I had someone reach out to me with the following questions:
I would value your perspective on:
Technical Growth: How to transition from feature development to architectural thinking (CI/CD, Cloud Infrastructure, Scalability).
Career Strategy: Advice on positioning myself for opportunities (perhaps in the US market) where I can solve more complex engineering problems.
The Bigger Picture: Given my goal to eventually build an IT firm here in Ghana, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what technical foundations I need to master now to lead engineering teams in the future.
This was my response:
For technical growth, I had to build that credibility bit by bit. I started by trying to be the person who could best articulate the reasoning behind our decisions. For much of my work, that meant diagramming. I began creating diagrams and documentation that went beyond my individual tasks, so I could point back to them and help others build a shared understanding of the work.
I did some self-directed study on systems thinking models. There are plenty out there, and learning to understand how systems work and approach them more holistically was a big part of my growth. Being someone who can step back and think about things at an abstract level is very important, and it’s something you need to practice. Donella Meadows “Thinking In Systems” and Derek Cabrera’s “Systems Thinking Made Simple” are ones I go back to regularly.
In many cases, you can practice this through feature development work. Start by modeling those small-scale features. Even if they’re simple block diagrams with three or four pieces, you can see how they interact and get feedback from others. Then look for ways to model larger and larger systems or parts of the system, even abstractly. This builds those reps and helps you develop the credibility to tackle more complex architectural issues.
For career growth, purposeful networking was key for me. When I started shifting my career, I did that by organizing Startup Weekend events. I knew I wanted to change my trajectory and do more interesting work, so I decided to organize Startup Weekend - the first one in Dayton, Ohio. These events are amazing, especially on the organizational side, for meeting people. As an organizer, I had to talk to lots of with more experience than me who would become mentors, judges, and volunteers. I had to do hard things like fundraising and negotiating for a facility. These are challenging projects where you can excel and be your own boss, but they also come with support. At that time, the people who ran Startup Weekend nationally and globally provided substantial support, documentation, and resources to lean on. This made it much easier for me as a newcomer to take on the challenge.
There are people I met at that first event that I still talk with regularly. That event also started to build my name in the local area, and that’s how I grew my network. Most of the jobs I’ve had over my career came from relationships that started there.
The bigger picture for me comes down to career growth and technical growth decisions. It’s much easier to grow a business when you have a network of collaborators and supporters who are willing to help you succeed. The systems thinking approach brings tremendous clarity to technical communication. Being able to solve hard problems and describe how you solve them is incredibly important.
Personally, I’m technology-agnostic - I don’t have strong preferences for particular cloud platforms or systems. Part of being a successful IT firm is remaining flexible and finding the collaborators you need for each situation. I’d start by exploring the partner programs for the various providers to see which can be leveraged most effectively. AWS Partners (I think) can get some reduced-cost cloud resources, Atlassian has a fairly generous Partner program, and Creatio seems good at bringing implementation partners into deal flow. These sorts of programs need to be balanced against how effective and popular they are given your target customer segment and the time-cost to participate. They all have training requirements that must be hit to stay active in the program.