“Your job isn’t to be the smartest person in the room - it’s to identify other people smarter than you at specific things, then convince them to work together”
-me, last Friday-
I recently had the opportunity to do a fireside chat with 60-ish students at my alma mater, NUS. Besides the chance to share a stage with two really smart I’ve had the pleasure of mentoring (shoutout to Charles Lee and Johanna Dy Juanco!), I agreed because the topic was intriguing: how does one navigate 'tech-lite’ roles in the tech sector?
The event was great; the students were engaging, thoughtful and inquisitive. We also had a diversity of experiences between the panelists, which meant we could all go deep into topics from different perspectives. Finally, the 3 of us played pretty well off each others’ humour, which meant a fun event for everyone.
In the spirit of knowledge transfer, I thought it would be useful to share some of the Q&A - I’ll be asking Charles/Johanna to cover their POVs in a future guest post for contrast.
Some housekeeping:
Since this is literally a brain dump, I’m going to edit minimally, and just type how I speak.
I’ve organised the questions into rough categories so you can zoom in wherever you want
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Categories
Roles and Careers
Working in tech
1. Enhancing Employability
How much technical knowledge does one need to know, to move into Tech?
I think you don’t need to be technically proficient, but to really succeed you have to at least be curious, and ideally be well read, about the tech industry. If you’re looking at generalist roles it helps to be knowledgable in a variety of domains: marketing, sales, BD, but also product, design, and a high-level understanding of engineering.What did you do to get yourself into this sector without a (technical) degree? When did you know that you want to be part of this sector?
I can't think of many people in my peer group who didn’t want to work in tech; I was just the lowest performing in terms of academics. I got where I am through a lot of hustle and a little luck 😬. The truth is, the path I took into the tech sector (talent acquisition) didn’t require a technical degree at all; it required someone willing to roll up their sleeves, build a repeatable recruiting process, and execute it to grow our headcount 20x. The path from there unfolded through i) not saying no to opportunities ii) committing and communicating my goals and dreams broadly and iii) being relentless about prioritising learning and growth.Qn: How should you market yourself if you do not have experience in the technology sector as an analyst but have experience in data analysis through previous roles and ask for a comparable/higher salary?
I’ll go with my standard approach for anyone looking to break into a new career vertical: your portfolio doesn’t have to be built at the office. Think about what skill you want to showcase (data analytics, PM-ing, design..), think of some problems that interest you and build a great project around those problems, then showcase those projects broadly. An analyst I worked with at Airbnb and greatly respect wanted to become a data scientist; she began publishing a weekly data science exploration/visualisation, and through doing so i) developed immensely as a data professional and ii) built a strong following around her work. Unsurprisingly, this led to tons of career opportunities. Put out enough quality work and the comp will follow.Qn: In your opinion, what are the top 3 values that fresh graduates need to possess to excel in the workplace?
1. Curiousity
2. Bias to action
3. A healthy disregard for what is, in favour of what could beQn: How do you think people in tech can further differentiate themselves from their peers to stay competitive?
I’m not entirely sure if this is necessary; career moves are rarely a zero sum game, and you being a better/worse tech-adjacent generalist has literally no impact on another person’s ability to do the same. That said I think it can be valuable to i) find a niche in both industry and skillset and ii) develop a reputation/portfolio that speaks for itself.Qn: As an international student, how can you make a company want you enough so that they will do the effort of providing you a visa? Do you need to do extra efforts compared to Singaporeans/PRs?
This is very Singapore-specific; employing non-Singaporeans requires a lengthy and arduous visa process, plus minimum salary requirements. My take is that you leverage your strengths (e.g. language, cultural nuances) to carve out a niche. I’ll let Johanna tackle this fully in her future guest post.eQn: For international students, it seems a little reductive that our biggest sought out trait is simply being able to speak another language. In your opinion, are there any other traits that we as international students may possess?
I’d challenge you to reframe this. It’s not that your “biggest sought out trait is simply being able to speak another language”: the truth is closer to “I’m good at everything the other person can do, and I speak more languages and understand more cultures”.Qn: What would you recommend learning (eg computing language etc) to break into tech lite roles?
I honestly don’t think this is required at all for some generalist roles (Bizops etc), but as a generalist you can’t go wrong with SQL; working with data is table stakes. Personally, I picked up the following, in descending order of proficiency: SQL, R, Python.
2. Roles and Careers
A few of the PM interviews I’ve had were super intimidating because they expected me to be really good at coding, on par with their engineers - how do I navigate that?
I’m not sure if it’s a good sign that a company expects it’s PMs to code at the same level as (or better than) engineers. As a PM but really as any sort of generalist, Your job isn’t to be the smartest person in the room - it’s to identify other people smarter than you at specific things, then convince them to work together. As a PM this might be shaping and articulating the product vision, deeply understanding the customer, or more depending on stage of the company, but it certainly isn’t to beat the engineers at their own game.What do you do as a PM? Was it difficult finding a company that didn’t expect a tech background?
Charles’ post will go into detail on this but I shared my own experience as a PM in a seed-stage company: the reality was that I did everything, from core PM work to working with the eng lead on sprint planning to building ML models. That wasn’t necessarily ideal. I don’t think every company is as hung up on tech backgrounds as we think they are: the company that I worked at mainly cared about domain knowledge. I was one of a handful of people who was deeply involved in people analytics at the time, and that opened doors.Qn: What do you think are some of the biggest mistakes that fresh graduates make when entering the workplace / tech sector?
1. Thinking that work life balance in tech is amazing: most of the time it isn’t
2. Thinking you need to be super technical to add value: not always.
3. Not investing time up front to deeply learn about the company, product, and people
4. Staying too narrow in terms of network, scope, curiousity.Qn: What's the best advice you can give to help plan a career rather than simply work to keep a job?
