Kickstarting Your Tech Career: Thriving in the Age of AI, Cloud, and You

A pep talk to anyone on the spectrum of being a final year student, to a fresh grad, to a junior engineer who has just entered the industry. Mental models, frameworks, skills to consider and wisdom from a 21+ years veteran on how to navigate their careers with the current AI onslaught.

Transcript

1. 1 Kickstarting Your Tech Career Thriving in the Age of AI, Cloud, and You
2. >> 21+ years, Backend engineer to Solutions Architect/Team lead, led AWS Developer Advocacy in the region >> Community builder ASEAN and MENA, UAE Coding ambassador @ coders(hq) >> Mentorship in technical leadership and how to build a career path in tech > whoami
3. You @ 22 years ago
4. Evolution of the Developer Persona
5. In simpler times… A developer would design a basic UI and focus on the backend logic A DB architect would manage the schema A sys admin would manage the provisioning and maintenance of servers
6. In simpler times…
7. Evolution of technology Browsers became OS, Internet became the platform Explosion of languages, frameworks, and purpose-built databases From servers to containers to cloud-native infra AI and automation now integrated into everyday tools
8. Developers now
9. Cloud engineer? Some call them: • Site Reliability Engineers SREs • Platform Engineers • Infrastructure Engineers • DevOps Engineers • Build and Release Engineers • Automation Engineers • Operations Engineers • And sometimes... just "IT & Cloud Support"
10. Not one of todayʼs Cloud engineers grew up as a kid imagining becoming one. IT Sage
11. Job titles arenʼt what they seem Developers wearing multiple hats, majority consider themselves to be more than one type of developer - with DBAs, SREs, and Security professionals reporting the most variety. On average each of these roles reported being seven other developer types.
13. Be flexible. You are paid for outcomes, not labels.
15. Learn skills that stick • UNIX shell (1971), PowerShell (2006) • Vim (1990), Notepad++ (2003) • SQL (1974) • Python (1991), Java (1995) • Go (2009), Rust (2015? • Kubernetes YAML (2014? ˮThe longer a technology lives, the longer it can be expected to live.ˮ - Nassim N. Taleb (way of Mandelbrot, aka Lindy Principle)
16. A Day in the Life of…
17. A Day in the Life of… 🛠 0930  Standup: syncing with backend/devs 🔍 1100  Debug failed deploy 🤝 1300  Infra code review 🚒 1500  Handle on-call alert 📈 1700  Check dashboard / write postmortem
18. Learn. Ask. Shadow. Own small things. Ask smarter questions. Influence others. Lead by action. Your First 25 Years Year 1 Year 23 Year 45
19. How to Grow When You're Just Starting
20. Mental Models Itʼs not just technical skill. Itʼs mental clarity, human connection, and consistency.
21. Shu-Ha-Ri: Growth in Stages
22. If I wanted to fail in this new AI era... Inversion principle
23. Tools change. Foundations donʼt. First Principles Thinking
24. Advice to younger self Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Donʼt take blockers to your manager without options. Feedback is a gift. Silence is a warning.
25. Learn the business domain in which you work.
26. Say what you mean, and mean what you say.
27. Do what you say you will do. Escalate early if you canʼt.
28. Hitting roadblocks on a project? Don't go to your manager without potential solutions or alternatives.
29. Learn how to negotiate.
30. Learn to appreciate criticism. No criticism is a sign of apathy.
31. Navigating Workplace Dynamics 👥 Peers → Collaborate, learn together 💻 Seniors → Ask better questions, observe quietly 👔 Managers → Manage up with clarity and timing
32. Generalist vs Specialist
33. Generalist vs Specialist
34. Set goals and track milestones to achieve them.
35. Have patience with others, and with yourself.
36. The grass is greener where you water it.
37. You canʼt control whether others trust you. But you can control the energy you bring - by choosing to trust first.
38. Persistent hard work, beats natural talent. Every time.
40. AI, Fear, and the Value of Being Human
41. Letʼs separate the noise from the signal So is AI taking away jobs?
42. Still figuring it out 63% say that their organizations are using gen AI to create text outputs. Gen AI often used in marketing and sales, product and service development, service operations, and software engineering.
43. The AI Panic Donʼt join the noise, remember the inversion principle
44. Developer Value Perception
45. What AI canʼt replace Empathy Strategy Human-to-human mentorship Domain understanding Real-world constraints and tradeoffs
46. Value ≠ Output Metrics Impact # of lines of code Working feature Attendance Engagement Slide decks Shipped product Defining value
47. Stay Curious, Stay Relentless Curious 🧠 — you explore Relentless 💪 — you persist Brave 🧭 — you question Human 🤝 — you connect
48. The future is being built. Be one of the builders.
49. Bonus
50. Challenge, if you dare to accept Publish your first blog and/or social media post on something you have learnt today 100200 words). If technical, create a repo for the sample code/configuration/steps on Github. Give a talk in a community event on what you delivered as value!!
52. If You Remember Nothing Else… Be flexible with your title, but own your outcomes Learn boring tools - they survive Donʼt just code - think clearly Start with trust - full battery mode AI isnʼt replacing people who deliver real value
53. Q&A
54. Whatʼs one thing youʼre still unsure about your career path? What scares you the most about tech? Whatʼs one skill you want to master this year?