The climb.
I graduated from a mid-tier college in the Midwest with a degree in Sociology and zero plan for how that would pay rent. But I was a nerd, and nerds find their way to tech.
Tier 1 tech support. Then Tier 2. Then cable modem support — DOCSIS 1.0, baby. One megabit per second felt like the future. Then supervisor. Then I made a hard pivot to AT&T as a collections call center agent. Not for the glamour. My wife was pregnant, and those union healthcare benefits were no joke.
After my youngest was born, I accepted a promotion to team manager. Then associate director. Then I pivoted out of call centers and into Product. I owned the iPhone for AT&T Mobility for years — the real one, not a side feature. Eventually they handed me the new AI portfolio as product owner. My team worked with every major player and startup that was pointing AI at the call center.
Then AT&T told me I had to move to Dallas for my next promotion. I couldn't do it. So after years of climbing the corpo ladder, I left for the startup life.
The startup. The fight.
It was a wild ride managing the product team at an AI startup. We grew from nothing. I built the CS org. Things were moving. And then I got the news that I had bone cancer. Nothing good, only worse.
That fight took everything out of me. I was given a terminal diagnosis and told to "get my poop in a group," as one of my mentors (Kathy S. — love you!) would say. So I did. I quit my job. I closed down my life the way a PO ends a PI — methodically, with acceptance. I got to be okay with it.
And then science saved me. Those mother-fers.
The reset.
I found myself out of the loop. Mentally disconnected. Not really able — or willing — to break back into industry. A part of me realized I didn't really want to. But I learned something in that fight: a bucket list is not for the end. You have to work it now.
So I did what I'd wanted to do way back in the day. I applied for a PhD program in Psychology. And that's what I've been doing — deeply studying what it means to be human.
The nerd never left.
But I'm still a nerd, right? So I keep up. I push the limits. And as I started vibe coding, I noticed something. I kept reading about failed projects. And as a PO, I could see why immediately — no plan, no structure, no documentation. Just grit, vibes, and an idea.
As I was running into my own pain building an AI simulation for my psychology work, I realized this is just development without a plan. Without a backlog. Without the rituals. So I started building in the structure to keep from drifting.
Then I realized this was a solution to a problem bigger than my little project.
And here we are.
A fully built product. Using the methodology learned in giant shops, applied to small shops, and now to one-person shops. That's ECHOIT.