. I guess also having, because you've got the chops, you know what you're, do you know what you're talking about? You also get that respect from the people who are, who have got their hands in the code. You go, no, no, I. I know how to do this, so just.
[00:02:53] Jack Tracey: Yeah. And a lot of it I built, right. So a lot of the initial early days when we were in like, you know, it didn't exist. I was MVPing it, I was POCing it. I was building these things from the ground up. So a lot of the code they're touching going, oh, it doesn't work like that. We go, well I actually wrote that so I know how it works.
[00:03:07] Caroline Beavon (host): So easy. That's fine. Watch, watch my code.
[00:03:09] Jack Tracey: Yeah, exactly. And I know, and I know it's terrible, it's fine. Like it's fine to call that out. But it's also a really good growth opportunity for those people as well. Cause like they. Say to me, Hey, how do I do this? Or I'm, you know, we can't do this. And it's then taking the opportunity and going, look the way you're thinking, yes you are right. You can't do it that way. But think about it this way, you can approach it in this different way and you can do it. Yeah. So it's actually more of a like a learning training role as well. Like a lot of junior people in the team trying to bring them up to sort of similar levels to everybody else on the team to get them to contribute more and increase our velocity.
So yeah, it's a really nice, varied role from strategy to thinking, you know, the blue sky thinking like, where are we going next? What's the next big thing we need to tackle for customers? All the way down to helping new people start in a team who've just come out of uni to like go, right, you know, this is how IT actually works. You know, forget what uni has told you about all of this stuff. This is how it really happens. Yes, you do sit in rooms with big security guys and teams going, no, you can't do that because of I say so. And that's generally the answer. There's no right or wrong. It's. That's what they think, so you have to stick to it and helping them, you know, navigate all of that, all the way into making them write better code and you know, evolving in the ever-changing world of Microsoft.
[00:04:17] Caroline Beavon (host): Wow. So obviously Microsoft, one of the most well known companies in the world. Yeah. It must be nice to work for a company like that where there is still this, this, this big thinking, this, this innovation and the money behind it. This is not some startup who's trying to bootstrap some invention. Yeah. You can go, okay, let's try it.
[00:04:35] Jack Tracey: Yeah, it is, but it also, you know, we have to self-fund ourselves. So the project that I work on has to pay for itself has to fund itself. So just because we're Microsoft and that, you know, we are, you know, still doing well in tough times, even though, you know, we've made a, a number of redundancies recently, like 12,000, I think we made redundant like big numbers.
And that was a ter... whole terrible time for everybody internally. Cuz you're sitting there like, is it me next? Like, when do I find out? But you know, hopefully we're through some of the worst of that and we've got through it and, you know, everybody's resettling and rebalancing on what we do now, but we have to fund our project.
So when we had this idea, it was like, well, prove that customers need this, prove that we should invest our resources in that project, right, internally.
So Microsoft is like lots of mini micro teams that all manage like very decentralized. Yes, there's a shared strategy and there's people above, you know, making sure that everybody's doing their part to align at some point in the future.
But actually there's a lot of, you know, well I've got this idea and I'm gonna go and see if I can get it going, and then I'll go and go and pitch it and see if I can now get funding and investment to grow the team, to make it a product to grow it. So it all is very like startup culture based, right? Still especially in the early days. But once a product becomes, you know, we are two and a half, maybe three years into the the run now we're very much, this is the daily rhythm. This is how it works. And everybody knows why we're needed. We haven't gotta justify why we're needed in that customer journey.
But, you know, those early days were like, well, now we are pitching against other initiatives that are trying to do the same thing of the same type of solution that we build. Right. Just to, you know, Keep our existence and survival.
[00:06:08] Caroline Beavon (host): So, so that's that. I mean, that shows my naivety. I've never worked for a big organization like that and I, I, in my, in my head i'd, I imagine kind some kinda like blank chequebook in a, in a corner of a room and never can just go and grab whatever they want.
