👥 The Career Tea Guest Directory

The people who
told the truth.

28 professionals across 15+ industries who got real about their career — salaries, pivots, grind, and all. Browse the directory, watch their episodes.

28
Guests
15+
Industries
100%
Real Talk
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28 guests
SG
Ep. 01
Samantha Gosman
Associate Director, Account Management · Barstool Sports
Sports & Media

From a high school internship at an athlete management agency to one of the biggest sports media companies in the country — how networking carried her further than any degree.

ZW
Ep. 02
Zachary White
Enterprise Agent Success Manager · Decagon
Tech

Double major in Marketing and MIS at RIT to customer success at fast-growing tech startups — what a CSM actually does and how he navigated the pivot.

SV
Ep. 03
Sam Vincent
Forensic Psychology Postdoctoral Fellow
Healthcare & Psychology

What it actually takes to become a forensic psychologist — the years of grad school, clinical hours, and working inside correctional facilities.

MP
Ep. 04
Marco Piccirillo
Sr. Deal Operations Manager, L6 · Amazon
Tech

A senior L6 role at Amazon — what it means to be a computer scientist in a business-facing role and why problem solving matters more than any language.

CF
Ep. 05
Christina Franciosi
Sr. Publisher Partnerships Manager · InMobi
Marketing & Ad Tech

Biology major to economics to programmatic advertising — why job-hopping strategically got her the salary jumps her employers wouldn't give her.

TA
Ep. 06
Tatiana Akhund
Senior Associate · Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala
Law

International Affairs to plaintiff's attorney at one of the country's leading sexual abuse litigation firms — what law school doesn't prepare you for.

MC
Ep. 07
Megan Cornelius
Manager, Tax Technology & Transformation · Ernst & Young
Finance & Consulting

First in her family to go to college, double-majored at RIT, worked her way to Manager at EY — real Big Four salary ranges at every level.

SK
Ep. 08
Steph Kotula
Staff Product Designer · Jump
Tech & Design

New Media Design at RIT, taught UX at graduate level, worked across startups and established companies — the difference between UI, UX, and graphic design in plain terms.

VD
Ep. 09
Viraj Doshi
Senior PM, NotebookLM · Google
Tech

9 years at Google — what product management actually looks like at Big Tech and why referrals are 3–4x more effective than cold applications.

ND
Ep. 10
Nate DeFranco
Payment Advisor · KeyBank
Finance & Banking

Accounting to corporate banking to payments advisory — what it takes to stand out when everyone applying has a 3.8 GPA from a top business school.

NP
Ep. 11
Norberto Perez
MIT MBA Graduate
Military & Public Service

10 years in the Coast Guard, then MIT Sloan — what military life really looks like and what drives someone to pursue an MBA after a decade of service.

JL
Ep. 12
Jane Lurie
Director, Research · Scholastic
Education & EdTech

From Vanderbilt child development to the research team that shapes how Scholastic's products work for kids.

LO
Ep. 13
Lawrence Osai
Principal PM, AI Platform Security · ServiceNow
Tech & Consulting

From Goldman Sachs to Deloitte to Columbia MBA to ServiceNow — what consulting is really like and how he thinks about AI governance as a product.

LA
Ep. 14
Laura Andino
Cardiology Clinical Pharmacist · Beth Israel Deaconess
Healthcare & Pharmacy

8-year accelerated pharmacy program, two residencies, and a cardiology role at one of Boston's top hospitals — she rarely sees an actual pill.

SH
Ep. 15
Sean Heinze
Hardware Development Engineer · Apple
Tech & Semiconductors

From semiconductor clean rooms at IPG Photonics and Skyworks to hardware engineering at Apple — why experience beats credentials every time.

AM
Ep. 16
Adam Manilla
Professional Athlete · International Racquetball Tour
Sports & Athletics

Engineer, entrepreneur, and one of the top players on the IRT — the brutal honest reality of professional sports in a niche discipline.

DS
Ep. 17
David Stewart
Senior Manager, Strategic Finance · Geller
Finance & Consulting

D1 swimmer at Notre Dame, strategy consulting at PwC and Deloitte, self-taught ML engineer — why hard and soft skills both matter equally early on.

AG
Ep. 18
Andrea Green
Media Strategist · Helen + Gertrude
Marketing & Advertising

Community college to RIT to top ad agency — why the two-plus-two route is a legitimate cheat code and why AI literacy is now non-negotiable in marketing.

UH
Ep. 19
Urmi Hossain
CFA & CAIA Charterholder · Wealth Management
Finance & Wealth Mgmt

CFA, CAIA, self-published author, YouTuber, and women's empowerment advocate — what the CFA journey actually looks like.

DK
Ep. 20
David Kryskowski
Senior Economist · Arizona Department of Revenue
Public Policy & Economics

Producing multi-billion dollar revenue forecasts and evaluating tax legislation — and why a PhD matters more than people realize in economics.

AU
Ep. 21
Alison Upton
Product Marketing & Brand Manager · BrainRobotics
Tech & Design

From graphic design to product branding at a company making AI-powered prosthetic hands — how a great manager changed her entire career trajectory.

JI
Ep. 22
Jesse Iwuji
NASCAR Driver & U.S. Navy Officer
Sports & Military

Naval Academy → Navy officer → NASCAR driver → NBC analyst → entrepreneur. 100 laps a night on a simulator and an unshakeable belief that anything is figureoutable.

LB
Ep. 23
Lakeyia Brown
Senior Manager, Digital Content · New York Knicks
Sports & Media

Cold-emailed someone with "social media" in their title as a sophomore — and turned that into running digital content for one of the most iconic franchises in sports.

SA
Ep. 24
Sarina Awatramani
Senior PM, Open Banking · Visa
Fintech

UCLA applied math → Amex → Capital One → Visa in London — why the PM title is overrated as a starting point and skills matter more than the role name.

SJ
Ep. 25
Steve Jaffe
Author · The Layoff Journey
Career Development

25 years in advertising, four layoffs, one book. His first layoff nearly broke him. His fourth he barely felt. What changed in between is the whole story.

SS
Ep. 26
Samuel Shapiro
Senior Manager, Product Management · Instrumentl
Tech & Product

Michigan Ross → PwC → a year backpacking the world → Instrumentl. How taking a year off didn't derail his career — it sharpened it.

SC
Ep. 27
Sonia Chakraborty
Customer Success Manager · Nuclearn
Energy & Nuclear Tech

MIS at RIT → data science at UC Berkeley → storm response during Hurricane Ian → AI at nuclear facilities worldwide. The most unexpected career in energy.

AR
Ep. 28
Adam Ramirez
Financial Analyst · Snowflake
Finance & Tech

Community college to UC Berkeley to Snowflake — built a following of over half a million helping students do the same. Why the job market is a lottery and how to buy more tickets.

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