11 Things IT Professionals Wish They Knew Earlier in Their Careers
What would you do differently if you had the chance to start your IT career all over again? We asked seasoned tech pros for advice that they would pass on, and here’s what they had to say.
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IT is an incredibly dynamic career path because business models and technology paradigms are changing constantly. Now imagine time travel is possible. You've just started your career as an IT professional. Like other newbies, you're excited and greener than you think. What advice would you give your less experienced self? What would you do differently and how might that have affected your career? We asked seasoned IT professionals those very questions and their advice is sound.
For example, some people flock to companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Google because doing so can result in higher paying jobs and resumes that rise to the top of the virtual pile. Before you're even hired you imagine how landing that job is going to change your life or propel you closer to your dream -- a dream house, a dream car, a dream partner, world travel. But what if your personality isn't a fit? What if your assumptions about what you're going to learn misses the mark?
For example, Ramakrishna R, CTO and co-founder of skincare app CureSkin, started his career at Google. After a decade he left to start a company just to shut it down six months later. Later, he founded CureSkin, which was selected by Y Combinator and Google Launchpad and is backed by Khosla Ventures.
"I learned more in the first year of my startup journey than in 10 years at Google," he said. "The biggest advantage of Google is you get exposed to the latest best practices, but many things are already built, and you would never know about them. In a startup, you're building everything from scratch and exposed to more parts of the system. If you have a choice, joint a fast-growing startup instead of a big [multinational corporation] like Google."
Maybe you've already reasoned that being a small point in a vast corporate universe isn't for you, or maybe it is. Either way, you decide to pursue the largest financial package possible.
"I honestly kick myself now thinking about the years I spent working 12-14 hours days for companies that made excuses about training, blankly listened to suggestions on how to improve, and made me feel like I and every staff member were expendable -- but paid me above the going rate for my skill set," said Lia Edwards, CIO at security monitoring solutions company Threat Protect. "If I’d have found a company that I love working for and with and was genuinely interested in my professional and personal growth, [I] would’ve felt more fulfilled at a much earlier stage and much happier along the way."
Rampant disruption is the way of the modern world and the pace of it has accelerated over the years. Even the disrupters are not safe from disruption themselves, which is why Amazon is constantly disrupting itself.
Nelson Ford, founder and principal solutions architect at AWS consulting firm Pilotcore Systems, started building websites as a hobby in the mid-1990s but it wasn't until the dotcom bubble was in full swing that he realized that his passion was his career calling. "Had I made that decision just two years earlier, I would have ridden that whole wave. [Instead,] I cut my teeth in a pretty dismal environment," said Ford. "[D]isruptive technologies are building momentum all the time, but it's not always obvious, and people don't always take it seriously. Read up, stay on top of developments [because] what you're doing today isn't what you'll be doing tomorrow."
Rahul Mahna, managing director of managed security services at accounting and advisory firm EisnerAmper, said if he'd known early on that he'd have to pivot every few years he would have made more of an effort to get ahead of changes and prepare for them. "The more proactive one is in the industry, one can see the changes coming and adjust their choice of technologies and performance and be sought after more as a leader," said Mahna.
In most enterprises, executives are focused on growing revenues and increasing profits. Mentors taught Charles Onstott, now CTO and SVP at government services and information technology support company SAIC, that unless new technology is perceived as being able to advance those goals, it's a harder sell. "Understanding the gap between what I saw as an exciting new technology and what executives really cared about earlier in my career would have enabled me to be more selective in technology implementation proposals. And that would have enabled me to better articulate the business value of technology proposals," said Onstott.
Tony Cole, CTO of threat detection solution provider Attivo Networks, wishes he'd understood earlier how important business concepts and skills are to understanding organizational requirements and solutions delivery across an entire company. "If I had additional training in business courses and risk, prior to joining the commercial world, life might have been a little less stressful in catching up with my peers," said Cole. "This is pretty common for former military members joining the workforce after retiring or leaving the service. I was looking up terms for quite some time after joining my first commercial company and read a slew of business books voraciously."
When Stefan Chekanov, CEO of secure messaging app provider Brosix, started his IT career, he was so focused on the technical part that he neglected building the soft skills that could have helped his career. "I wish I knew that being an IT expert requires a full package, especially if you want to scale up. A good IT expert needs to be proficient in the work but must be able to communicate well with coworkers or clients," said Chekanov. "When ignored, this aspect can significantly slow the work process and cause lots of misunderstandings."
Chris Bedi, CIO at cloud computing solution provider ServiceNow, had a similar experience. "To be successful, I have learned the importance of establishing clear lines of communication with every member of the C-suite and with employees of each department. This requires a completely different skillset and mindset than how things worked earlier in my career," said Bedi. "Stronger communication skills would have led to better outcomes with the work I was doing."
