Hello, my name is Rajinder Sidhu, I'm based in London in the UK and I have fond memories of starting my IT career working at a large service desk. I took calls all day everyday and spoke to so many different people who wanted my help. It quickly became clear that IT problems are like mysteries to be solved. Some users would give me a clear idea of what the problem was, while others gave me cryptic clues.
It was my job to ask the right questions, guide the user to gather info and finally I had to put the pieces of the puzzle together. This was the part of the job I enjoyed most; discovering the problem, formulating a solution, trying it to see if it works and helping people.
Fast forward over 25 years later and that fresh faced, young aspiring IT Engineer looks older, greyer but hopefully a little wiser. Having worked in several areas of IT support, development and operations, I am now working as a Solutions Architect creating enterprise level designs and solutions.
There's another reason IT appealed to me - self learning. Yes, I'm one of those humans that learn things out of curiosity and not necessarily because I have to, which means questions like 'I wonder how that works?', 'why did that happen?' or 'what's the goal?' are part of my everyday thought process. The IT industry is a great place for self learners and most of the stuff I know about IT is not stuff I've learned on the job, it's stuff that I've learned myself.
Alright thank you for your life story Rajinder but I came here to find out what this website, are we going to get there any time soon?
Look, I was just trying to say that IT is a good sector for the curious, the methodical and those who love solving a good mystery. And I leading on to say, based on my experience in IT I've created The IT Lab. Each lab takes the form of a problem inspired by real-world challenges faced by businesses of all sizes, as well IT professionals and enthusiasts at home.
Every scenario is grounded in something practical. Each challenge is presented as a problem to solve and the lab element comes from the learning, experimenting and testing I do, right alongside you. Think of this space as a shared laboratory where we explore how solutions work, what it takes to implement them, how to validate the results and maybe some insights that emerge along the way.