Every year, approximately 200,000 men and women return to civilian life after their enlistment in a military branch comes to an end.
However, that doesn’t mean their careers carrying out complex missions has finished — the terrain just looks a little different.
A majority of service members spend years — if not decades — immersed in an environment built around structure, continuous development and training. But those invaluable experiences don’t dissipate when the uniforms and decorative medals come off.
For many, the next chapter begins in the tech industry.
In the sprawling world of tech, fresh startups and established Fortune 500 companies alike seek to evolve their products and push the envelope of what’s possible. Words like “collaborative,” “innovative,” “effective communicator” and “driven” regularly decorate job descriptions for roles ranging from software engineers to customer success managers. As the military is no stranger to technological innovators and leaders who guide teams through high-stress situations, veterans often find themselves fitting in seamlessly in tech roles.
For ex-Air Force “backpack journalist” Adam Harder, it was clear that his next role lay outside the government sector — both to diversify his experiences and to utilize his unique skill set. The search for his next role in the tech industry also opened his eyes to something else he had never experienced: managing up.
“‘Managing up’ is a term you don’t often hear in the military because you’re not allowed to do it,” the senior manager of video operations at DigitalOcean said. “But in tech, managing up and being managed up is one of the most useful exercises in bettering self-efficiency and team trust. In tech, the glass ceiling of the military is gone — you realize that you are a subject matter expert, and you deserve that seat at the table you have.”
For Jennifer Gerschultz, director of business development and technology partnerships at Dataminr — and veteran of both the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions — seeking out mentors became an essential part of her growth.
“In tech, you might find that some of the most senior executives started out in jump boots just like you,” she said. “Take interest in the careers they’ve held, many of which are decades long, and build mentor-mentee relationships with them — they might become your biggest allies.”
In honor of Veteran’s Day, Built In NYC caught up with Harder, Gerschultz and seasoned veterans at four other tech companies to discover how they transformed the skills they honed in the military into successful new roles in the tech industry.
Merck is a global biopharmaceutical company with over 130 years of experience developing medicines and vaccines.
Tell us more about how you served your country, and your current role at Merck.
I retired after 22 years as a command sergeant major (CSM) from the 82nd Airborne Division. I served in many locations over the years, including Operation Just Cause in Panama, Desert Shield/Storm, Bosnia, Kosovo, two tours of Operation Iraqi Freedom in Fallujah and Tikrit, and Drill Sergeant duty plus more.
I am now a technical product manager for data science and machine learning products at Merck. We are currently working on a product that statistically models attack probability against high value assets, and gathers these as risk insights while establishing probability of attack versus impact for subscribers to remediate risk against the enterprise.
What aspects of your military service have helped you build a career in tech, and what are some new skills you’ve developed since you left the service?
Two-way communication — the ability to effectively communicate your message clearly and concisely and be able to listen just as well. This skill translates directly into working with and inside of tech teams. This should be considered the foundation of great leadership. This skill — more than any other — will enhance collaboration, encourage innovation and promote trust in your leadership.
Most of what I’ve learned post-military is job and team specific. I have worked inside security analytic teams for years. Our software engineering is geared toward data science, machine learning and data analytics to provide insight on risk against an enterprise. Inside this domain there is much to learn every day and having a curious mind is a gift.
You already have all the abilities that tech requires; you only need to approach problems like they already have solutions you’ve yet to uncover.”
What advice would you give to fellow veterans who are looking to build a career in the tech sector?
That’s easy: problem solving. When faced with an obstacle, you clear it. If you are faced — and you will be — with an idea that you have never heard of, learn it and clear that obstacle. Continue to challenge yourself to achieve success. Keep your will to win and never quit. You already have all the abilities that tech requires; you only need to approach problems like they already have solutions you’ve yet to uncover. Continuously learn, stay curious and remember to crawl-walk-run.
Dataminr’s AI-powered platform works in real-time to provide public data that signals and alerts its customers to high-impact events and risks around the globe.
Tell us more about how you served your country, and your current role at Dataminr.
At 18, when I enlisted in the U.S. Army as a combat medic, I could not begin to conceptualize the opportunity that my recruiter said lay before me. Over the next 11 and a half years, I would serve as a paratrooper at Fort Bragg in the 82nd Airborne, where I learned to skydive on the weekends with the Golden Knights and was deployed to Hurricane Katrina. I would graduate from Airborne, Air Assault and Pathfinder Schools, earn my bachelor’s degree from the United States Military Academy at West Point, commission as a Military Police Officer in the 101st Airborne, lead my platoon into combat embedded with the Afghan Uniformed Police in Kandahar, and stand up the first Female Afghan Uniformed Police Training Academy in Kabul.