Kelly Walsh, CIO at The College of Westchester, learned it's important to be able to understand other people's point of view whether helping someone with a technical issue or working with senior management on a complex, critical project. "[Y]ou need to strive to understand and empathize with their experience. Not only will you be far more likely to earn that person’s trust and establish a strong working relationship, you will also open your own eyes regarding what it is like to be on the other side of that desk," said Walsh. "When you empathize and better understand the problems the user is trying to solve and how they impact them, you can often envision better, more effective and/or more long-term solutions."
IT expert Aidan Fitzpatrick started his IT career at the tender age of 14. He later earned global recognition for creating the world's first data extraction and backup software for Apple products. He's now founder and CEO of iPhone recovery software provider Reincubate, but at 14 he viewed himself as a software engineer instead of a tech entrepreneur. "I didn’t realize is I was really launching a company with all of the management and skill sets associated with a technology enterprise launch," said Fitzpatrick. "Technology leadership requires a much broader set of knowledge than I was focused on building as an engineer. Realizing this would have saved me a lot of time and I'd have made fewer mistakes. It'd also have led to the realization earlier that one needs to be systematic in learning. One has to learn about the process of learning."
Michael Hasenfang, senior infrastructure manager at IoT solutions provider CCC Information Services, wishes he had known that both vertical and horizontal career opportunities would depend on having more than a formal education. "When I figured that out, it accelerated my career by opening new opportunities with the current company as well as with other companies," said Hasenfang. "Utilize the vast amounts of free resources to get experience [with] and knowledge [about] the career you would like to work on [because it will help] you get the job you want. This will also give you direction on what you like/dislike."
IT professionals also need to be smart about finance, which tends not to be apparent in the early days on one's career. "The most difficult connection I had to make in my career was balancing the financial feasibility of deploying a new technology and the hard and soft value that technology returns," said Greg Bentham VP, cloud infrastructure services at global consulting firm Capgemini North America. "As a hardcore technologist, my passion was for the new. However, it was only when I understood the financials that I was able to be stronger in my message to clients as to why what I was proposing mattered to them."
Darron Sun, Head of IT at Hong Kong Housing Society and member of the ISACA Emerging Trends Working Group, originally viewed his career choices as binary. Either he could pursue a career in application development or networking engineering. He chose the former. "I didn’t know there were different career paths such as IT audit, cybersecurity, IT compliance, etc.," said Sun. "Different IT professionals have different strengths. Some are strong in technical skills, some have strong analytical skills, and some are interested in investigation. It is important for those going into the IT profession to understand their strengths and find the right pathway to build their professional career."
Akram Assaf, co-founder & CTO at online recruitment and job search platform Bayt.com, also wishes he knew and understood all the different IT career paths that were available to him. "My tech journey started in the 20th century, and back then we couldn't even imagine IT would look like it does today," said Assaf. "I've done a lot of great things in my career, and I would've made even better and smarter decisions faster if I acknowledged all the possibilities. [My advice is] feel free to experiment with different IT career paths, and don't let anyone pressure you into settling for less. There's a lot of opportunities around, so go ahead and chase them."
Dan Kelly is founder and senior partner of The Negotiator Guru, a company that helps organizations source, negotiate, and manage complex IT contracts. He's also a seasoned CIO. However, his first job at a major tech company served as an eye opener because the company downplayed the fact that the system he'd be working on was in complete disarray. After a few years, he was so burned out he had to move on. "Approach your first IT position with extreme scrutiny [because] there are many tech companies that will take advantage of your naivety and talent," said Kelly. "Watch out for warning signs during the interview process and ask to shadow someone in the role before you take the position."
Sometimes, what's important to career success isn't apparent until one realizes one's own shortcomings such as having too much self-esteem. For example, Richard Bird, chief customer information officer at identity and access management solution (IAM) provider Ping Identity, learned that being smart isn't good enough. "[Knowing that] would have made my first 10 years of managing and leading IT projects, staff and functions so much easier if I had checked my own ego, intellect, and ambitions at the door," said Bird. "I would have learned much earlier in my career about the key soft skills of communication, leadership, negotiation and compromise that deliver results."
On the flip side, being too humble can have ramifications too. For example, when Chris Chipman, senior IT specialist at business formation site ZenBusiness, started his career, he was surprised to discover that IT was popular when things go wrong, and out-of-sight/out-of-mind when things go right. "In the beginning, I advise IT professionals to stay humble and keep your expectations low. Knowing this when I was first starting out would have saved me from a lot of bad feelings and unnecessary frustration," said Chipman. "I had to learn as an IT person that it’s very important to blow your own horn on occasion. Don’t brag, just make sure you let people know when you’ve done something amazing that makes their jobs easier, their data more secure, and their lives better."