But it's nice that you've got, you like, like you said teams almost being pitched against each other for, for the, for the, for the focus and the resources and the money.
[00:06:29] Jack Tracey: So, yeah. And it's always, you know, customer obsession. Like, what do customers want? Is this still the right thing for customers? Yeah. Is it still relevant?
You know, we don't, it looks from the outside very much. Like, well, there's an unlimited pool of money, like, as I say, the blank cheque syndrome. But it very much is not like that in the real world, like, We've lost people this year in our team and they won't be replaced. Yeah. There's no unfortunate blank... even though like when you look externally, like the numbers are still growing, still doing okay in stock. Cause our share price is okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
[00:06:55] Caroline Beavon (host): yeah. And it's not just Microsoft, you know, we do every few days there's another big company who's let go of, you know.
[00:07:00] Jack Tracey: Yeah. It's that, and it's due to covid, right?
We grew and phenomenally through Covid. Mm-hmm. Those early days, I was one of them. I started on the week after we announced lockdown in the UK. So I'd already handed my notice in. I was already leaving a job and then the UK went into lockdown. I sort of left one job from my desk at home, started the next day with the same laptop cause I hadn't been given a laptop yet cause I hadn't been able to go to the office and just joined another Teams meeting. I was like, oh, I'm a Microsoft employee now. Wow.
[00:07:25] Caroline Beavon (host): So so let's talk about that moment. So what were, what were you doing before and like how did you end up at Microsoft?
[00:07:30] Jack Tracey: Yeah, no, that's so I've always been involved in the partner space, so I've always worked for like small partners. So I started out in a small partner in Crawley. My very early days left college, didn't finish my A Levels, went straight and got into the industry. And then, you know, there was four of us there and I went to a bigger MSP and there was probably sorry, MSP managed service providers. So people who you outsource people it to, and they manage everything from putting an ink in the printer to fixing servers when they go wrong. Stuff like that.
And we either went to one that focused on schools specifically, so I did lots of local education around Brighton and West Sussex. So yeah, that was good. Very much the same though. Everything was, you know, didn't matter which school you went to, it was just the same setup
After a year. I was like, it's not really pushing me enough this, so I'll find something else. And then work for a. Worked for a bigger partner who were like 800 people. Now they were like 200 when I started. So they went on a big growth spurt and still are managing, you know, big, big customers like debt collection companies, law firms in London, you know, that sort of level of IT.
And then I went to an even bigger global partner called C D W who are massive in America, quite a big presence over here. Used to be known as Kelway in the UK. But C D W acquired them and then, yeah, I was. Doing lots of bits around there. Did a bit of cloud architecture towards the tail end of those, and then Microsoft came, the opportunity came and wow, off I went.
[00:08:52] Caroline Beavon (host): So for someone who you didn't finish your A Levels, didn't do A Levels,
[00:08:54] Jack Tracey: yeah. Didn't finish A levels, so I've got my ASs. That's about it.
[00:08:58] Caroline Beavon (host): That's a pretty impressive career route. I mean, when I was at school it was started for you don't get your A levels, you'll be no good. You'll have to go work at McDonald's.
And you know, there was always that fear of you, but this is such an incredible, interesting story. What do you think? Was it just the fact that you were, you just had the talent and the skill and the dedication anyway, and the interest in the subject or, yeah.
[00:09:19] Jack Tracey: I think there was a bit of, you know, having the passion and wanting to do do well and just wanting to keep pushing myself and do more and you know, almost ignore those boundaries of typical like, well you're too young or, you know, you're not being in the job role role long enough or anything like that.
Just keep pushing. Like if you're doing the right thing, you should be rewarded for it. I don't know, it was more. I'm heavily dyslexic. I can read and write absolutely fine. My handwriting is atrocious. Should have been a doctor based on my handwriting. But I've got a amazing like way of thinking differently and you know, my attention to detail is quite high.