I now serve my country from the other side. I work for Dataminr, a leading real-time information discovery platform, as the director of business development for technology partnerships. I work with global software companies to build integrations that extend the value of our AI alerting into independent software vendor products as partners, managing the business from plan to product to go-to-market with the support of my amazing colleagues.
What aspects of your military service have helped you build a career in tech, and what are some new skills you’ve developed since you left the service?
My appreciation for and experience in planning and execution in strategic, operational and tactical environments has been invaluable to understanding the impact of the technology we develop and sell. In the military, different units within a task force had to be a cohesive group. The same holds true for the many different internal partners my team and I work with at Dataminr — from product and marketing to sales and operations. The military also gave me the communication skills needed to effectively and concisely brief senior executives with confidence and composure, even when under pressure.
Since the military, thanks to training and hands-on experience, I’ve honed my business and technology acumen. In customer-facing roles, I’ve learned account planning, forecasting and selling strategies. I’ve been at the forefront of crucial conversations and negotiated multi-million dollar deals. Through it all, I’ve broadened and deepened my knowledge of the various industries our technology is capable of supporting, and I am always exploring alternative use cases and potential new markets.
Don’t be afraid of lateral moves, which can diversify your expertise and experiences.”
What advice would you give to fellow veterans who are looking to build a career in the tech sector?
Management positions, especially operational ones, may be alluring for those who have led large teams in the military. But make sure to consider non-management roles as they will help to diversify your expertise and perspective, and afford you the time and grace to listen, observe and gain new experiences throughout the tech industry. Also, don’t be afraid of lateral moves, which can diversify your expertise and experiences.
Senior mentors may be harder to come by, but in tech, you might find that some of the most senior executives started out in jump boots just like you. Do not be afraid to reach out to them. Many of your colleagues and subordinates will be experts in their fields of study, and there are a number of reasons — from family and academics, to quality of life and work-life balance — that those colleagues have chosen to remain in their positions and become subject matter experts. Take interest in the careers they’ve held, many of which are decades long, and build mentor-mentee relationships with them. They might become your biggest allies.
DigitalOcean is a cloud company that empowers developers around the world to create modern applications.
Tell us more about how you served your country, and your current role at DigitalOcean.
My first duty station was on the island of Guam in the South Pacific. In Guam, I was what the production industry would call a “backpack journalist” on behalf of the Air Force. This means I had to find, film, interview, narrate and edit all of my own news stories. After Guam, I volunteered for South Korea, where I was both a news reporter and a radio DJ for our local Armed Forces network station. My last duty station was in Mons, Belgium, where I managed all video and radio ops for our station covering Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
I separated from the Air Force at the end of my six-year enlistment in 2017 and moved back to the U.S. to apply my love of production to the tech sector. First, I was a video producer at 2U. Then I took on the role of video marketing manager at DigitalOcean, where I now work three years later. Although my job title has changed a few times, the core goal of my work remains the same: Ideate, strategize, build and scale DigitalOcean’s video marketing mission and brand identity.
Currently, I’m ensuring that the video assets for our upcoming deploy conference are produced on time and on brand. I’m also producing a customer story about a key DigitalOcean customer.
What aspects of your military service have helped you build a career in tech, and what are some new skills you’ve developed since you left the service?
The military got me out of my small-town bubble, paid for my undergrad and both of my master’s degrees, and helped me build a production portfolio far ahead of peers my age. I wouldn’t be where I am without the military. That said, life in and out of the workplace is better when working in tech, rather than in the military.
“Managing up” is a term you don't often hear in the military because you’re not allowed to do it. But in tech, managing up and being managed up is one of the most useful exercises in bettering self-efficiency and team trust. In workplaces outside of the military, there is no rank on your chest to protect you from your worst instincts. Without rank, there’s more accountability and incentive to perform.
In the military, you may be good at your job, but the downtrodden presence of the leadership structure assures that you can only fly so high based on skills alone. In tech, the glass ceiling of the military is gone. Tech work has made me more patient, with a greater appreciation for honest feedback. If you’re great at your job, you’ll be trusted and rewarded. You realize that you are a subject matter expert, and you deserve that seat at the table you have.
