After multiple tours to Iraq with the U.S. Army, maintaining secure networks needed for military operations, Anthony Mills came to PNC prepared to adapt and overcome.
As a senior infrastructure architect, he works as part of an automation and visualization team designing systems to monitor indicators and alerts necessary for keeping critical networks and applications up and running. His work is fast-paced and requires him to be constantly learning, pivoting, and prioritizing to stay on top of a rapidly changing environment – much like he had to in the military.
His team is part of a larger Site Reliability Center (SRC) that PNC is building up to aid with the bank’s next stage of evolution. For Mills, the SRC is the perfect fit.
“Living and operating in a site reliability center, you are the tip of the spear of all enterprise; everything that goes bad lands in your lap at the SRC,” he said. “I am suited for this environment because of the pressures of having to operate in combat zones, to operate at a very high level and strict timelines where lives matter,” he said.
Mills, who has been with PNC for five years, says he sees PNC as place with a lot of opportunity to grow in tech. He already has had the chance to learn new things around cloud and artificial intelligence to which he wouldn’t ordinarily have exposure.
Senior Enterprise Infrastructure Manager James White says that is by design. His team gets almost a full work week of learning hours allocated a year in anything that interests them. It doesn’t have to be role specific. The idea is to foster a growth mindset.
Site Reliability Engineering Group Manager Eric Hunsaker, who manages the observability team that grew from being a one-man operation a year ago to more than 20-strong today, echoed that sentiment.
“I learn something every day I come in, and I’ve been doing this for 30 plus years,” Hunsaker said. “Because we touch everything, we’re really able to work with different groups and different teams and build relationships with them and understand what their products do and how their products work. All of that kind of combined makes for a very interesting and exciting environment to work in.”
Building Out and Embracing PNC’s Growth Mindset
For Hunsaker, the ideal candidate has an “unquenchable thirst for knowledge.” SRC leadership is looking for people who can challenge the notion that “that’s the way we’ve always done it,” and help to figure out new ways to solve old problems. So, the desire to constantly develop is a critical success factor.
Change is a constant, and tech talent has to be ready to embrace that. Originally coming over from PayPal, Hunsaker started in a role at PNC where he would troubleshoot performance issues, moved to a monitoring tools team where he developed a monitoring strategy, then moved into SRC, working in event management. “Change. Grow. Adapt. Evolve. PNC will support you along the way, and you’ll get to do impactful work,” Hunsaker said.
“To grow organically, you have to provide best-in-class service and capabilities. That’s where SRC is positioned, making sure that we’re able to provide our customers with that outstanding performance and that stellar experience,” Hunsaker said. “The biggest thing with the SRC – it’s all about our customer, making sure our customers are able to do business with us. To me, it’s the heart of everything about the company.”
The Sun Shines on PNC Tech in Phoenix
Although the SRC is comprised of team members located across PNC offices nationwide, the heart of it lies in the Chief Technology Office located in Phoenix, Arizona, where a flag has been planted for PNC’s tech expansion westward.
With the sun shining and palm trees swaying in the window view behind him, White can be found in his Phoenix office, managing nine data center teams, critical to the success of the SRC’s efforts. His charge is to modernize, automate, and minimize risk, and his vision for the future is faster, better service for customers. Hardware that had once taken 6 to 12 months to deliver, will be completed in days or weeks instead, and he is looking for “life-long learners” to join his team to help make it happen.
Starting his career as a manual tape operator who built robotics to change tapes, White is now in his 26th year at PNC. He says the work is inspiring, but the culture is what has kept him here and that most of his closest friendships were forged working for the bank. “When I’m lost, I can turn to just about anyone and you can always find someone to help you. Even if the person you turn to doesn’t have the answer, they help you find the person that does have the answer,” White said.
With a number of patents filed and wins under the team’s belt, Hunsaker believes the culture of teamwork has really contributed to their success.
“The team has an awesome culture of really being open and not afraid to ask tough questions and get honest feedback. I think we’ve developed a culture of ‘let’s focus on fixing what’s wrong and what happened,’ as opposed to finger pointing and placing blame on people,” Hunsaker said.
