10 Nuggets from my 10 years in Tech
“I see your profile and I am like, I always admire you Kevin.” That’s a comment from a mentee on LinkedIn. Not long ago, I had nothing to offer, absolutely nothing!
2024 marks 10 years since I transitioned from being a person whose only job was to learn (student) to a person whose job was to learn and solve problems for a living using technology (working professional).
Over those years, I have gone through the paces of experiencing the best and not-so-best that the world has to offer. So I was invited for my first speaking engagement of 2024 by Bill of BengoHub to speak during the session on Exploring Different Career Paths in Tech with an emphasis on my Cloud Computing Career Journey and that was the motivation behind this article.
I did a retrospective of my Career Journey over the past decade, curated 10 nuggets that I shared with the attendees, and immortalized them here so that you and I can always lean on them from time to time. So let’s get started and as we move on all photo credits go to their respective owners.
About Me
Let’s keep it precise. Here are some of my Career Highlights:
10+ years of industry experience
Cloud Consultant and Developer, Data Alma
ODeL Coordinator and Comp. Academy Manager
Certified Educator (Computer Science, Cybersecurity, AI/ML, Data Analytics)
ALX Gold Fellow
AWS Community Builder
AWS New Voices Graduate
AWS Academy Lead and Builder Project Reviewer
Hold Industry Certs and Badges across AWS, Microsoft, Huawei, Cisco, Google and Atlassian
Atlassian Community Leader and Atlassian Creator
Campus Outreach Lead — Special Programmes Committee, ISACA Kenya Chapter
Huawei ICT Academy Instructor
CISCO Networking Academy Lead Instructor
Write the Docs Kenya Core Team Member
Project Management enthusiast
and more….
Rejections
So you thought I would list all my rejections and being snubbed here? Hell to the no! But I can tell you that I have been rejected, ignored, and intimidated by people more times than all the titles and roles I have held combined.
The most memorable ones have been the ones where I was rejected for say a mentorship role then invited as a guest expert and another where I was snubbed to become a trainer and then get invited to train the instructors.
The most important thing about rejections is to understand that they are inevitable and you need to embrace them, learn from them, and move on pretty quickly from them.
So let’s get it on with the nuggets I curated from my 10-year journey in Tech with the help of authors, tech personalities, philosophers, and martial artists!
Nugget 1: Be Patient and Calm
The Master has failed more times than the Beginner has even tried!
“Every master was once a beginner. Every pro was once an amateur.” — Robin S. Sharma
Be patient with yourself and others.
The reality on the ground is that the pressure to appear successful is real and it’s not as easy as simply saying do not let anyone put you under pressure. It’s excruciatingly painful when everyone around you seems successful and you are not.
It takes a supportive confidant to believe in yourself. Can you imagine getting a cut-off grade being excited, going to do University Course selection revision only to find your name not on the list? That was me years back.
After paying, queuing (those days it wasn’t done online), and realizing maybe if you were female only then would you have qualified to join the campus for the course of your dreams? It was super devastating to go back and tell my family that I wouldn’t be joining campus under a Government Scholarship considering no one could afford SSP.
But it took a simple statement of hope from my dad:
“One day you will join campus to do Computer Science”
3 years later (Including waiting 2 years as it was then) I joined campus and aced that degree with the Best First Class in the Faculty without much study because I went to pursue what I love.
Got a Master's Scholarship and the rest is history. But it took hope and passion! There is hope regardless of Grade and passion to do what sets a fire in your soul.
Remember that long-term consistency trumps short-term intention so just start and stay consistent.
The irony is by the time I was being summoned to go to campus after my elder sister settled, I was by then comfortable with the possibility of never having to join campus. It came as a surprise more than an actualization of the hope. Why? I had chosen to be patient an calm.
But since I witnessed the sacrifice that she went through just to make sure I also joined campus, I decided to make the most of that and replicated that for my smaller sister who had to start from TVET and completed her studies last year.
I update them of my accomplishments and recognitions and Dad always reminds me of the day I had given up just to remind me of the turning point moment.
Being a trainer has cultivated patience in myself and others.
Learning something new can’t result in instant skills, Mastery = 10,000 Hours (repeatedly on the same thing)
I fear not the man who has practiced 10000 kicks once but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times — Bruce Lee
Some noteworthy books you need to read: Atomic Habits by James Clear, Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker and GRIT by Angela Duckworth
Nugget 2: Explore fully
Man cannot discover new oceans unless he dares to lose sight of the shore.
Before jumping onto a career path because of how prestigious it sounds explore.
