LIU007: From Track to Tech: Navigating Career Change with Resilience

Kevin

This episode is sponsored by Meter. If you're tired of juggling five vendors and six dashboards just to keep the network up, Meter delivers the full networking stack, wired, wireless, and cellular, as one integrated system. Go to meter.com slash liu to book a demo. That's m-e-t-e-r dot com slash liu. Welcome to Life at Uptime, the podcast where we talk with the people behind the technology that keeps our world connected. I'm Kevin, joined by my co-host Alexis.

In every episode, we sit down with engineers, leaders, and builders in tech to uncover the stories behind their careers, how they started, what they've learned, and where they're headed next. Our goal is simple, to help you see how far tech can take you, no matter where you start from.

Alexis

So, we have a very exciting guest for you guys today. We're talking to Ifani, and he stepped from the track right into the cloud. He was a decorated athlete at Kansas State, and then transitioned into DevOps and cloud engineering.

He's a trusted member of the community. He's made a lot of step-by-step guides for AWS, Terraform, and infrastructure as code tutorials. And his journey isn't just about shifting gears, it's about redefining grit, adaptability, and growth.

So, Ifani, welcome to the show.

Ifeanyi

Hey, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate the intro.

It's a pleasure to be here. I see you guys a lot on social media too. It's so cool to be here with y'all.

Alexis

Yeah. No, absolutely. I feel like it's interesting how you feel like you can get to know someone through their content.

I mean, I know we're meeting for the first time here, but I feel like I know you.

Ifeanyi

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the power of social media.

I think those are the people who actually show up in the forefront. These are the people who people resonate with. Those who are authentic and show their real self, not the cookie-cutter AI-generated content people.

That's how you feel like you actually know who you're talking to before you even meet them or speak to them.

Alexis

Yeah. 100%.

Kevin

It's really cool seeing people in person for the first time after following them or interacting on social media. You see them in real life and they're exactly how you thought they'd be. You guys just immediately click.

It's a great feeling.

Alexis

It's like, I knew I'd like you. I knew I'd like you for a reason.

Kevin

Yifani, I have to say, number one, congratulations. You are the first and probably last professional athlete we will ever have on this podcast.

Alexis

Never say never. Never say never, Kevin.

Ifeanyi

Yeah. You might see a lot of... You might see others.

Actually, there's a small, very, very, very small community of professional athletes transitioning to other careers and even smaller ones transitioning to tech, which is another area which I'm trying to tap in. I don't know what I'm going to do with that. But yeah, most people have said that I've lived two lives, two different lives, because what I've done in my previous career and then what I'm doing in this career is like, dude, what you've done in your previous career could be someone's entire life.

And now what you're doing now is what other people strive for their entire career. So I think it's just been a crazy blessing.

Kevin

Does it actually feel like you have two lives though? Do you take what you had in your athletic career and transition it and use that stuff in your tech career? Or does it feel like a distinction where that was my past self and now I've reborn into this new tech career?

Ifeanyi

Yeah, that's a good question. In terms of experience, life experiences, it feels like I've had two different lives because as a pro athlete, I traveled the world. I did so much for so many years.

I've been doing this since I was 15 years old. So almost 15 years of just training at a high level, competing, and then I moved into a completely different world. However, when it comes to life skills and the mentality and the discipline and some of the things that I've gained from being an athlete, it's not that much different.

And I figured that out pretty early when I was trying to transition that a lot of the things that was engraved in me as personality and also lifestyle of being disciplined and showing up and consistency and resiliency, that's the same stuff. I just pivoted to this new career. And I think it gave me an advantage over a lot of other people who were trying to do the same thing.

Pretty quickly, I was able to understand that I could function at a high level for a long period without wavering because the capacity of resilience I had was just so high compared to other people.

Alexis

Could you walk us through what your journey was like? For someone who's unfamiliar with your story or who doesn't follow you?

Ifeanyi

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So in high school, actually, I'm from Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean.

This is where I lived. This is where I grew up for most of my grade school, high school. That's where my friends were.

And education-wise, I was always the person who did sciences like physics, chemistry, biology. I just loved doing those stuff. That just fascinated me.