Former service members set themselves up for success when they work in sectors that encapsulate the diversity of our globalized market.”
What advice would you give to fellow veterans who are looking to build a career in the tech sector?
Don’t take the easy route and immediately look for government sector roles after service. There are many meaningful, character-building experiences you’ll build in the work environments, missions and cultures that you’re immersed in by working in tech. Tech culture is one in which you can be as successful as you want to be, when you want to be. It’s fast, unpredictable, lucrative, exciting and rewarding. I encourage service members to challenge themselves in this way and be proud of themselves because of it.
Most importantly, though, look for companies that have stated values in diversity, equity and inclusion. When I finished serving in 2017, the military was a drastically male-heavy workforce, with caucasian men disproportionately in leadership positions. That is not reflective of the diversity of the American workforce today. Former service members set themselves up for success when they work in sectors that encapsulate the diversity of our globalized market. They’ll be more literate in the complexities of the modern workplace and will be better suited to navigate their path within it.
Known is a digital media agency engineered to meet challenges and opportunities facing marketers today.
Tell us more about how you served your country, and your current role at Known.
I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve when I was 17 years old, and served in the USMC for eight years out of the Cincinnati 4th Marine Division. I trained in Camp Lejeune, NC for basic, Twentynine Palms, CA, for my military occupational speciality (MOS), and Camp Geiger, NC for combat fighting. My MOS was 0612, a transition switchboard operator, which is a fancy way of saying someone who sets up the military base telephone system.
My current role at Known is to lead the data services and product organization. I’d say my core responsibilities are threefold right now. One, find top talent and do all that I can to foster an environment that they want to be a part of day in and day out. Two, listen to our clients’ needs and design, build and deliver new tech solutions that meet them where they are — especially if it’s never been built before. Three, strive to be a good partner by helping other internal teams, data vendors and clients achieve their goals.
What aspects of your military service have helped you build a career in tech, and what are some new skills you’ve developed since you left the service?
Hands down, “improvise, adapt and overcome” is the unofficial Marine Corps mantra that comes to mind when I think about what has helped me to build a career in tech.
In tech, we are constantly challenged to disrupt the market. There are thousands of companies in the marketing technology space alone — dozens that are launched each year — and you must quickly adapt by understanding what they can do, how your clients’ needs are shifting and overcome by delivering a better solution. This may come in the form of improvising with assets you currently have at your disposal, building new assets or forming strategic partnerships that bolster your position.
Two skills I have learned that I think are somewhat counter to the nature of what our military organizations teach, are to ask tons of questions and think of your organization as flat, even if structurally that is not the case. Great ideas come from every direction and you should not allow hierarchy to dictate where you draw influence or stifle your curiosity and desire to innovate.
Showcase how your military experience has taught you to effectively navigate and lead organizational change, as well as position you to help move the needle forward.”
What advice would you give to fellow veterans who are looking to build a career in the tech sector?
Not considering the stage of career you are in, my three general tips are: One, stay up to date with the latest tech in whichever arm of the sector you wish to build a career, whether it’s with industry news, conferences, virtual product demos or something else. Two, form a few points of view of where the market is going from both a client need and solution provider perspective by asking tons of questions to anyone in the space. Lastly, showcase how your military experience has taught you to effectively navigate and lead organizational change as well as position you to help move the needle forward.
(Known would like to thank Aaron for his service to our country.)
Policygenius offers an online insurance marketplace that helps people understand their options, compare quotes and buy policies.
Tell us more about how you served your country, and your current role at Policygenius.
I served as a crypto-linguist assigned to 1-10 MTN Division in Fort Drum, NY with multiple tours to Iraq. While technically a crypto-linguist, I spent most of my deployments focused on the analytical side of metadata and geospatial analysis, finding patterns and needles in haystacks of data.
Currently I am a member of the information security team at Policygenius, supporting the DevSecOps efforts to continuously lower security risks while ensuring our tooling and processes are efficient and unburdensome. I work very closely with our software engineers to implement the best security tooling into their everyday workflows to prevent security vulnerabilities from being introduced without adding time or excess noise to their code deployments. This can include a vast spectrum of work such as static code scanners, supply chain analysis, secrets management, base image security and more.
What aspects of your military service have helped you build a career in tech, and what are some new skills you’ve developed since you left the service?
