This article was originally published in the Spring 2024 issue of the GFS Bulletin.

Jason Schogel ’91 is a staff solutions engineer at Splunk, a company that helps some of the world’s largest and most complex organizations explore and protect their data. His bio at Splunk’s website gives him a different title: “technical resource.”

That may be a better handle for someone who admits a love for data and has a rare gift for explaining how data works to the company’s enormous clients, which include state governments and research universities.

Before joining Splunk, Schogel worked at Oracle, NetApp and the American Stock Exchange. He also co-founded a small video game company and an international import-export business that provides sustainable cooking fuel to Haiti. Born and raised in Germantown, Schogel now lives with his family in Brooklyn, where we caught up with him to talk about technology and how his time at Germantown Friends School prepared him for a career in tech in unexpected ways.

Your K-12 education took place at a transitional moment in the history of technology.

Jason Schogel '91: My generation was the last analog generation. We had an electric typewriter and a rotary phone at home. I remember when computers came to GFS. I think I was in sixth grade. John Harkins, who was Lower School principal at the time, taught a class on Logo, a programming language. That was my first formal introduction to a computer.

What did an analog-era kid like you think of that?

I was hooked on it immediately. To me, it was artistic. Computers were a new type of creative outlet. I could do things and build things. I had a new way to express myself—to make this machine do something.

What was it about that class and other early computer science classes at GFS (Matt Zipin’s was another you’ve said you enjoyed) that made such a big impression?

To me, computers were sci-fi up to then. Here was something I could touch for the first time that I only saw in movies or Dr. Who—and someone was teaching how to use it. Even just making little logic games or algorithms was exciting. But it wasn’t about just being exposed to computers. The important part is that at GFS, there are people to guide you—someone who’ll see that you have an interest and take time to help nurture that interest.

When you were seeking your first engineering job at Oracle after graduating from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, what were employers in the field looking for?

They needed people who have a deep technical understanding of complex systems at scale. I had that from college. But they also needed people with very good interpersonal and communications skills. And I got that primarily from GFS.

What do you think it was about GFS that helped you learn those “soft skills”?

It’s the teaching environment. It’s more free-form and less structured. You don’t walk in and see everyone sitting at desks in rows. You’re encouraged to explore the world around you and do it together with people. We were put in situations where we had to learn how to read the room.

The important part is that at GFS, there are people to guide you—someone who’ll see that you have an interest and take time to help nurture that interest.

You put your technology skills to use in a volunteer project during the pandemic. What did you do?

In the early days of COVID-19, there were test kit shortages—and lots of fear. Remember how you used to have to get screened, and then depending on the screening, they’d tell you to go get a COVID test? My Splunk colleague Ryan and I got together with people at Adobe, Oracle, Microsoft and other companies and built this app that could be used by municipalities so that people could go online and get screened, and based on how they answered questions, the app would reserve a slot for them at a testing center. Then, at the testing center, there was software we developed that people could use to see that you’re who you said you were and what you needed to do.

Creativity isn’t limited to artists. What is creativity to you as an engineer?

To me, creativity is the opposite of fate. When given a question or a task, even when someone gives me guidelines, I break the rules—and students should too. It’s the only way you’ll learn all the inputs. Make it fun. Always have an exit strategy. Come up with your own ideas, but also pull together other ideas (always giving credit where credit is due) and squish all the ideas together.

Any parting words for current or future scientists and engineers?

Never stop tinkering.

-Hillel J. Hoffmann