But I also had an athletic ability that was just, you could not turn away from it. It was natural talent. And then from there, I ended up getting recruited from the Caribbean to go to Kansas State University.

There was a college, college coaches come down and recruit. I didn't even think that was a thing. I didn't even understand that it was possible that a school could pay for you to go to, you know, pay for your entire degree just because, just so you could run for them, right?

I was like, what? When the coach told me, I'm like, you're going to pay for my entire degree just so I run for you? And I was like, yeah, where do I sign up?

Of course. And I ended up going to Kansas. And when I got there, I was like, this is not what I thought it would be as far as the area.

I was like, what the heck is this? This is nothing like the Caribbean. It was cold, snow.

It was the first time I saw snow, but ended up going to K-State. And my first semester, I thought, or I decided to become an electrical engineer and that didn't turn out really well after the first semester was pretty horrible. Ended up with like a 1.7 GPA, which I knew quickly, like, this is not something for me. And if you asked me why I picked it, I just thought it sounded cool. It was engineering. So that's why I decided to do it.

But after that, I quickly got out of that and got into a business degree, which was management of systems, which did not, I specifically chose that because it didn't have any coding. It didn't have any real deep math or anything like that, but it was business, but it gave me some exposure to like IT or something. Cause I just love playing with computers and stuff.

But when I graduated my undergrad, I ended up doing an MBA, a master's degree in business. And then I went pro, right? So, because my athletic abilities just skyrocketed when I was in college, NCAA, D1, ended up going to national championships and then basically signed with Nike and started competing for my country also.

So I traveled the world at this time, did this for about seven years.

Alexis

How old were you?

Ifeanyi

When I went pro, I was 20, I was about 22. It's crazy. At this time, I was doing my master's degree and I went pro at that time.

When I graduated my undergrad, it was the same time I went pro. So I did that for about seven years, literally traveled the world, competed at many different championships.

Kevin

Can I ask a quick question here? So you went, you got your undergrad and then went pro and then while you were going pro, you also got your master's degree? Yes.

Ifeanyi

And I did it because the school decided to pay for that too, because of how well I represented them in my undergrad. That blew me away too. I was like, what?

Kevin

Even though you weren't running for them anymore, you weren't competing for them anymore. They still paid for it? Yeah.

Ifeanyi

They still decided to pay for it. That's a good deal. I don't care what anybody would say about K-State, that's my school.

I'll rep them forever because the athletic department decided to do that. So that was huge. But yeah, so I entered inside this world of competing for money, which was completely different from competing for a team or for college.

And that drove me to a lot of different experiences as an athlete. When you're doing something you love for money, it changes the dynamics of things. So you go to meets, you go to compete and it almost takes the joy away from it, because when you don't compete well, you're kind of like, dang, I didn't get the money that I was supposed to get.

So the joy and the excitement of doing it for the love of it kind of takes away from that. But yeah, then I decided I was going to get out of this because I was getting to the end of my career, which I was still young. People say, I think you got out of it a little bit too early, but I saw the writing on the wall to where I didn't want to retire when I was like, my legs were really broken and I was done and I was coming last.

I'm not going to bow out like that. So I decided to leave pretty much on a good high and chase something else. And that's when I decided to pivot into tech.

Took a while for me to decide what I wanted to do, but I decided to do that. And it was a two-year self-study journey, because at this time I was about seven, eight years removed from anything I did in school. And I needed to start over.

Everything I knew, anything I knew about tech, anything I even remotely understood, I had to start from scratch and started off with comp TIA certifications. And that gave me the fundamentals. And then from there, found the cloud and just started jumping straight into the cloud.

Because that was the thing that really sparked my interest. And then I drove into that. And that's the trajectory of what pushed me to go into this cloud career.

Alexis

I think it's really cool how you studied electrical engineering. Number one, doing any sort of technical major while you're doing any athletics in college is incredibly difficult. I had friends that were trying to do engineering majors, and then also two-a-days at the field house.

And your practices, and then you have your extra workouts you have to do on top of that, and the team dinners. And I swear, if you're a college athlete, it's like a second degree. So number one, can totally understand how hard that was.

But two, you decided, even after failing electrical engineering, to go back into a very technical career. What was that decision like?

Ifeanyi

Yeah. So why did I decide to go into tech? So after I was getting...

