From Kardashians to Kubernetes: A career transformation in tech

Switching careers is hard to do. Learn from Julie Dam, who went from pop culture journalist to tech marketing expert

Q: Tell us about your career journey. What inspired you to pursue this career path?

Julie: I was a history and literature major in college, and after graduation I basically chose a career that paid me to keep learning new things. I ended up spending two decades as a magazine writer and editor, covering everything from politics and natural disasters to theater and fashion. For the latter half of that period of time, I was an editor at People, running the magazine's coverage of music celebrities (ask me anything about Taylor Swift!). But all good things must come to an end, and as magazine readership declined precipitously, I realized it was time to try something new. 

So naturally, I pivoted from the Kardashians to Kubernetes! 

It was actually the hardest thing I have had to do professionally: figure out how to rebrand myself after working in one industry for so long. I had an interest in tech, and no experience to speak of other than a one-month Ruby on Rails online course. But I chased every opportunity, networked like crazy, took every meeting – and ultimately I was introduced to a wonderful human named Dan Kohn. He had just joined the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and was trying to convince the world that Kubernetes was going to be the next big thing. He needed help telling that story. At the time, no one really knew what Kubernetes was, so I wasn't at a huge disadvantage! He figured that if I could craft compelling stories about celebrities, surely I could create narratives around bleeding-edge tech. He took a chance on me, and my career took a sharp left turn… but once again I was getting paid to keep learning new things. I built the Kubernetes case study program from the ground up for CNCF, and I eventually left to run content and comms at Grafana Labs.

Julie Dam

Q: What does being part of the tech community mean to you? The open source community? Being a woman in these communities?

Julie: Although I am not in a technical role, I have had the privilege of working with engineers, helping them tell their stories, exchanging ideas with them, learning from them, and teaching them a thing or two, too. It's quite rewarding to be able to shine a spotlight on folks who are typically behind the scenes and the truly impactful things they are working on. I have felt welcomed into the tech community, and in turn, I have found ways to contribute without writing code. That's the beauty of open source; there are many ways to contribute, no matter your background, geographic location, gender or area of expertise.

In some ways, I feel like I've come (almost) full circle because before I was a humanities major, I was the top science and math student in my high school class. Chemistry was my favorite subject (though I always loved literature and writing, too). Somehow, when I got to college, I didn't see STEM as a viable path for me. Over the years, I have always wondered about the road not taken. And once I had a daughter, it became really important for me to make sure that whether she took it or not, she and other girls in her generation could see themselves on that path. I love that I work with so many women in technical roles in my company and that I have the ability to amplify the great work they're doing. P.S. Mom brag: My ninth grader is doing great in pre-calculus.

“That’s the beauty of open source; there are many ways to contribute, no matter your background, geographic location, gender or area of expertise. ”

Q: We'd love to hear about some of the memorable or challenging moments you've encountered. What were the takeaways or lessons you gained from those experiences?

Julie: Trying to redefine yourself professionally in mid-life is challenging, to say the least! My husband will occasionally ask me if I remember, after I left journalism, crying and telling him that no one was ever going to hire me. Uh, yeah, as if it were yesterday. It's his way of saying, "Look how far you've come!" But for me, it's a reminder that this process has to start with believing in yourself. And then it takes convincing one person – just one – to believe in you too. Call it a growth mindset, or grit, or sheer determination. Whatever it is, it has to start from within. Of course, luck and networking also matter. So because I've been there, my DMs are always open for people going through the same thing.

Q: Do you see any emerging trends or topics within the tech sector that you believe will shape the future of tech-related content creation?

Julie: It's an obvious answer, but generative AI has already had a staggering impact on content creation. It's really incredible to see what is possible less than a year after the launch of ChatGPT. We've used it to solve problems at scale, such as on-demand translations and repackaging of human-created technical content on our website. That said, I believe these large language models wouldn't be so effective without the source material created by the stellar subject matter experts on our engineering team and professional writers on our content team. That is still the core of our content strategy.

Q: We host a popular Book Club and our community is always looking for recommendations, whether career-focused or just a great read. What are you currently reading?

Julie: I haven't gotten too far into it yet, but I'm reading Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas by Jennifer Raff. On my list are Emily Wilson's translations of The Odyssey and The Iliad. I have seen great reviews, so maybe I will finally read these classics that I could never get into back when I was in school. And not gonna lie, I will probably cave and read the Britney Spears memoir!

*Grafana is a Story Changes Culture client