STORY
Landing at Tektronix at Age 16 Through Uncle's Introduction
Landing at Tektronix at Age 16 Through Uncle's Introduction
- After graduating early from Colton High School in January 1978 at barely 16 years old, I moved into the basement of my uncle's home in Beaverton, Oregon in search of steady work in Oregon's tech industry.
The Uncle's Connection
- My uncle was personal friends with a second-level manager at Tektronix (then the state's largest private employer and electronics giant).
- He arranged an introduction for me, which opened the door to an interview and acceptance into Tektronix's summer temporary employee program.
From Summer Temp to Salaried Tech Writer at Age 16
- I started as a summer temp technical writer, working under and being mentored by managers Lyle Settle and Jack Falk.
- My writing and technical comprehension impressed the team so much that Tektronix hired me on as a permanent, salaried technical writer at age 16.
- Lyle Settle and Jack Falk helped hone my writing discipline and communication style—mentorship that would later lead to all three of my O'Reilly Media book acknowledgments (Programming Perl, Learning Perl, and Intermediate Perl), as well as Lyle hiring me years later at Tandem Computers.
- I spent three years writing documentation and managing technical writing teams.
Transitioning to Software Engineering
- After four years as a writer, I transitioned internally to full-time software development under a second-level software manager.
- That pivotal transition at Tektronix launched my career from technical documentation into enterprise systems programming, Smalltalk, and object-oriented databases.
- See My Summer Temp Job at Tektronix and Learning to Write and Gladstone Childhood, FOCAL on Lined Paper, and the Early Career Arc.
What links here
These facts are as Randal recalls them, but much time has passed for most of this. If you find a factual error, please email realmerlyn@gmail.com.