Jake McCurry | IT Director | Webmaster

Where do you currently work and what is your job title?

JesusOnline Ministries as the IT Director.

How would you describe what you do every day in your role?

I am basically an old-school “Webmaster”, 50% Frontend Dev, 35% System Admin, 15% DevOps. We are a 5-person fully distributed team. It feels like a startup in the sense that I wear many hats. I manage all our organization’s technology (2 remote-servers and 21 WP sites). I start the day checking on our remote server’s health and problem-solving issues they are experiencing (SysAdmin). About 90% of that is done through WebHost Manager/cPanel and 10% through the terminal. The bulk of the day I am coding HTML/CSS landing pages with occasional Javascript, or fixing bugs and adding features through our WordPress admin (Frontend). Finally, I save 30-60 min of high-level thinking time focused on researching and implementing DevOps best practices.

What motivated you to break into tech?

I was burned out from my last role. As a people manager, I loved the relationship time, but never felt satisfied without a tangible creative outlet. I was craving work that would allow me to be creative, use my hands, and have a tangible product to feel accomplished about. I stumbled upon Skillcrush, took the quiz, and realized “this is it”. I also knew I wanted to “future-proof” myself and gain skills that would support my family for the rest of our lives.

What did you do before your current job?

I was a university student affairs professional for 6 years, focused on holistic student development. I absolutely loved the work. However, when we had our 3rd child, I realized it was time to move off of the college campus. Responding to crisis 24/7, and exposing my kids to the college lifestyle wasn’t what I wanted to continue doing. I finally picked Skillcrush because of the flexibility and lifetime access. I needed to keep my full-time job while starting to learn to code, and Skillcrush gave me that.

What was your level of tech experience before enrolling at Skillcrush?

Let’s just say that I once hit F12 and closed all my windows in a panic. I thought the dev tools screen was me breaking my laptop. Prior to enrolling, I was terrified that coding was only for people with elite intelligence, discipline, and passion for math. I am so appreciative of Skillcrush easing me into it and building my confidence.

What advice do you have for other Skillcrushers?

Begin networking now! A recruiter literally dropped in my LinkedIn messages out of nowhere and offered me this job because she saw how active I was on LinkedIn. Help answer questions in the Slack group, connect with Skillcrushers on Linkedin (comment on their posts), join affinity groups on social media.

Informational Interviews: Look it up (or send me a message). This was HUGE for me. It gave me a new network of web dev professionals who were rooting for me. It also led to my professional mentor.