Be knowledgeable in most technologies and be a master in two or three. Mine is Cloud, Cybersecurity, and AI/ML
Before I settled on these three although I had and still have a strong interest in Networking, Web and Mobile Development, Graphic Design, UI/UX, Database Administration, Blockchain, E-commerce, Governance, Risk, Information Systems Audit, Compliance oops let me stop there it seems I am interested in almost every technology.
This was my choosing to lose sight of the shore. There was no way I could explore fully if I was considering Medicine, Agriculture, Social Sciences, Law, etc. The best I could do was to analyze the interaction between these fields and what I was deep-diving into.
Nugget 3: (Literally) Draw your Vision Board
The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision
I came to realize that daydreaming isn’t too bad after all. I enjoy “building castles in the air”. Only to realize there is a productive outcome of this process in my career called a Vision Board. Wow! Ever since then I have envisioned accomplishments through my Vision Board and been grateful to see them come to life in the short term and long term. Talk about being the author and artist of your own life!
I read this book by Alice Ngigi called Take Control of Your Life Now: Create a Vision Board and it really transformed my understanding of how to create vision boards and make them actionable.
Nugget 4: Work Backwards
Start and stick with your customers and their needs, you will never go wrong.
I learned this from the Amazon Leadership Principle: Working Backwards.
‘Working Backwards’ is a process that starts with your customers and their needs. It encourages you to envision your desired outcome, a product or service that truly benefits your customer, and then work backward to realize it. It’s all about beginning with the end in mind.
Start by answering the five crucial customer questions — Who is the customer? What is the customer’s problem or opportunity? What is the most important customer benefit? How do you know what customers need or want? What does the customer experience look like? These answers will lay the foundation for your Press Release, FAQs, and Visuals. If you don’t know what all those three are all about do check the resources section once you get to the end.
Nugget 5: Build Deep and Meaningful Relationships
If you believe business is built on relationships, make building them your business
Fred Swaniker, Co-Founder of the Africa Leadership Group and African Leadership University distilled this for me in a profound way. He talks about the four steps to relationship building that starts from the connection. Let me share highlights from the article before you check it out.
As a result of this connection, you exchange business cards, email addresses, or phone numbers. There is usually a promise/expectation to follow up on both sides. However, in my and Fred’s experience, only a tiny fraction of those connections move to the next phase of continuous interaction.
It’s crucial that the connection feels mutual. If you find yourself doing all the ‘chasing’, then this is not a relationship the other person is interested in. It’s probably best to leave things alone. The next phase, which only comes after several months (or in some cases, years!) of continuous interaction, is ‘Trust’. Trust is derived from a combination of integrity, consistency, and delivery. Phase 3 is really about showing that **you’re a doer with integrity** and can be trusted to deliver with excellence. The world is full of talkers and not enough doers. People want to see that you’re a doer.
Only once you have reached the stage of ‘Trust’ do you move to the final stage of relationship-building, ‘Collaboration’. In this final stage, you agree to do something longer-term with each other.
Remember:
Don’t rush the process
Hold back from the ask.
Everyone in the room is worth talking to
Don’t chase people because you think you can get something out of them
Be authentic
Nugget 6: Be a go-giver the world has enough go-getters!
If you believe business is built on relationships, make building them your business
Bob Burg’s classic book, The Go-Giver summarizes this nugget for me so beautifully. If you haven’t read the book you better rush to your nearest bookstore after you finish reading this article or set a reminder if you can’t do it right after.
If you’ve already read this book, the Five Laws of Stratospheric Success provide the essence of this nugget. I can’t count how much I would have in my bank if all that I have given in value, the people I have served, the authenticity, and the influence I have amassed could be traded for dollars. However despite all that I am still open to receiving from others at any opportunity so that I have more to give. So the laws in summary are:
The Law of Value: Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.
The Law of Compensation: Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.
The Law of Influence: Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.
The Law of Authenticity: The most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself.
The Law of Receptivity: The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving.
Nugget 7: Adopt adaptable and resilient mindsets
Mindset is what separates the best from the rest.
Adaptability implies a sense of personal choice, of purposefully navigating — rather than being driven by — changing circumstances while Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. Resilience gives you the ability to bounce forward with new insights and learning you can carry into the future.
Remember that mindsets are the belief filters between you and reality. When the Late Kimani Maruge became the World’s Oldest Pupil people had a lot to say but I am sure by the time he died having met the then President Late Mwai Kibaki he had inspired many including himself by choosing an adaptable and creating mindset Mindsets influence what you perceive, how you feel, and how you behave. They impact your ability to learn and, ultimately, the success and satisfaction you will experience.