The military was a huge turning point in my life. It provided some much needed focus and discipline to see projects through. The skills I’ve retained from the military that help me the most today are perseverance and flexibility. The world of cybersecurity is ever changing: After years in the military of having to be patient and flexible with never-ending changes in deployments, training and orders, I’m in my element with an ever-changing environment.
Something that’s really driven into military members — often subconsciously — is perseverance. Push through the hard and the difficult, move outside the box, find the solution and accomplish the mission.
Since leaving the military, I have picked up a set of technical skills to build on like Python, cybersecurity, Hashicorp products and cloud concepts. The list of new skills is never-ending and adds up daily — for example, I’m currently learning Golang. In the world of tech, the learning doesn’t stop once you’ve landed a job; it’s only the beginning.
The skills I’ve retained from the military that help me the most today are perseverance and flexibility.”
What advice would you give to fellow veterans who are looking to build a career in the tech sector?
Try everything. Tech is a vast world with so many different disciplines. It took me years to navigate through a number of different areas to nail down what I enjoy doing. There are a lot of free resources online, so you can start with an area that sounds interesting like coding, cloud, risk or project management and test it out.
Build up a resume of side projects in lieu of work experience to show off your skills. If you enjoy architecting cloud networks, build one out that you can show off during interviews. If you enjoy coding, support an open source project in the language you enjoy, or build your own project on GitHub and add that to your resume.
Apply for the job. It can be a bit intimidating to apply for a position where you don’t meet all the requirements, but a lot of companies are flexible with their requirements and will hire someone with aptitude, drive and a baseline that can be built upon. And don’t forget to network. No one can work in a silo in tech, because we need a large number of other disciplines to succeed.
DailyPay is a mission-driven company designing technology that can build a better financial system and future.
Tell us more about how you served your country, and your current role at Dailypay.
I began my 14-year career in the United States Army as a combat photographer. During this time I was stationed at Fort Knox, KY, Fort Meade, MD, and Camp Casey, South Korea. After six years, I reclassified to become a broadcast journalist at Fort Irwin, CA, Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, and Camp Darby, Italy. I was promoted and became a public affairs chief while stationed at Caserma Ederle in Vicenza, Italy, and ended my career while stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. From 2001 to 2010, I was deployed to Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq and various countries throughout Africa.
In my current role, I work with our internal sales teams, as well as our white-label, embedded solution and referral partners creating custom training programs for each partner. These training programs include engaging and proactive training materials such as eLearning videos, conducting instructor-led training and webinars. To be as thorough and effective as possible, I collaborate with our channel, sales, revenue, product and other departments to build new content for our partner and internal teams and advance deals, provide information for case studies, competitive insights and product collateral.
What aspects of your military service have helped you build a career in tech, and what are some new skills you've developed since you left the service?
Since leaving the Army, I always knew that I had a strong work ethic. I used to tell people, “You might be smarter than me but they’ll never outwork me!” Thankfully, my work ethic got me through my start in tech sales.
Additionally, my time in the Army resulted in personal growth, enhanced maturity, self-awareness, unabridged resiliency and unique coping skills in situations of extreme stress. In an industry that changes minute by minute, embracing change is a must. I developed skills such as setting an example by taking responsibility for myself and my actions, and making sound and timely decisions — all while increasing my emotional intelligence, dependability and discipline. This has allowed me to cultivate my ability to meet any challenge. Most importantly, my integrity and goal-driven persona have helped me build my career more than anything else.
I strived to develop skills in the SaaS tech sales environment such as negotiation, enhanced problem-solving and critical thinking, prospecting and closing. I did so through reading, attending webinars and seminars and a lot of practice. I still seek to develop new skills through online courses to this day.
In an industry that changes minute by minute, embracing change is a must.”
What advice would you give to fellow veterans who are looking to build a career in the tech sector?
Never stop learning. We are life-long learners — challenge yourself to learn something new each day. Stay on top of the current events in your field of technology. Be a thief of knowledge.
Apply for every job you feel you can do regardless of the required qualifications. During job interviews, speak to the variety of technical skills you possess, your dedication, your ability to adapt and overcome, and your unparalleled work ethic. While hard skills are essential, you’d be surprised to know how significant soft skills are as well: Communication and your eagerness hold value during the interview process. Skills can be taught, but your character cannot.
Lastly, don’t give up. Find your passion in whatever vertical of tech makes you the happiest and strive to be one percent better than you were yesterday.