Well, when I was deciding what I was going to do for my next career, I broke down into three pillars. What did I want? Because that was the easiest way for me to figure out.

It's better to remove things what you don't want, and just focus on the things that you do want to kind of pigeonhole any career that can fall into that. So I did a Google search, literally. It was a Google search for three pillars.

Three pillars was that I needed something that had a high salary opportunity and potential, a career that had that. Number two, because I just got married, and I was thinking of my family, generation, children, and stuff like that. I needed something that's going to help me take care of this family.

And the next thing was I needed something that was flexible, because I think I was getting burned out from traveling, from just doing a lot of stuff. Even when I was a professional athlete, I was also working as an event coordinator for a sports organization. And doing that was also extremely exhausting.

And I was like, I need something that, I wouldn't say laid back, but something that can give me flexibility to want to be remote, because it was during COVID time too. I was like, oh, I see a bunch of remote roles. I was like, okay, I want something that's remote too.

And the last thing was I needed something that was challenging, because I felt like I couldn't just sit and just do a normal job that wasn't tasking mentally or physically, because I've been competing and training at the highest level for so many years. And experiencing that for so long, I needed to live life like this and not like this. I need to continue to live a life like this.

So when I did that Google search, tech literally ticked all of it, the industry of tech, which is you could get the flexibility of a remote role, high salary potential, and then it was challenging, right? Mentally, and you have to put in a lot of work, you have to show up, but okay, this looks cool. I remember when I was young, I used to play with PSPs, PlayStation Portable, and modify it and jailbreak it.

I'm like, that's the stuff that I really liked. So I'm like, okay, maybe jump into this. And that's what made me decide to pursue the tech industry.

Alexis

And I know we talked, I mean, obviously we talked a little bit offline before this, but we get asked, Kevin and I get asked all the time. And I feel like I ask this question every show. Should I take my CCNA?

Should I take my CCMP? What's the best certification? Where should I start?

And you didn't come out of school wanting to be a cloud engineer. You said that you took the SAC+, A+, Net+, series to kind of help you find direction. For someone who's trying to find a direction or deciding which area of tech they should go into, what would you recommend for them?

Ifeanyi

That's a great question. And this answer is not just based upon my experience, but this is based upon other people's experience. And what I've found really works the best is that, so most people want to manufacture their purpose or manufacture what they want to do.

So they see something that's cool on face value or somebody's doing this and they want to do it. Like me, right?

Alexis

They want the title, they want the degree.

Ifeanyi

Exactly. Like when I wanted to become an electrical engineer, I didn't have a clue what that was. It just sounded cool and I wanted the title.

But most people, I think you have to discover your path, not manufacture your path. To discover your path, that means you have to travel many paths. By traveling many paths means you have to explore.

You don't really know what's for you, what you're interested in, what you're curious about, unless you expose yourself to a base of many different things. So then you can one, pick up the things you're actually interested in, and then you can actually remove the things that you're not. Because when you try something, you go down a path and you realize, oh, this is not for me.

That's actually good information. That's good data to be like, okay, I can move that and focus on something else. So what I did when I was doing the A plus, security plus, and network plus is I was getting exposure to many different areas, trying to understand where do I fit in, in this tech thing.

So that's not the only search I got. I also did project management search. I did Prince 2.

I don't know what I was doing, but all I was doing was I was exploring different areas. And while I was doing this for maybe about seven months or seven, eight months, it was about nine months of just doing many different things, is when the path of the cloud showed up, showed up on my doorstep. I was on LinkedIn.

I was just searching other areas in tech, and I heard about this thing called the cloud. And many people would talk about it. Everybody was talking about it.

I'm like, man, what is this thing? And that's what drew my curiosity. And I dove deeper into it, and I just couldn't understand how this cloud thing works.

It just felt like it was this magical thing. I couldn't understand it. And it drew me to want to understand it.

And the deeper I looked into it was when I realized, oh, I think I have a natural curiosity and interest in this thing. Let me dive into this thing now. I have to do all this other stuff.

Let me go to this other thing. So I went into it, going through the certification route again. My first cloud cert was the Azure 900, which is crazy because all I talk about is AWS.

