Most instructional designers approach technical content from the outside. I come at it from the inside. I spent over 15 years in network engineering, IT infrastructure, and systems management, and taught those same disciplines as a technical instructor before moving into instructional design. That combination shapes everything about how I work: how I design learning experiences, partner with subject-matter experts, and build hands-on labs and activities that reflect real-world practice. For the last seven years at Western Governors University, I've been doing exactly that across 60+ courses in the College of IT, working closely with assessment developers to ensure curriculum and evaluation are tightly aligned, with AI prompt engineering now at the core of my work.