Like I've focused on things like, and I've got the minute detail and I always remember these things. Like I can recall random, my peer addresses that I probably worked with 20 years ago that I can still recall. And that has just you know, almost been my, my trait. Like I've always been the person that's across everything, knows what's going on, know what everybody else is working on, know how we can solve an issue over there that we solved three years ago over there, and trying to bring those together.
But I've always just kept pushing, right? I've never really stopped in terms of, well, you know, just because somebody says above me that I can't go to that role because I'm not experienced enough or whatever. I've gone, well, what do I need to do? What's my, what's the next step for me to go and do and got into it?
And to be fair, the IT industry is, I think I've worked with maybe two or three people that've got degrees. You know, obviously lots of people in Microsoft, in our engineering teams, computer engineering, computer science, very, very smart people understand, you know, see and like programming it is very fundamental levels that I will never understand and never want to understand.
They also then can't do the other side, which is being customer facing. Have conversations with the customer, understand their their problem, and convert that into these are the requirements and this is what we need. And that's where I, I love my balance in the role. Yeah.
But I've always just, Gone through the industry. I've done industry certifications all the way through, you know, I did one on Friday, you know, like the big thing with cloud I think is a nice thing for me being, you know, 30 this year that. I'm as new, I know as much about the cloud as anybody who's been in the industry for 50 years. Yeah. Because it's only existed for the time span that I've been in the industry.
So there are no like, well I've got 20 years experience in the Cloud. You're like, well no you haven't, cuz it hasn't existed for 20 years. It's level playing field.
[00:11:26] Caroline Beavon (host): So, so it, I mean, is that something that, so have people tried that one with you? So I've got, oh, shut up kid. You know, I thought this,
[00:11:31] Jack Tracey: yeah, a hundred percent. Like, you know where I left one of my roles, it was like, well you're too young to be an architect. And I was like, well, why? Why am I too young to be an architect? Like if I'm capable of doing the role and you know, we are getting good feedback, why, why not? It's like, well, I just, you know, all the architects are x, you know, years, got years more experience than you, or X older than you.
And you're like, yes, I granted, like if you're talking about very legacy on-premise systems, Granted, they've got way more experience. But in this new modern technology, I know more than they do because they've been focusing on their old world. I've been focusing on the new world, and you know, that's, that's where, you know, I should be investing my time and actually I'm just as experienced as anybody in that field on, on that technology.
So, yeah, I think it's, it's different on mindsets of people you come across. You'll definitely find some organizations that are, you know, definitely that startup culture where they're like, everybody's not level playing field, cloud is new. Everybody can get on with it.
Whereas you go into some of the older MSPs and legacy IT systems, you know, these bigger conglomerate that manage, you know, public sector stuff. You typically find where they've got, you know, mainframes still existing and stuff like that. Yeah, okay. There are people there who are probably near retirement age, but are absolute, you know, the linchpin of their business because without them, nobody wants to learn that old technology anymore. Yeah. So they're gonna be sitting there on a very good payday, just ticking these things along because nobody else knows what's there.
But same way as they dunno anything about the Cloud and not interested in that because my generation have been the ones to take that forward and be like the, the inception of birth partners of, of that technology.
[00:13:04] Caroline Beavon (host): I'm really interested, cuz you said you're dyslexic. Mm-hmm. How does that fit in?
Because you, you, you knew, you, you sort of struggled, I guess, in one particular area. Yeah. Did it then? You just double down on the confidence for the rest of it and just go, right, that, that, that I struggle with. But the, you know, how, how does that play out? Because I'm interested in
[00:13:22] Jack Tracey: ...so math is my thing, right?
Math is really tough for me. So I can do the basics no problem at all. But as soon as you get into complex algebra or anything like that, so I'm a, I love my science, so I did physics at A level and then I got a year in and I was like, the maths is just too much for me. Like, I can get the theory, I can write about theory all day long and I understand it, but if you asked me to work out the equation for this, Not a clue. No. Like I'll be there for hours. And
I've always been one of those people that I have to understand why you do certain things. Like I always used to have some teachers that would say, well, you just do this to the equation. You flip this number here, but why? Like, I can't do it unless you tell me why. And they're like, well, don't worry about why. Just do it. And you're like, well, I can't. That's not the way my brain works.
