Great IT service comes down to people. The engineer who answers your call, the technician who walks into your office and the analyst watching your network overnight are what our clients actually experience. That’s why we’re as careful about who joins CAL IT Group as we are about the technology we deploy.
Led by 55+ Years of Combined IT Experience
Our team is led by co-founders Kevin Nichols and Joe Kemp — a highly technical leadership team with 55+ years of combined IT experience — from Navy and Department of Justice network engineering to leading IT teams for the military, government, Fortune 500 companies and fast-growing startups. They personally assess every hire, stay hands-on with our engineers and clients, and take perfection seriously. Good enough is never the standard here; getting it right, every time, is.
We Hire for Personality
Skills can be taught; character can’t. We look for people who are genuinely friendly, patient and curious — people who enjoy helping others and take pride in getting things right. When you call us, you should talk to someone who is glad to help, explains things in plain language and treats your problem like it matters, because it does.
There’s another reason personality matters so much here: we all work in the office, together, every day. Our help desk, engineers, NOC, SOC and leadership share the same space on Main Street, so the people you work beside shape your day as much as the work itself. We want teammates who are easy to work with, who lift others up and who are all pulling in the same direction — taking care of our clients.
That means no office politics. No turf wars, no blame games and no hidden agendas — just a team that shares what it knows, owns its mistakes, gives credit freely and solves problems together. It makes CAL IT Group a better place to work, and our clients feel the difference on every call.
Every Hire Proves It
A great personality gets you an interview. It doesn’t get you the job. Every employee completes a technical assessment conducted by our leadership team — engineers who know exactly what good looks like — and must demonstrate five things:
- 01
Technical competence
Real, hands-on problem solving — not memorized answers. Candidates work through the kinds of issues our clients actually face.
- 02
Attention to detail
We look for people who check their work, follow the process and think before they click. In IT, careful is what keeps your business running and your data safe.
- 03
Impeccable customer service
Clear communication, patience and follow-through. We’re a customer service organization first, and every hire must show it.
- 04
A desire to learn
Technology never stands still, and neither do we. We hire people who are curious, ask good questions and want to get better every week — then we invest in their training and certifications.
- 05
Humility
The best engineers admit what they don’t know, ask for help early and give credit to the team. No egos — just people who put getting it right for the client ahead of being right.
Rigorous Background Checks
Our team has access to your systems, your data and your offices, so trust is non-negotiable. Every employee goes through a rigorous background check before they’re hired, and our processes for access and security are independently verified by our SOC 2 Type II audit across all five Trust Services Criteria.
We Overstaff — On Purpose
Most MSPs staff their teams to 80–90% utilization, so every engineer is booked nearly every hour of the day. We don’t do that. Managed IT runs in ebbs and flows — a Monday-morning rush, an outage that hits several clients at once, a big project landing in the same week as a new client — and a team running at 90% has nothing left when those moments come. So we deliberately staff above what the workload requires.
- Balance
A team that isn’t overburdened
Busy weeks are absorbed by the whole team, not piled onto a few people — so our engineers have a real work-life balance and bring their best to every call.
No burnout - Proactive
Time to get ahead of problems
Spare capacity goes into the work that prevents tickets: reviewing monitoring alerts, keeping documentation current, cleaning up recurring issues and improving our processes.
Monitoring · documentation - Learning
Always someone to turn to
Engineers always have a teammate with time to help. Our process dictates that a tech never works on something they’ve never seen before without someone who has — so people learn on the job and clients get it done right.
Collaboration - Response
Calls answered fast
With enough engineers on every shift, 96%LIVE of calls are answered by an engineer in under 60 seconds — and we publish the numbers live.
Live metrics
We do this because our work marries two jobs that are each stressful on their own: customer service and technology. Doing both well, every day, takes a team with room to breathe — and that’s the team we’ve built.
A Highly Collaborative Team
We don’t do silos or “not my ticket.” Our help desk, field engineers, NOC, SOC and leadership work side by side, share what they learn and pull in the right expert the moment a problem needs one. Every client benefits from the experience of the whole team, not just one technician — and our leadership stays hands-on alongside them every day.
In the Heart of Downtown Huntington Beach
Our office sits in the heart of downtown Huntington Beach — Surf City USA. It’s a dynamic, exciting place to work, on Main Street, steps to the pier, and it shows in the energy our team brings to every call. Being local also means we’re close to the businesses we support across Orange County and Southern California.
Heavy Investment in Our People and Technology
We invest heavily in the tools our team uses and in the people who use them. Our engineers work with best-of-breed, industry-leading technology, and we keep raising the bar on their skills:
- Conferences — our team attends industry and security conferences to stay ahead of what’s next.
- Ongoing training — regular hands-on training on the platforms we support and the threats our clients face.
- Certifications — we support our engineers in earning and maintaining industry certifications.
- Mentorship — every engineer learns side by side with our senior team and founders, with real feedback on every ticket and project.
The result is a team that keeps getting better — and clients who feel the difference every time they call. We back that up with strong benefits and 26 paid days off a year, so good people stay. See our benefits on the Careers page →
Meet Penny, Our Chief Morale Officer
Every great team needs someone who keeps spirits high, and ours happens to be a golden retriever. Penny comes to the office every day and takes her role as Chief Morale Officer very seriously.
- Response time: under 5 seconds to anyone who looks like they need a break — faster than our phone SLA, and she’d like that noted.
- Specialties: moral support after a tough call, celebrating closed tickets, and quality-checking every lunch delivery.
- Certifications: Good Girl (lifetime), plus an advanced specialization in leaning against people who need it most.
- Known issues: sheds slightly more than our documentation standards allow. A fix is not planned.
Penny doesn’t answer the phones, but she’s a big part of why the people who do are smiling when they pick up.
Meet the Team Behind Your IT
See the difference a carefully hired, fully staffed local team makes — starting with a free look at your network.
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Want to work here? See careers at CAL IT Group →