Meet the team: an interview with Ron Mackay
Next up in our Meet The Team series is one of our System Engineers Ron Mackay. Ron is well travelled in IT and Technology, spending time in Belgium and working across a variety of different industries.
Can you give some insight into your career?
I began my career working in the electronics industry for a computer manufacturing company, which involved the assembly of floppy disk drives, end of line testing, and PC clones. When the plant I was working in closed, I followed the project to Belgium which was a great opportunity.
When I returned to Aberdeen I went into field services; this involved physically going to companies and repairing the equipment on site. Later I worked for a range of companies and sectors, including computer services, engineering, construction, the oil and gas sector and the public sector at Caledonia University and East Lothian Council.
As you can see, I’ve worked in a variety of roles and sectors, which has given me a wealth of experience in a variety of applications, software and systems. I’ve seen a lot, and dealt with a lot of issues across the board which has led to me being extremely good at problem solving.
Flexible in my approach, I appreciate that no one sector or company is the same, and can adapt to suit each customer's needs.
Why work for a managed service provider?
Managed service providers have the ability to upskill and downskill dramatically, with little effort. Depending on the size of an organisation, having someone in-house isn’t viable.
I like meeting new people and taking on challenges, which happens every day in my current role. At IT Hotdesk, we are completely flexible in our approach and will adapt to suit our customer which is exactly the type of company that I like to work for.
Your last Role:
My position immediately before joining IT Hotdesk was as a 1st/2nd line helpdesk technician for the EMEA region of a global engineering company.
This has helped quite a lot with IT Hotdesk. Working globally is a big task, and it’s important that you have the right systems in place . The experience I gathered has been fundamental in my own development, I now have the ability to see the bigger picture.Do you have a specialty? or generalised IT?
I am very much a generalist. I love variety and in my current role no two days are the same. I deal with anything - applications, hardware and servers - you name it!
What kind of projects do you work on?
I mainly work with tickets and break fixes, which is when something goes wrong or a customer has a problem, I am on hand to help them resolve the issue.
I am also involved in user administration such as onboarding and offboarding too. This is the process of introducing a new member of staff or removing an old member of staff from my clients systems.
What advice can you offer to those who are looking to progress their career?
If you have decided that you would like to go into IT, the first thing you need to think about is what do you enjoy? Do you like variety in your work, or would you rather hone your skills in on one particular area? This will help you decide whether you’ll be a specialist in one particular area or a generalist. Either way, the job won’t be the same in 5 years time, you need to keep moving forward, learning and developing, to keep up with the trends.
Top tip:
If you work through the process, you can see where the chain breaks. Often, the problem that is reported is not the actual cause but it’s not until you methodically go through the process that you find out the real issue.
Alternatively, if you have a specific question or would like to speak with someone in our team, please fill in the form below and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.