So I've always struggled with the number side, and that still hurts me today in my role because actually the more c. Complex or advanced, you get in code, you actually start falling back on some of like mathematic basics.
So, you know, like modular and stuff like that where I'm like, I don't even know what modular is. And my wife is who's got a degree in geography is a geography teacher, has obviously done quite a lot of statistics in her world. And she's like, yeah, modular is this, and I'm like, I have no idea. She's like, we learned that in like GSC and A level. I'm like, no idea. Like I did okay at school. I got all my A-Cs did, did fine, but it was never like, math was always my, my struggling subjects and English as well. Cause I write so slowly and my handwriting so poor.
But I could type really well. Right? It was always my get out of jail free card. So for my exams, I managed to get. You know, to be able to do my exams and stuff on laptops, but, you know, I could type 300 words a minute versus writing 30 words a minute. So yeah, it gave me the flexibility to get my, my answers down with not having to worry about my handwriting looks terrible. Nobody should be able to read it. And I think it's just, that's the way it went.
I was always interested in, you know, why is this working like this? I even did like our school. When, when I was there we rebuilt, like we became an academy. We one of the very first people to become an academy and they were like, right loads of money, we're gonna redo the school. Like what IT stuff we can do. And I was actually part of the IT support technician team.
Like after school I used to go and like just pop into the office and be like, got any jobs that need doing, like go and fix a couple of printers or something like that. And I just got involved and did more and ended up designing half the, like the network with them and being involved and like that sort of experience. Just was great.
And yeah, when I got to AS Level, I was doing IT obviously, and I did the first year and they were like, oh, this is a server. And I was like, yeah, I've got three of these at home. Like I'm already doing this stuff cause I'm just genuinely interested in the area. I was like, I'm learning nothing here, like I need to go and just throw myself at the deep end.
So I made myself the commitment of. I'm gonna go and get a job in the industry, but until I do that, I stay in education. So I stayed and I managed to get myself a job and I was like right in September time, or it was actually July time, so this time of year. And I was like, I don't need to come back. I won't be coming back for my A levels.
[00:16:00] Caroline Beavon (host): See your suckers.
[00:16:00] Jack Tracey: Yeah. See your suckers. I'm, I'm off to get a job and go in the real world and yeah, it's gone from there. And just every time just industry certifications work towards the next thing. Mm-hmm. And just see them all the challenges don't. I'm not comfortable sitting still and just going, well, that's my limit now. That's what I know. I'm happy with that. I'll sit there. It's always like, what's next?
We always have this laugh. Me and my wife, my wife, my wife is very, very academic and very, very smart. But she goes, well, how do you think of things? Like, I remember things or like, I'll recall something, or I think of a problem in a different way, and she's like, how did you even get there? She's like, it would've taken me weeks to even think about that. It's like my brain just thinks differently. Like, and that's good because we all balance each other out eventually in the planet. And you know, there are people who think one way, people who think another way and another way, and together we do amazing things.
[00:16:45] Caroline Beavon (host): Especially the job you've got right now. It seems like you, you, your brain is being pulled in lots of, you know, lots of different ways, you know, look things in the code, but also strategy and thinking and, and so many, and that must suit you down to the ground.
[00:16:57] Jack Tracey: I love it. I love the very, like the, the flexibility in my role when, like after this I've got a call with a customer, like, so I'll be customer facing then. So it's like, Pre-sales Jack is enabled, like customer facing. Yes, everything's possible. Like, don't worry about it. How can we solve this? But then I'll be like, okay, well I've heard this requirement. How do we integrate that into our strategy? Because that's a real problem for all of our customers, and I might even end up writing the code for it, and I might even end up delivering it. So yeah, it's a real, it's brilliant. I love the flexibility of my role.
[00:17:24] Caroline Beavon (host): So are you remote or are you ...