I’m the worst person to ask this, given that I have no plan, so I reframed my response around how I see things. As a generalist, I don’t think a fixed path does me many favours as it closes a lot of opportunistic doors. Instead I “plan” in 2-3 year sprints, and my plan consists of doing the best work I can while maximising my “serendipity surface area” so that opportunities come knocking. The remaining factors I give high weightage to are 1) does this career choice limit or enable my non-career pursuits and 2) does this career choice enable or limit my curiousity.Qn: What are some underrated books that you would recommend someone looking for personal growth?
There’s a lot of growth books out there - many are BS, some are good, a few are worth your time. The book that most recently helped me reframe my thinking doesn’t have tons of immediate application as an individual, but helped me to see the world less pessimistically and to look for silver linings. I highly recommend Factfulness by Hans Rosling.Qn: Do you feel like ur role as an investigation analyst ties you down since it's a bit niche - how do you weave your career story to bring you to where you are hoping to go next
I’ll punt this one too - this time to Johanna. I’ll regurgitate the response I gave as an add on to her great answer.
During my time a Airbnb in the mid 2010s, we were one of the earliest APAC bases to really build out a trust and safety team. I’ve kept in touch with many of the brilliant folks we hired, and I don’t see any patterns that would suggest their skillset/field is too niche. If anything, demand has skyrocketed.Qn: 1. How to measure your skill level, what gives you confidence that your skill is enough for the role? 2. What makes you to join in the tech sector? Why not just find biz job only?
Frankly I didn’t really like this question because I don’t think it is very productive to compare ‘skill levels’ in generalist roles. I try to only compete with myself, and I find the best way to do so is to set stretch goals, put them out there so there’s public accountability, then work towards attaining as much of the goal as possible.How can a Biology/Life Science/Non-tech person break into tech?
1. Strong biz fundamentals through internships, minor degrees, projects, entrepreneurship etc.
2. A skillset that doesn’t rely solely on technical ability (project/program management, marketing, influencing etc.)
3. Willingness to do the mental gymnastics it takes to be super flexible with how your career takes shape.Is side hustling/freelance work worth the hype?
Biased again (here I am writing on substack) but absolutely. Beyond any income benefits, the process of working for yourself - especially if you take an idea from zero to one - is it’s own reward. That process teaches you more about product, marketing, customers than anything else.How do we go about finding, cultivating and retaining mentors?
I was late to the game in finding mentors: I’m still not very sure if I can count any one individual as a long-term mentor. Ironically, since COVId began I’ve spent >200 hours a year coaching and mentoring others, and I think some of my mentees have been the best mentors. My tips for finding mentors:
1. start early, and start with your immediate network. Think about people who you look up to and just ask them for a chat / coffee etc. This actually works pretty well for reaching out via LinkedIn too.
2. multiple mentors are ideal: someone similar in career/life stage, someone 3-5y ahead, someone 10+y ahead
3. mentors need not be formal; a lot of the best advice I got and keep to this day, came from informal mentors.
3. Working in Tech
Qn: With the current economic climate in mind, do you think that the tech sector has become more or less competitive?
The sector is going to become a lot more competitive over the medium term: Paul Graham articulates this better than me in the article linked below, but economic downturns are a perfect storm in which fantastic companies tend to be born. Many of these will challenge today’s behemoths. What remains to be seen is do these companies become products/companies in their own right, or features of existing companies. OpenAI/ChatGPT is somewhere in that valley, and I would love to write a longer piece about the competitive impact it’s likely to have. Unfortunately given my current employer affiliations I don’t feel I can do justice to it without breaching some part of some obscure contract.Qn: How does your workplace / you encourage employees to take calculated risks that are beyond one's job scope / assigned JIRA tickets?
The best cultures do, and decent cultures at minimum don’t actively stifle risk. If you find yourself in a company doing the latter, it might be worth considering if that environment is for you. Risk fosters innovation, is a lever for growth, and often generates the most powerful learning (via mistakes).’
Those were all the questions we had as far as I can recall. We spent a bunch of time afterwards networking with attendees, but I was also scrambling to get some of the free food on offer and have only a very vague recollection of the questions I was asked. At any rate, hopefully this was a good starting point to begin navigating through similar questions.
Charles and Johanna will be guest-authoring posts with the same questions in a few days - look out for those in your inbox!
media I’m consuming this week.
3 recommendations to help you learn and grow.
Why to start a startup in a bad economy by Paul Graham
Paul Graham wrote this in October 2008, well into the ‘crash’ phase of the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis. It bears repeating in today’s climate because the lessons are the same. His take here is prescient; tons of great companies we talk about today came about in that era, and thrived precisely because of what he said: get the right founders, be a cockroach and care less about fickle investors. To name a few: Airbnb, Uber, Slack, Whatsapp, Quora, Square.
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
This was my workout audiobook for a few weeks: I kept having to play back certain bits because something or the other the author said would be so profound that my mind would track off in a very different direction. The concept of how presence leads to enlightenment shows up in a variety of spiritual scenarios, but this was a very compelling articulation. Note - this isn’t really a self-help book. It’s more a ‘wake the hell up’ book. Some bits are repetitive but I think here it serves a purpose, hammering the message home.
How Peter McKinnon turned $0.55 into a YouTube Empire via Jon Youshaei
I’ve been watching quite a bit of ‘how X YouTuber went from 0 to 1’ videos recently. I’m coming around to accept (from a position of not insignificant cynicism) that the creator economy is pretty damn awesome, and empowers not just the creator - who now gets paid to pursue something they love - but also their followers, who have zero barrier to entry to do the same. Just make sure you don’t skip any ads so that YouTube TAC keeps rolling in :)