FireMon Manager of Engineering, Jesse D’Angelo, today lives in the Kansas City area with his wife Laura, and their two children, Maxwell and Marianna.
His path to that career was winding, with several twists and turns along the way, starting from the time he graduated Parsons High School in 2004.
While in school in Parsons, his interests were intensely focused on technology. D’Angelo took the only classes that were available in the realm of computers at that time. He recalled one instructor teaching a web development class, and the district’s then Director of Technology, Paul Langford, had an A+ certification class providing students an opportunity for working with computers, building computers and a learning a little about programming.
“I took any technology class that was available at the time. That’s how I got started in it,” D’Angelo said. “There was a contest they even drove us to that was in Topeka for Kansas students to do like a web development contest. I remember sitting there and thinking, ‘This is pretty fun, with people working on different projects.’ It was some of those things that just made me excited for working with computers.”
Following graduation, D’Angelo went to Wichita State University for a year. He said he doesn’t remember what he was specifically majoring in at the time, but something to do with computer science. He then moved north to attend KU, where he could be with some other Parsons High School grads, and good friends, like Brett Goedeke and Seth Martin.
For some reason, along with switching colleges, he was spurred to alter his career path and move into chemical engineering. He stuck it out for two years, and had an “okay” experience, but decided to end that degree path.
“It was not for me. I had a very not great time trying to get that going and then realizing computers are what I like to do and that is what I felt like Fort Hays had,” D’Angelo said of his decision to then transfer to Fort Hays State University, switch his degree, and finish college online. “They had a program… I think they changed everything, but it was like Information Networking and Telecommunications or something like that. It’s called the Department of Informatics now.”
Life and work came into play in between all these changes in colleges and programs, too, making things a little more complicated than the direct four-year path to a degree many graduates take right out of high school.
“It took me a whopping 8 years to get my bachelor’s degree,” D’Angelo said.
When he graduated from FHSU, he ended up getting a job in Kansas City for a local jewelry company called Silpada Designs, working on their website. While working there he got more into the programming side of computers. He remained employed there for five years, but the company was having some problems and laying people off. Like a lot of his friends, he ended up going to a different company in town called FireMon, a cyber security company that does enterprise work for big companies.
“I’ve been there for 10 years now,” D’Angelo said. “In particular, this company has allowed me a lot of opportunities to grow. As you can tell by my tour of colleges, I’m a pretty indecisive person. They let me try all different sorts of things there, whether it was doing coding, or I liked designing stuff, too.”
For example, he helped design an app to make it easier for customers to use their company’s software. After a time, he got tired of that, though and they let him go back to coding. At some point, he finally switched over to a management position, where he is leading a few teams.
“They’ve just let me be real flexible with work-life balance stuff,” he said.
Even before the pandemic, when office hours were a regular thing, they were great about letting him work from home if needed. That type of flexibility keeps FireMon supplied with a devoted workforce. A lot of people D’Angelo works with at FireMon, he has literally worked with his whole adult career.
To students today who have a strong interest in computers, D’Angelo would encourage them to go for it if they are considering that career path. While it’s been kind of a wild few years with talk of Chat GPT and all the different AI tools taking over positions everywhere, D’Angelo said he believes it is overblown.
Computers are not going to be take over the workforce.
“They get it wrong. They can give you the answers, but they are not always right. They are obviously helpful tools, but they won’t be replacing jobs anytime soon,” he said.
“It’s definitely one of those things where, hey, stay with it, and learn the basics. Really, it’s just sticking with it. There’s a million things to go into today, so it can be overwhelming, but find the language you like and learn it and branch out from there,” he said.
It is a pretty fast-paced environment that is fun, challenging and ever changing.
“It’s a good field to be in,” he said.