[00:17:26] Jack Tracey: the intention was when I started at Microsoft was Yeah. You know, in the office a couple of days a week. Mm-hmm. Or on customer sites and then remote from wherever. So yeah, I'm fully remote, have been for three years now. Even the role before that, it was sort of three days of the week at home, maybe one day in London or on a customer site.
So I've been sort of remote working now for probably the best part of six to seven years. Okay. See, I went to the office last Friday and it was sort of like, oh my God, it's the first time I've been to the office in like six weeks.
Met my manager. I was like, oh, wow, you really are tall. Like, you like things you just don't pick up on, on, on teams, meetings all day every day. You just don't pick up. But it's so important.
[00:18:01] Caroline Beavon (host): Do you miss people?
[00:18:01] Jack Tracey: Mm-hmm. Yeah, you miss bouncing ideas off people. Like, you know, we all work very much in isolation. Like, somebody sent me some code to review and I'm like, we could have talked about this over a whiteboard in five minutes and it's gonna, now take us the best part of probably a couple of hours each to try and explain what you were thinking to try and make me see what you, how you've approached it.
So yeah, there are days where you go, this is just be easier if we were in the same room or just be easier if we were together.
You know, tools are great. You know, collaboration software has come a long way. Obviously Microsoft's got some great tools and, you know, we, we are always trying the next thing being internal, we dog food our own, our own software first.
So I see things before they comes to the general public, but you know, It's, it's not the same as being in a room with a whiteboard and a pen or just having lunch with somebody and just chatting about a random idea you had and letting that evolve and go somewhere.
[00:18:49] Caroline Beavon (host): And, and even wider than that, not just people that you, you were working with, but just other humans in the world.
So what's, so are you at home on your own or is your, is your wife around? Are you,
[00:18:58] Jack Tracey: No. So wife is a teacher in Hove so she's, she's out. So from seven o'clock till 4, 5, 5 o'clock, I don't see the wife. We have a puppy now that we got a year ago. So, And I have a dog at the house, which is nice cuz it's the force to drag myself away from my desk.
Which is good cuz before it would be like seven till seven pretty much every day. Because it gives you that chance to almost reset. I think something we've all said in our team is we all miss that like clear free head space where you're just having lunch for an hour and letting the brain think like we all get stuck on problems during the day that we're working on.
We're like, I have no way. How I'm gonna get through this. And then you end up like in your sleep or overnight and you're just like, oh, that's how I fix it. Like this, you know Nirvana moment happens and you're like, that's how we do it. And having the dog has definitely helped get me out and just give me that, oh, actually look, if I think about this in a different way, or get a bit of clear head space and think about something else, it'll come to you.
[00:19:53] Caroline Beavon (host): How does the Skiff fit in with your kind of. People.
[00:19:57] Jack Tracey: Yeah. Yeah. So I try and get to the Skiff. I would say probably once a month at least. More if more if possible. And I use it more as my reset space, so when I'm really like early on a project or late in a project when I'm trying to just get different perspectives on the idea like. Just coming here and having, you know, access to town very, very easily. Like I can go for a wander. Brighton is where I originally grew up, so like a bit of nostalgia, wa wander around, get some good lunch, you know, lots of good coffee shops, but just, I use it as my base.
But then when I come back here, it's like there's nobody here that it's gonna distract me because I work with them and they feel like they can distract me, right? Everybody will keep themselves, themselves, but there's also ample opportunity to socialize and go into the Mess and have, have lunch with other people and chat about what you're working on and get different people's perspectives.
And I love coming to the Skiff because there's lots of anti Microsoft people and it's great because I get to hear like what they really don't like about it with an unfiltered view, and it's sort of like, okay, how can I incorporate that? How can I change that? Like, what, what are other people working on that I could take inspiration from?
But yeah, I absolutely, it's my reset space, so when I'm really need to focus and like I have a deadline, I need to get something done, and I need to come somewhere where there's background noise. That's, that's the biggest thing that I notice about the Skiff.