You and I all have the capacity to change our mindsets and behaviors, and, consequently, our outcomes, for the better. You can choose a fixed mindset (“A challenge is a test that I pass or fail, based on my inherent abilities. If I am not already good at something, I will not do well.”) or a growth mindset (“I can learn to do anything I want. Challenges and mistakes are opportunities for learning and development.”)
You can choose an expert mindset (“I should already know the answer. I should perform during a challenge by having the answers.”) or a curious mindset (“I am going to ask a lot of questions, explore, and discover. I can learn a lot from trying something new.”) You can choose a reactive mindset (“I need to identify the problem and what is causing it so I can apply tested, well-practiced solutions to bring the situation under control.”) or a creative mindset (“I need to lead with purpose. I will empower myself and others to explore new possibilities and experiment our way to an innovative solution.”) I owe most of these learnings to the McKinsey Forward Program.
Nugget 8: Do more with less.
Automate, Delegate, Decline
If there is something that I came to understand its importance when it comes to productivity is the power of Chunking, Rapid Planning Method (RPM), and Saying No. We definitely don’t like telling people NO and being told NO yet we should embrace since it is key in setting boundaries. Acclaimed Speaker Tony Robbins explains these theories of doing more with less.
Chunking is the grouping together of information into ideally sized pieces so they can be used effectively to produce the outcome you want without stress or shutdown. It is the basis of the RPM System.
The RPM system is different from any other time or life management system out there. In fact, it’s not a time or life management system at all. It’s a system of thinking. And it works by focusing you on the key results that are most important in your life — not on your activity or to-do list.
As I always say, you are in tech you need to know how to automate boring manual and repetitive tasks, if you can’t automate a particular thing then delegate it and if it has come from someone and it is not aligned with your goals, decline it. If it aligns with your work or business goals then schedule it in the order of its priority.
Nugget 9: Understand the business side of things. Be Frugal!
Without frugality, none can be rich, and with it, very few would be poor.
Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon.com, always has fantastic keynotes, especially during the Amazon Web Services Conference re:Invent held in Las Vegas towards the end of each year. T In 2023 he delivered “Frugal Architect” where he outlined 7 Laws to groups covering three key areas: 3 Laws in Design and 2 Laws each in Measure and Optimize with this overarching message; “Build cost-aware, sustainable, and modern architectures.”
In my 10-year Career Journey I have never seen a customer become angry because you told them that they have got an opportunity to spend less on a service or an opportunity to make more money from the service that they are offering. So what does this mean? Dr. Vogels concisely paints the picture from the lenses of a builder through the following 7 Laws with some excerpts from each:
Law I Make Cost a Non-functional Requirement. The math is simple: if costs are higher than your revenue, your business is at risk.
Law II Systems that Last Align Cost to Business. It’s important to find the dimension you’re going to make money over, then make sure the architecture follows the money.
Law III Architecting is a Series of Trade-Offs. It’s crucial to find the right balance between your technical and business needs — to find the sweet spot that aligns with your risk tolerance and budget.
Law IV Unobserved Systems Lead to Unknown Costs. “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Tracking utilization, spending, errors, and more, is crucial for cost management. The return on investment in observability typically far outweighs the expense. keeping costs in the forefront encourages sustainable practices.
Law V Cost Aware Architectures Implement Cost Controls. A common approach is tiering components by criticality. Tier 1 components are essential; optimize regardless of cost. Tier 2 components are important but can be temporarily scaled down without major impact. Tier 3 components are “nice-to-have”; make them low-cost and easily controlled.
Defining tiers enables trade-offs between cost and other requirements. Granular control over components optimizes both cost and experience. Infrastructure, languages, databases should all be tunable. Architect and build systems with revenue and profit in mind. Cost optimization must be measurable and tied to business impact.
Law VI Cost Optimization is Incremental. What may seem like small optimizations accumulate into large savings at scale. There is always room for improvement… if we keep looking. The savings we reap today fund innovation for tomorrow.
Law VII Unchallenged Success Leads to Assumptions. Software teams often fall into the trap of assuming their current technologies, architectures, or languages will always be the best choice, simply because they have worked in the past. This can create a false sense of security that discourages questioning the status quo or exploring new options which could be more efficient, cost-effective, or scalable.
As Grace Hopper famously stated, one of the most dangerous phrases in the English language is: “We’ve always done it this way.”
And onto the final nugget…
Nugget 10: Work hard, Play Hard!
Stay curious, keep learning, and celebrate all wins no matter how small they seem to you.
