Meet the Trainer: Knox Hutchinson
Knox Hutchinson didn’t get his start in IT until he was 30 years old. In less than three years, he went from not knowing what an IP address was to becoming the Director of IT for a well-known, large organization.
Initially a CBT Nuggets learner, he became a mentor in the Learner Community and, in 2018, joined as a CBT Nuggets Trainer. Nowadays, Knox is widely recognized in the IT community for his specialty in data analysis, visualization, and business intelligence solutions. His latest CBT Nuggets courses perfectly blend knowledge and usability, teaching learners DevOps, automation, and software development.
Outside of work, Knox is an avid Pokémon collector, boasting an extensive collection that would make extreme collectors jealous. Let’s take a closer look at Knox’s admirable journey.
What attracted you to technology? What inspired you to pursue a career in IT? If I'm being honest? The salaries. I was broke, and IT careers offered high pay with a low barrier to entry. That's not what kept me in IT, though. I immediately fell in love with the tech and wondered why I didn't start sooner.
What motivated you to become a trainer? It's the dream job. I get to talk about tech every day that interests me. Lots of times in my life (well, basically all the time in my life), I have no one else to talk to about these technologies. Being a trainer makes me feel like I am directly talking to an audience about things that I discovered and found interesting.
How has your approach to creating training evolved over the years? If I can't sit down and talk about a topic completely freehand, then I must not know the topic very well. Once I realized that, I changed my entire style to be something along the lines of "Know this topic, then just hit record and start yapping."
Can you describe some of the courses or topics you’ve been working on recently? I'm most excited about the LPIC DevOps course that should be coming out soon. It is the most real-world course I have ever created, using almost entirely open source DevOps tools and software. I use these tools in my own business daily.
Are there any tools or features you are particularly excited about teaching?
Github → Jenkins → Docker → K8s and Ansible
What is your general advice about learning IT? Know the difference between what HR wants to see on your resume vs what you will actually do in the real world. Those are two different things. You may need to have a certain certification to get in the door and get an interview, but the job itself probably won't even use that technology stack. So, just because you got a certification doesn't mean you're done - you're just getting started.
Also, this one is important - just because you learn a new technology stack doesn't mean you need to use it in production right away. Don't have a solution that is looking for a problem. You will over-engineer your setup that way. LESS IS MORE. Keep your tech as simple as possible so that anyone can work on it.
The best part about being a trainer is… You never stop learning. If you are even remotely curious about a new technology, you get to be the one who goes from zero to hero first. I like to say, "We suffer through learning new technology so others don't have to."
What have been some of your favorite moments or feedback from learners? Somebody said my AZ-400 course was the best content they've seen on CBT Nuggets and that really meant a lot because that course was insanely hard to record. I'll never forget that comment.
Do you have any fun anecdotes or stories from your training sessions? I could write a book on everything I went through to record our Cisco DNA Center course. That was a labor of love and I'm pretty sure it took 2-3 years off my life. I love it when things go wrong in the middle of recording and I have this gut check moment of "Okay, do I start over, or do I push through this and use this as an opportunity to troubleshoot?" With DNA Center, I would practice things a dozen times, then go to record it, and it would somehow completely blow up. Wasn't funny at the time, but in hindsight, I think it kind of is.
When I'm not making CBT Nuggets videos, you'll find me… On the blockchain.
Random fact about you: I have an extensive Pokemon collection that would make extreme collectors jealous.
Knox's journey proves it’s never too late to build a career in IT. He knows the grind, he’s lived it, and he’s proof that hard work pays off. As Knox puts it, “You can do anything you want as long as you want it bad enough.”
If you’re in DevOps, system administration, or networking, Knox’s training is built for you. Get hands-on with network design and automation in his JNCIP-SP and DNA Center courses. And keep an eye out for his upcoming LPIC DevOps course—it’s packed with real-world tools like GitHub, Jenkins, Docker, Kubernetes, and Ansible to level up your skills fast.
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