Erik Gross had an odd journey into tech. He grew up in the redwoods of California, off the grid with no running water in a tee pee. However, there was a pivotal moment in his life when his Dad brought home an old school computer, and taught him about the internals, hardware, binary, and removed all mystery from computers. He had a career in the Navy as a nuclear reactor operator, and gained a lot from the training methods of the Navy. Outside of tech, he is married with kids, and recently moved to Louisiana. He enjoys cigars, and tasting whiskey on occasion. Erik has a background in training, while being a working engineer. He continuously took on side gigs, where he would need to have a junior engineer join him - and he couldn't find them. He decided to build a program that created this engineers for him, and was affirmed when he found a competitor doing the same thing. This is the creation story of The Tech Academy. Our Sponsors: * Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.com * Check out Red Hat: https://www.redhat.com * Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORY Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy