Physiological Needs:
Working in technology has given me an opportunity to use my skills in order to provide for myself and my family. Though I am still a lower-level technician, I work in a technical lab that allows me to learn new skills while also providing for myself.
Safety needs:
We live in a technological age, which has given us social media, cloud-based systems, and applications to use in our everyday lives. That being said, these applications and devices are vulnerable to attacks, and they can happen to almost any device. That said, learning and working in technology has given me exposure to these exploits. This has allowed me to mitigate risks that come with using technology.
Belongingness and Love:
While working with technology, I have been able to make many friends through our mutual interest in technology. This happens more so at work than in school, because we are always trying to improve our lab and our exposure to new tech.
Esteem Needs:
Being able to grow professionally boosts your confidence quite a bit, and I have grown a lot. This happens more as you are exposed to different technologies. Whether that is learning a new programming/scripting language or being able to install new software using open-source materials. When starting the task, it may seem complicated but once you finish, your self esteem will be through the roof. For me, this was learning how to automate our tests we use with our SAN software (specifically testing the API). Automating hundreds of requests was quite time consuming, but seeing it come together was worth it.
Self-Actualization:
When working in technology, it is nice to look back in order to see how far you have come. When starting as an IT technician, I struggled using the CLI on my servers. I constantly had to use RDP instead of SSH. Now, I am able to automate nearly every task using BASH scripts over SSH. This is just one of many examples on how self-actualization relates to my personal experience in technology.