ABOUT
A Shared Passion
Cliff and Tracy met in 2010 while working together at Tyler Technologies. Even though they worked on different projects, they were paired on an interface between two systems and told by their shared boss that if the interface failed, they were to drop everything they were doing on their own projects and work together to fix it. Rather than developing an attitude of “this is your problem to solve,” keeping the two systems working together turned into an unending discourse that ran the gamut of system failures to leadership philosophies to preferences in wine. It turns out, they both prefer reds. Specifically cabernet sauvignon.
A fast friendship grew and they found themselves looking for projects to work on together — both inside and outside of work. Engineer a Career is one of those.
How it Started
In their roles, they were often interviewing potential employees together. After the interviews, they often discussed how the interviewee could have done better. Those conversations led to us becoming regular speakers at a local university where they worked to help young engineers hone their communication skills — especially in interviews.
From there, they found themselves discussing how they could better mentor their teams, how they could lead those employees into leadership roles, and how they could be better leaders themselves. The latter resulted in hours and hours of conversations. Usually over red wine.
Today
The discussions that directly resulted in this website started 2 years ago. This is one part “how can we share what we’ve learned” and one part “how can we grow more as leaders of engineers.” This is how we’re doing it. We’re opening up our discussions, our hearts and our minds. We hope you’ll join us.
Clifford Colvin
Working as a software and web engineer since the early 2000s, Cliff has focused much of his career around the field of criminal justice software. For years, he led a large team of engineers to develop software applications for municipal courts and he now does the same for law enforcement software. However, he started his career in custom website development and real estate applications.
To help advance his career, Cliff joined Toastmasters. If this sounds familiar, you already read Tracy’s bio. He has served as a volunteer leader in a number of club and district offices and looks forward to more.
He also volunteers for several non-profit boards and, when he’s not busy with all of that, loves nothing better than to spend time with his wife and daughter.
Find Cliff on Social Media
Tracy Thomason
Tracy has been at this a bit longer than Cliff, which Cliff likes to remind him of from time to time. Tracy has been a professional software developer since the early 1990s. He’s worked in industries as varied as agriculture, manufacturing, law enforcement, municipal governments, insurance, and medical.
To help advance his career, Tracy joined Toastmasters. If this sounds familiar, you already read Cliff’s bio. He has served as a volunteer leader in a number of club and district offices and currently sits on the Board of Directors for the global organization. As with Cliff, Tracy is passionate about the organization and looks forward to more.
He sits on several other boards, including an advisory board for Texas Tech University. When he’s not there, he’s often sitting on the couch with his wife or sitting in a car driving to visit his grown-up daughters.