I am currently working as a Storage Technical Advisor (TA) and Technical Account Manager (TAM) on the A9000, FlashSystems, DS8880 and SVC Products. The Technical Advisor/Technical Account Manager (TA) enhances end-to-end support within the IBM Client Care program.The TA program is an integrated approach for a proactive and comprehensive coordinated support service.The TA offering is built around three value propositions:: Proactive approach to ensure high availability for vital IT services: Client Advocate that manages problem resolution through the entire support process: Integrated Support for both hardware and softwareThe TA role is designed to assist the customer with the implementation and running of the systems, and to support them throughout the warranty period of the product.

In order to get more widespread knowledge of IBM's storage products I moved back into a development role working on the SVC/Storwize family. I spent a short time working in test, then took over the role as the team lead for the SVC/Storwize RAS (Reliability, Availability and Servicability) team. This was a mostly hardware focused role, looking at all the new hardware platforms in detail, and having an overview of all hardware aspects of the product. It also involved looking at the errors and error behaviour for new software functions and making sure that the overall behaviour of the product met IBM's high RAS standards. This required working closely with many teams across IBM, for example the code development teams, the information development team responsible for the knowledge centers, and some parts of the service organisation.

After 17 years in a highly technical role I moved into a first line management position within the same department. I initially managed the storage subsystems test team for about two years, then I took over management of the development team.This was a highly varied role, as well as the traditional personnel aspects of management it also involved working with other companies on joint development projects, working with upper management on other projects and dealing with high priority issues on a daily basis.

I started work for IBM as a member of the SSD (Storage Subsystems Development) organisation in the chip design team.I worked as a junior engineer on a few chips, quickly progressing to leading small teams of designers. For several years towards the end of my time in the group I was responsible for the team leadership and project management of large ASICs. I was responsible for architecting, designing and simulating these ASICs which were for use in IBM's DS8K family of products in the disk drive expansion drawers.