Jon Sparks

I've spent 15 years in communications software, coming up through infrastructure and never really leaving it. Two startups where I was early enough to build from nothing, and now Systems Architecture Director at Avaya, designing global systems.

People sometimes call me a unicorn — a director who still writes code. I just call it staying curious. I run a home lab because reading about a technology and running it are different things, and only one of them teaches you anything. AI has become a real tool in my toolbox rather than a thing I have opinions about.

Outside of work I'm a husband and a father to two boys. Most evenings we're out biking, or I'm walking the dog, or my wife and I are sitting by the fire. My family means the world to me.

I'm here to leave my mark — and to raise two boys who'll do it better than I did.