The only way I have been able to thrive and not survive in the ruthless tech industry is not take everything too seriously. Your health, personal well-being, and family matters. The only way to take care of these aspects of your life is to take time off your screen including your phone screen and go out there and experience life, nature and physical human interaction. Clap for yourself before you clap for others. It reminds me of Snoop Dogg’s famous speech where he celebrates none other than himself.
If you check out my LinkedIn (I am most active there), I celebrate myself more than I do others. I write a post and pat myself on the back though not literally but by reading and re-reading and just feeling proud of the post and the win I am writing about. So if that makes us have a circle of influence then why should you be intimidated to a point of dimming your own shine?
We are extra(odd)inary so a bonus nugget needs to th to be thrown in just to make things odd.
Bonus Nugget: Support others in their quest to build the community.
Community is not a competition and there can never be enough voices in the community
Help people amplify their voices and inspire others by supporting their quest to make the world a better place. You can start by supporting me today.
I believe my roles speak for themselves, I have more community and volunteering roles than I have income or self-serving roles. What does this mean?
As at the time of writing this article, I am a Top Cloud Computing Voice and Top Database Development Voice on LinkedIn. I earned those badges for contributing to articles suggested by LinkedIn and most importantly the community acknowledging that my contributions are helpful to the community.
I lead an Atlassian community of Developers, entrepreneurs and Startup Owners of about 600 and growing and I recently joined the Atlassian Creators Program where I share content related to teamwork and collaboration and best practices on Atlassian Tools which I came to know about while Volunteering for an Indian Non-Profit Organization supporting People living with Disabilities to gain skills for Employability. Do you see how these roles circle back on a genuine desire to help others in their quest to make the world a better place?
I can go on and on but let’s wrap this article up…
Conclusion
What a ride that was! From knowing my motivations, some of the titles I (temporarily) hold to the meat of the matter, my 10 Nuggets. So there we have it my 10 Nuggets in 10 years in tech where we have looked at:
- Nugget 1: Be Patient and Calm
- Nugget 2: Explore fully
- Nugget 3: (Literally) Draw your Vision Board
- Nugget 4: Work Backwards
- Nugget 5: Build Deep and Meaningful Relationships
- Nugget 6: Be a go-giver the world has enough go-getters!
- Nugget 7: Adopt adaptable and resilient mindsets
- Nugget 8: Do more with less.
- Nugget 9: Understand the business side of things. Be Frugal!
- Nugget 10: Work hard, Play Hard! - - Bonus Nugget : Support others in their quest to build the community
If I were to choose one Nugget and run with it, I would run with Nugget 5: Build Deep and Meaningful Relationships because I strongly believe in the power of the Human Connection as well as the Divine. Investing in deep and meaningful relationships would anchor the rest of the nuggets.
I leave you with my Elevator Pitch from the ALN Annual Gathering 2023: Beats of Boldness held in Kigali, Rwanda in November. This pitch is special because I took the bold step to grab the opportunity to address leaders from Africa and beyond albeit for 30 seconds and worked on this African Leadership Group (ALG) Power of Boldness Presentation along with some of the best minds of the ALG:
Having enjoyed that read and getting insights from it, what better way to show appreciation than to leave a clap, follow, and share the same with your network in the spirit of being a Go-Giver?
The journey never ends it only gets better…
Resources
KevCloud YouTube Channel — https://youtube.com/@kevcloud
Take Control of Your Life Now: Create a Vision Board: https://nuriakenya.com/product/take-control-of-your-life-now-create-a-vision-board-by-alice-ngigi/
Working Backwards Book — https://www.amazon.com/Working-Backwards-Insights-Stories-Secrets/dp/1250267595
Working Backwards Linked Article by Jean Charles — https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/reimagining-problem-solving-comprehensive-look-jean-charles
Amazon’s Working Backwards Process — https://www.hustlebadger.com/what-do-product-teams-do/amazon-working-backwards-process/
Four Steps of Relationship Building — https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/4-steps-relationship-building-fred-swaniker
Go-Giver Book — https://www.amazon.com/Go-Giver-Expanded-Little-Powerful-Business/dp/1591848288
Adaptability and Resilience Course by UC Davis — https://www.coursera.org/learn/adaptability-and-resiliency
McKinsey Forward Program — https://www.mckinsey.com/forward/overview
Tony Robbins: Do more with Less — https://www.tonyrobbins.com/ask-tony/do-more-with-less
Tony Robbins: Chunking — https://www.tonyrobbins.com/productivity-performance/power-of-chunking/
Tony Robbins: How to Ditch your To-Do List: https://www.tonyrobbins.com/productivity-performance/how-to-ditch-your-todo-list/
Werner Vogels: The Frugal Architect — https://www.thefrugalarchitect.com/