And I think also being around other people who you see so focused in their work.
Like I've sometimes come into together and say, you working away and you're like, head down, focus on something. And it almost like drags you in from that guilt trip of like, Well, they're working. So I, I might as well be doing the same.
I use this as a, like a try and have very little meetings when I'm here, but my, my calendar is full of maybe nine to 15 meetings a day of just, and I work in a global team, so a lot of my colleagues are East coast and west coast of the US Right.
So my day really doesn't start until like two o'clock.
So I have like the morning period where I might speak to some AMEA based customers, and then from two o'clock till seven, eight o'clock in the evening, it's US time and like my chat blows up on my phone and it's quite hard to balance that life, especially when like now the weather's great and you want to spend your time outside in the evening, it's not working.
But you know, it's finding that balance and it is fine. It's really flexible. But I try and when I come to the Skiff, try and make it like I'm not taking calls. Like they're more ad hoc, like, Hey, have you got five minutes to chat about this? Not a scheduled this call in the calendar. Like, I'm coming here because I want to get work done.
And I almost try and clear my calendar and go. It's my day reset. The change of scenery, not the manana of home and all that stuff.
[00:22:23] Caroline Beavon (host): That's nice. That's very healthy. So what's, what's next for you? I mean, obviously I don't wanna wish you outta Microsoft, but do you have a career path? I know these people who have 10 year plans, but it sounds like it's been. A bit of a journey to,
[00:22:35] Jack Tracey: yeah, to see where it goes and just take the step right now, not leave Microsoft, like, I think it's one of the best companies I've ever worked for in terms of support, benefits, all of those things. You know, like it's a really good place to be and it's such a varied. Like I could go, you know what, I'm bored of Cloud. Mm-hmm. But I'm really interested in designing hinges for laptops, for Surface laptop. There's a team that do that. You know, I could go and work in the Xbox team on the gaming side. There's sustainability teams. There's people who are buying land to build data centers on. And I've see so many people like, oh yeah, I worked 10 years in this team and I've worked five years in this team.
And you're like, but they're not related. And they're like, yeah, I got bored. Like I wanted to change, but I didn't wanna leave the organization. Wow. Cause I believe in what the organization's about
The dream for me next and the next goal is, Trying to move the products that I run into a more official product that customers pay for today. It's just like a collection of material and it's all open source and stuff like that. And it's, I think the next evolution for me is trying to take the product of Azure landing zones that I run today to become an official product.
So it's a change of organizations internally. Going into something called Cloud and AI, which is our engineering team, and you know, that's something that will be a two, three year and we've already started making noises to start warming people up to the idea, but that's then getting somebody in a very high level to go, yes, we will fund this.
If not, it'll be going into work into one of those product teams. So it'll be, Hey, actually you've got an opening in your team. I love your products. Let's, let's have it, and I'll come and do product management more officially.
We are almost like the unofficial product group, right. Is what we call ourselves. We're creating things that should probably be products. Yeah. But there aren't investment for right yet. So we're like the incubation zone. We get these things off the ground and then try and make them a real thing.
So we're trying to do that next step. We've got lots of things that we've got working really well and are heavily adopted. You know, the products I use, I think, you know, has 2000 deployments a day in some places. Wow. So it's getting used. Yeah. But it's now how do we make it. Take its next step and be a bit more official within Microsoft.
[00:24:35] Caroline Beavon (host): And you've got other projects on back burners as well. Yeah. So it sounds like you, like you, you're growing a lot of things all at the same time.
[00:24:40] Jack Tracey: Yeah. I work in a team that manages we call it as Azure core. So it is infrastructure. So it's not development, it's not you know, gaming. It's not any of like these, or data and ai, it's none of this. This like the newer cooler stuff that we, a lot, a lot of us are seeing. It's very much like these are the building blocks that you everybody needs to succeed in, in the cloud. And that ranges so widely. So, yeah, so sometimes it is very, very varied and you're like, okay, where do we invest our time right now?
