Name: Malcolm Jones
Profession: DevOps Engineer at Behance
Age: 29
One Word That Describes You: Enthusiastic
When you combine enthusiasm with creativity the result is Malcolm Jones. He is DevOps Engineer at Behance, the Adobe online platform that allows artists to upload their portfolio and showcase their work for the art community. The University of Virginia grad was part of the first Bachelor of Arts in computer science class there. After a brief stint at Tidal TV, and starting FOJO (Fashion and Dojo combined) while unemployed, he was able to use his experience and UVA network to land a great position at Behance.
As a young boy, Jones’ biggest super-hero was his father, who introduced him to computers. “I’ve always had a big imagination, and when he introduced me to the world of programming, I went crazy,” Jones tells BE Modern Man. In elementary school Jones began developing his skill-set through a program called ‘Klik and Play,’ where he used “loops,” “collision detection,” and event-driven programming to make wild video games.
Although he had a keen interest in math and science, a high school counselor almost kept him from moving forward. “My high school counselor doubted my ability to make it to UVA, which was the only college I’d ever wanted to go to,” says Jones. Forced to decide if he should give up and follow his counselor’s advice or prove the counselor wrong, Jones took the advice of his father. “My dad always told me, ‘don’t let anyone in this world tell you that there’s something you can’t do, if you put your mind to it and give it your all.'” He took the words of wisdom from his father and hasn’t looked back since.
If you look up a typical picture of a programmer, you may not see a skinny, dark-skinned, West Indian guy like Jones. On a typical day he can be seen wearing 7 gold-chains, along with his L.A. Gears, as he parades around the office. “You would never guess that I could
provision 25 Linux CentOS servers running a PHP based image processing web application (in parallel) that automatically adds themselves to a load balancer, while drinking my morning coffee and reading articles on arstechnica.com.” Being himself, and allowing others to creatively be who they are, is what make Jones so unique in a world where people look and judge. “I feel as though if I stay true to who I am, there might be a kid one day who can realize he (or she) doesn’t have to look or act like everybody else to be successful.”Read more on page 2…
It’s hard to imagine Jones having trouble standing out. But in the extremely fast paced world of technology, your work has
to be as loud as Jones’ work attire. “Passion is key in an industry like technology, where things are constantly changing,” says Jones. “The technology you were so excited about using six months ago will be old news, so you have to make it your job to always keep yourself up to date.”If you’re thinking about getting into programming, at any age, it’s important to use the plethora of resources available on the web. Jones suggests finding something that interest you and beginning small. “Don’t try to recreate Facebook off-the-bat. Instead, try small things, allow yourself to fail and learn from your mistakes,” he tells BE Modern Man. “Don’t be afraid to ask questions, and always remain humble. Get on YouTube and listen to programming tutorials, try them out, replicate them, and then put your own twist on it so it’s personalized for you.”
Programming is extremely difficult, and Jones warns people against being discouraged at the first signs of failure. “The reality is that the most of the applications you use today fail all the time in the background, but in a controlled manner, and continue to function perfectly fine. Programmers purposefully code their projects with the intent that they might fail. It’s important to realize that when something does fail, it fails early. You’re able to catch it, learn from it, and improve from it.”
While his programs might fail in the background, Jones has no intention of failing in the foreground. “A BE Modern Man is someone who is challenging the status quo of what it means to be a Black man,” he says. “He doesn’t confine himself to places where he’s comfortable.” Leaving his comfort zone, and interacting with others who were different from him, has endowed Jones with the ability to maneuver in and out of any setting. As life throws him unexpected variables and scenarios, he internalizes those experiences and leverages what he’s gained from them to contribute to the larger community.
The BE Modern Man team salutes Malcolm Jones for not settling, and for pursuing his passion in programming. He is a young leader who is breaking down visual barriers and stereotypes, one program at a time.
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