If you ask Diego Lombana what he loves most about working at DreamHost, he won’t start with infrastructure migrations or ticket queues.
He’ll start with this: “If you break something, it’s not, ‘You’re fired.’ It’s, ‘OK, what did we learn?’”
And honestly? That says everything.
From Tech Support Rep to Manager
Diego joined DreamHost in October 2018 as a Tech Support rep after a couple of friends told him DreamHost is “awesome and he must apply.” Two weeks after sending his CV, he had an interview. Three weeks later, he had the job.
Fast forward seven years, he’s now a Tech Support Manager I, having worked his way up from Tech Support Rep to Captain to Specialist before stepping into his current leadership role.
However, becoming a manager wasn’t accidental. It was his goal. “I like to interact. I like to share. I like to have fun doing my work,” he says.
Today, his days are a mix of overseeing message queues, supporting his team, acting as a Tech Support “Watcher” (the person keeping an eye on all the moving pieces), and helping lead one of Tech Support’s biggest initiatives: the migration of VPS customers to our new Podman infrastructure.
He was part of a previous VPS system migration years ago, but this time he’s co-leading the project alongside Greg Valoff, serving as a bridge between Tech Support and Infrastructure.
His role today includes more responsibility. More coordination. More problem-solving. And Lombana totally loves it.
Learning Out Loud
Every Tech Support career comes with at least one “oh no” moment.
For Lombana, it happened earlier in his leadership journey. A change he made triggered a larger issue than he expected.
“I thought I was going to get fired,” Lombana laughs now.
Instead, he was surprised his manager shared a mistake of his own. The conversation shifted quickly from blame to growth: What happened? What did we learn? How do we prevent it next time? A moment Lombana will never forget.
Coming from work environments where hierarchy was rigid and mistakes carried serious consequences, DreamHost’s approach felt radically different. Here, accountability matters, and so does learning. “We’re adults. We fix it. We move on,” Lombana says.
It’s the kind of leadership culture he now works to pass down to his own team.
DreamHost Always Shows Up
When Diego says DreamHost changed his life, he genuinely means it.
In 2019, one of his closest friends, and a fellow DreamHost employee, passed away unexpectedly. Leadership sent condolences and reached out personally. The company covered travel expenses so Lombana could attend the funeral and continued supporting his friend’s wife financially for months afterward.
They even compiled coworkers’ messages into a printed book and mailed it to her.
“For someone who had only been here six months, that was mind-blowing,” Lombana says.
It reinforced what he already believed: this is a company that treats people like people. It’s also where his wife, Natalie (Nats), built her own path, starting in Tech Support before being recruited to the People Team.
“This is the place where no matter your background, you will find your place,” Lombana says.
Pets (So Many Pets!), Consoles, and Creativity
Outside of work, Lombana’s life is just as full.
When he and Pedraza moved in together, they combined their two-cat households and quickly grew to five (a stray with attitude made sure of that).
Then came Rupert, their golden retriever, acquired after Lombana jokingly gave Pedraza a seemingly impossible five-minute deadline to find a dog (She, naturally, finished the task in a highly efficient two minutes flat). But the menagerie didn’t stop there. Most recently, they welcomed another dog, Reba, and a cold-blooded roommate, Carmela the gecko, proving that Lombana’s jokes have costly, four-legged (and no-legged) consequences.
Outside of keeping the seven pets in order, Lombana spends his spare time building detailed Gundam model kits—some taking up to 50 hours to complete—and logging impressive hours on his favorite Xbox driving game.
Lombana’s philosophy: No shame and no filter. Enjoy what you love. (Cheers to that!)
Finding His Place at DreamHost
Lombana maintains a healthy perspective and humanity, finding balance as he logs off around 4 p.m. each day. He takes a moment to reflect on his accomplishments, noting, “I did this. I did this. OK, I didn’t finish that, I’ll do it tomorrow.”
From rep to project lead. From learning hard lessons to teaching them. From navigating infrastructure migrations to seven-mile walks with a golden retriever who refuses to log his own steps. Lombana’s journey is about trust, culture, and finding a place where you’re allowed to learn out loud.
Want to work with people like Lombana? Check out our careers page and discover what else makes DreamHost’s culture so special. Next month, meet our Technical Support Project Coordinator, an advocate for women in tech, and a self-proclaimed “mom” to ten demanding pets!