Shane

Shane's story

Shane spent nearly 20 years as an electrician, wiring data centers and managing power systems that could kill you if you got it wrong. He worked his way up from pulling cable to supervising crews, learning to respect risk and understand how complex systems fit together. But the constant travel pulled him away from his kids, and the stress at home and on the job compounded. Eventually, he burned out completely.

He fell into what he calls a “dark hallway” - mentally, physically, spiritually. For about seven months, Shane was homeless. He had essentially given up. “Leave me here,” he thought. His journey felt over.

A daughter’s call

Then his daughter called. She confronted him directly: “You need to shape up. Be a man. Be a dad.” She was working long hours at Starbucks, primarily to pay for his gas so he could come home. That moment - tough love mixed with sacrifice - snapped him out of resignation. His family rallied together to help him get back to Arizona, and Shane decided to rebuild from the ground up.

Back home, he focused first on healing, then on rediscovering his old tech curiosity. As a kid, Shane had been obsessed with hacker movies, fascinated by what people were typing on those screens. He tried video game design (too art-heavy), then networking (interesting but didn’t grab him). With his remaining education benefits, he enrolled in a cybersecurity program in his 40s - terrified he couldn’t compete with sharp 20-somethings.

He completed the program, but still couldn’t break into tech. Job listings wanted hands-on experience he didn’t have on paper.

So he took a custodial job at a local college, cleaning classrooms and joking with coworkers about who got to hold the special restroom key. Outside work, he kept building.

The pivotal moment

Then came the pivotal moment. Shane found NextWork through a TikTok video, and it changed everything. For the first time, he had a structured way to build real projects that employers actually cared about - security labs, web apps, cloud setups, all with clean documentation he could show. Project by project, he was creating proof that he could do the work, not just talk about it. NextWork gave him the hands-on experience the job listings demanded, and more importantly, it gave him something concrete to point to when opportunities arose.

Each completed project became a building block in his portfolio. He wasn’t just learning cybersecurity concepts in theory anymore; he was implementing them, troubleshooting them, and documenting his process. The labs were practical, industry-relevant, and designed to demonstrate real capability. This was the hacker world he’d dreamed about as a kid, now real and in his hands - and he had the portfolio to prove it.

One day, while cleaning the marketing department, he overheard someone ask whether anyone knew how to build websites. Shane spoke up, pulled up his portfolio full of NextWork projects, and handed over his phone. A week later he was working in web development.

Today

Shane is now a permanent web developer. He runs his own company, hires others, and writes “Inspired to Hire” articles for people trying to break into tech. But he didn’t stop at getting hired - he’s building for others now, creating resources like Inspire to Hire and Hacker Series to help non-traditional learners see themselves in cybersecurity and tech.

“NextWork gave me real projects I could show. That’s what helped me get hired.”

What Shane Believes In

Shane talks openly about failure, hitting rock bottom, and rebuilding slowly. He says hunger matters more than perfection; he loves troubleshooting and never wants to fall out of love with learning. His two decades as an electrician taught him to think in systems, manage risk, and show up even when it’s hard. His daughter’s intervention taught him that family can pull you back from the edge - but you still have to do the work yourself.

“If you want that job, if you want that future, it’s waiting for you. But you have to take the steps. One project. One lesson. One day at a time.”