Life at GE : Careers : GE
My current role as ERP Initiatives Manager is one of the most exciting and challenging positions I've ever had. My team is comprised of three groups; Design, Build and Run. In total, our group supports 20 production ERP systems, running over 250 databases across 128 UNIX services, using more than 500 terabytes of storage. These systems are responsible for GE's Aviation, Energy, Transportation, and Oil & Gas's accounting and financial applications, procurement, order processing and supplier management, inventory management, HR management and payroll functions - all of which demand 24x7 availability.
The scale of the systems my team manages is enormous, and the need for seamless integration is paramount. What makes it manageable are the tools and resources GE provides to my team to do their jobs well, along with encouragement we receive from across the Company to stretch our thinking and come up with creative solutions to keep availability high and costs low.
I long ago developed the belief that it's wise to develop expertise in at least one technology area. I chose to focus my learning on databases, and that decision provided me with the foundation for building my career.
There have been many, but a recent example is our Intelligent Diagnostics and Repair project. Through this effort, we were able to automate the cloning of our ERP environments from production to development and testing. This effort reduced our cloning time from 24 hours down to four hours. Given that we perform more than 550 ERP clones a year, this resulted in almost 1,000 hours in productivity savings.
Though not explicitly technical, the ability to manage large groups of people has been critical to the success I've had in my career. This skill is also critical to keeping a team focused on priorities.
Take the time to master a key technology. Far too often, people try to move up the company ladder without taking the time to ground themselves first. Become an expert on one piece of the technology stack. For me it was databases, and I have never regretted the time I spent learning about them.