Tech Gun for Hire: Lessons From a Pasifika Engineer's Career.

My Top 6 Maxims from Working in Tech Over Two Decades.

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Talofa reader,

I’m often asked by young people wanting to get into tech, "I want to break into tech, what would you recommend I do?"

They ask about Cloud, CyberSecurity, and whether DevOps is the way to go.

Over the years, I find I'm doing two things over and over again:

1. repeating myself in terms of certs and skills I’d recommend,

2. and not providing information that, in my opinion, would be more valuable than certs and skills recommendations.

What’s more important than what certs and skills?

Understanding the corporate game.

The certs and skills you need for roles—that information is all out there on the internet.

What newbies don’t tend to get a heads-up on is the environment they will need to navigate through in order to “have a career”.

A lot of people don't understand the corporate game.

Pasifika, more so, because most of our parents didn't come up this way, so weren't in a position to pass on any knowledge. This perpetuates the trend of very few people from my community venturing out past sports and music careers into the tech world, and so the cycle of limited career and future-proof opportunities continues.

For the few Pasifika that do make it into the tech space, we’re out there individually fending for ourselves. If we’re lucky, we may come across a colleague willing to impart their wisdom of the corporate game to help us out.

Otherwise, we’re destined to learn those lessons the hard way.

I’ve learned a good number of lessons in my two decades working in tech, both nationally and internationally, as a contractor and an employee, in the office and as a fully remote engineer.

I did all that as a Pasifika person (can’t really change that, to be honest), so the lessons I learned, I’d say, are fairly unique in the tech context.

In this week's newsletter, I wanted to share those lessons, all in one place, so I don’t have to keep repeating myself—or at the very least, I know I have these receipts.

Some of it might be a bit tongue-in-cheek, but rest assured, I mean every word.

Walk with me now...