Emily Heath, SVP and chief trust & security officer at electronic signature and agreement cloud provider Docusign, didn't understand the importance of professional networking early in her career. "If I had realized earlier in my career that oftentimes, we are all problem solving as we go, not having all the answers is okay, and the smartest people are those who seek out mentors at some point in their professional journeys, I think it would have allowed me to learn much faster and be less critical of my developing skill set," said Heath. " When you’re early on in your career, you can sometimes narrow in so intently on the piece of the puzzle you are responsible for, you don't take the time to pop your head up, take notice of everything else happening around you and talk to people in your network."
Ugur Tigli, CTO at Kubernetes native object storage solution provider MinIO, also underscored the value of networking. "I think I would have been able to reach where I am today a lot faster," said Tigli. "Building an exceptional network of IT professionals and forming good communication and collaboration expertise is imperative to figuring out your specific goals for [your] career trajectory, like what you want to specifically achieve in your time at a company."
Some of the best traits for effective leaders have come naturally to some but not others. Deborah Golden, Deloitte Risk & Financial Advisory's US cyber and security risk leader, had to learn how to stay calm in a crisis. "There is a notion that 'cyber is always on' because we are fighting the uncertain battle against our adversaries -- in effect -- we remain in 'crisis mode.' So my ability to stay calm and collected enables my success as a leader -- no matter the point in my career, because even in the most basic crises, it’s critical to steady yourself and your teams to effectively move through the challenges at hand," said Golden. "If I had not recognized my 'grit factor' -- through a journey of self-reflection -- and their full capacity, it’s possible that my career trajectory would have been impacted and perhaps resulted in a different journey."
One might assume that a four-time founder and three-time CTO was born fearless, but such was not the case for Rob Zuber, CTO of CI/CD platform provider CircleCI, even after his first startup was acquired. "I wish I had been less afraid of failure [because] to learn and grow, you have to experience 'disasters.' It's in those situations that you get out of your comfort zone and ultimately build your confidence," said Zuber. "If you’re constantly trying not to fail, then you’re never going to push yourself to do bigger and better things. Learn as you go, observe patterns and how things turn out, and use those learnings to build your skillset and confidence."
It doesn't take long for an IT professional to realize that change is the only constant. That's precisely what happened to Gregg Ostrowski, regional CTO at application performance management provider AppDynamics, after his first year in which his PC support position expanded to include the company email support and maintenance. "[I]f I had started with the mindset to be on the lookout for new opportunities, there’s a chance my career could have gone another route," said Ostrowski. "You don’t want to be seen as the person maintaining the status quo -- going above and beyond is fruitful for all."
Constant change also impacts the way IT professionals do their jobs. As business and technology release cycles continue to shrink, organizations and IT professionals need to embrace iterative ways of working. For example, David Vidoni, VP of IT at software company Pegasystems, wished he'd known that the best way to implement significant and rapid transformations is to execute incrementally with active collaboration between IT and the business. "Iterating in quicker and smaller increments avoids costly delays and unplanned surprises from stakeholders. It also makes problems easier to tackle," said Vidoni. "[Iteration] also makes problems easier to tackle. Starting smaller makes it easier to engage with business teams and [helps facilitate] conversations [that are] more focused. It also takes some of the pressure away from getting everything right."
Like any new professional, new IT staffers may find themselves unprepared for the reality of corporate politics. Jason Hicks, global CISO at cybersecurity and managed security services and solutions company Kudelski Security, was one. "Understanding how to read the political landscape and successfully navigate it is critical if you want to thrive in any organization. It becomes even more crucial if you want to advance to the management or executive ranks," said Hicks. "Putting more emphasis on understanding the political aspects of our job would have allowed me to advance faster and would have helped me identify companies where the environment was not favorable for my career growth so that I could have moved to a more favorable environment, quicker."
Check out other InformationWeek slideshows.
Like any new professional, new IT staffers may find themselves unprepared for the reality of corporate politics. Jason Hicks, global CISO at cybersecurity and managed security services and solutions company Kudelski Security, was one. "Understanding how to read the political landscape and successfully navigate it is critical if you want to thrive in any organization. It becomes even more crucial if you want to advance to the management or executive ranks," said Hicks. "Putting more emphasis on understanding the political aspects of our job would have allowed me to advance faster and would have helped me identify companies where the environment was not favorable for my career growth so that I could have moved to a more favorable environment, quicker."
Check out other InformationWeek slideshows.
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