[00:25:07] Caroline Beavon (host): But you love this. I love it. Love it.
I love it. I can see like you, you absolutely love it. You're getting so excited by talking about, I can just see your brain lighting up as you are, like, and
[00:25:14] Jack Tracey: we're at, we're f it's our end of our financial year this week.
So now is that time of like, what are we doing next? Like, yes, we've got the daily running and we're gonna have to carry on with these, but what are the things that we're really gonna focus on next year? Yeah. And we've probably got capacity to commit to three big things again this year in, in our team, we've currently got 27 on the list.
So, So something's gotta get dropped.
So yeah, but that's, that's the fun part. Now it's working out what, you know, working out what gets dropped and why and being able to justify that.
[00:25:43] Caroline Beavon (host): I have three quick fire questions to wrap things up.
You said you come into Brighton for, you know, obviously to work here, but also you said all the great coffee, coffee shops and cafes. What's for lunch today? What is for lunch today?
[00:25:54] Jack Tracey: Probably Lavash.
[00:25:56] Caroline Beavon (host): Oh, why Lavash?
[00:25:57] Jack Tracey: It's the best falafel you will ever find in Brighton. My wife, who's a vegan tells me it's the best falafel she's ever eaten. So, highly recommend, although don't plan to do any work in the afternoon. Definitely need a nap afterwards
[00:26:10] Caroline Beavon (host): if you didn't live around here. So you live in Hove, right?
I
[00:26:12] Jack Tracey: live in Burgess Hill. Burges Hill.
[00:26:13] Caroline Beavon (host): So if you didn't live in Burgess Hill or so this close to Brighton, where would you live?
[00:26:17] Jack Tracey: Hove is always the dream. Price tag probably excludes us, a lot of us from, from the dream. But yeah, Hove is definitely the dream for me and the wife one day.
[00:26:26] Caroline Beavon (host): Okay. And you've never fancied upping sticks and move into like the States or something like that?
[00:26:31] Jack Tracey: It's been an option. Redmond and I went out there March last year for like a team meeting, which was fantastic and I would definitely do it. However, you know, family is always a big tie here. Like do you want really want to up sticks and leave?
I think if the right opportunity came before, you know, we ever had kids or anything like that. It's definitely a possibility and we've, we've spoken about it, but if kids arrive, I think it'll be, no, we're staying put one day, I think Seattle. Yes. Yeah. Some other parts of the States, maybe not, but yeah, Seattle is very like the UK you know, day-to-day life is really similar, so.
[00:27:01] Caroline Beavon (host): Nice. And final question, if you could earn the same, doing any job, I mean literally anything. Yeah. What would you do?
[00:27:08] Jack Tracey: I always joke about this, like some days I come away and I'm like, it would be just easier if I just put up fences for a living or worked outside and did nothing that was so focused around my laptop, like I love the outdoors.
I'm a big cricket fan, so probably Cricket, groundsman, something outdoorsy would be my, my thing because I spend so much time just sitting in dark rooms or server rooms.
[00:27:28] Caroline Beavon (host): So I'm picturing now Cricket Groundsman at the cricket ground, living in Hove.
[00:27:32] Jack Tracey: Yeah. Perfect, perfect life. Yeah, exactly.
And obviously within walking distance of the Skiff still to,
[00:27:37] Caroline Beavon (host): to come in and sharpen your tools
[00:27:38] Jack Tracey: to come in. Exactly. Come and sharpen the tools or do some maintenance on the plants that we've got around the place. Who knows? But you know, maybe I'll install a cricket wicket in the, in the Skiff.
[00:27:46] Caroline Beavon (host): Sure. That will go down very well.
[00:27:47] Jack Tracey: Absolutely. Jon will love it.
[00:27:50] Caroline Beavon (host): And you can find out more about Jack at biolink/jacktracey with an e.
And if you're interested in working alongside people like Jack and myself, then head to the skiff.org and don't forget to subscribe to Tales from the Engine Room, and we'll see you next time.