But I did the Azure 900, and I failed it. I failed that cert, but this is how I knew that I loved it. Because even after I failed it, I felt empowered to continue going because I was just so fired up and so driven to understand this thing.

I studied for another month, changed my learning habits, started doing more projects and doing hands-on stuff. And then after a month, I blasted that cert. My score was so high.

I don't know how the heck I failed it the first time. But after that was when I was like, okay, this is the path for me. I think I found it.

But that's after maybe a whole year of just exploring many different things. That's how I was able to find the cloud. Or I would say that the cloud found me.

Kevin

Before we move on, I want to dive a little deeper into how you changed your study habits because I get a lot of questions of certifications. What is the best way to study and that kind of stuff? What did you exactly change between failing it and passing it with flying colors?

Or what was the biggest thing that you think made the biggest difference?

Ifeanyi

Yeah, at the first time when I was studying it, I think I was also in the back of my mind. I was also hearing that certifications help you get jobs during that time. So in my mind, I was like, okay, let me just get some interest in this thing and just pass it.

It was a very face value, high level studying. I wasn't really diving into concepts. I wasn't really doing any hands-on things.

I was just watching videos and like, okay, this sounds good. Memorizing like theology and methods and concepts, but not understanding that when you take the exam, the questions that that's coming up, they really question you based off of, do you have real deep understanding? Have you actually exposed yourself to actually configuring things in the council?

And when I went into the exam, I was like, oh shoot, this is not, this is tough. Did I just accent cookie cutter? What does this mean?

What does this mean? No, the actual situational questions, right? Situational questions, the only way you can be able to understand and answer it is if you've actually been put in that situation to be able to achieve that task.

And that was the main reason why I failed it. So the second time I went, I was like, oh, you actually have to do some work and do some engineering stuff and do some hands-on work. And that's what helped me go deeper into the concepts and literally almost tattoo the concepts in my heart where I understand this.

Like I understand this really well. Like this isn't, this isn't anything that's tough once you start actually doing this stuff, right? It makes it a lot easier for you to understand because I've done it.

I'm not just trying to remember my brain when I memorized.

Kevin

So did you use a virtual labs and like practical applications of whatever topic you were studying?

Ifeanyi

Correct. Yeah. I started, um, two things I started doing.

I started doing a lot of labs and I started writing about the labs I was doing. So when I would do a lab, I would then try to put into writing the understanding of what I just learned, but also put into my own words. And I hope, I think that helped take me to the next level of understanding much more, much more deeper.

Kevin

Kind of synthesize, you know, what you, the application of what you did into your own thoughts. I love that. Yeah.

I'm going to steal that one. I want to add that to my, to my armor, my armor. So add it to my what?

Alexis

Your armoire? How?

Kevin

I don't know why I'm going to put it in my coat closet. All right. Sometimes I say weird random things.

I don't know.

Alexis

Kevin, you're dating yourself again. Every episode I find.

Kevin

You point out, God, I'm not going to get away from it. I'm going to like be that. What's that?

Uh, that meme, like what's up, fellow kids. I'm going to dress up like that one day.

Alexis

Dress up like that for Halloween. Just be a, the wizard. Anyways, after you got all of these certifications, you obviously had to get a job.

And I know you're from Turks and Caicos, you're international. This was during COVID. It was honestly very hard to get hired.

Um, what was that like? How did you make the jump from actually taking the certification to working in industry?

Ifeanyi

Yeah, that's, that's a really good question. So to all my, uh, international people, this is a question I get a lot because I actually landed my job, my first role, um, while I was still based in Turks and Caicos in this small Island of 50,000 people. And, um, the number one question I had was who the heck is going to hire someone in this small country?

Do I have to leave? Do I have to stay here? And at first, you know, you want to, um, try out what you have around you.

So locally I tried to look for, um, you know, roles in cloud, anything that was going to give me experience or exposure in cloud. So I remember I went to, I talked around, you know, asked about where is the most, which companies, the most technology advanced company. And I ended up going to this company that was an energy company and it was one of the biggest in Turks and Caicos.

Went there, did an interview and they asked me, they saw the amount of cloud certifications I had. And yes, I asked them like, Hey, like, you know, you guys looking to go into cloud or like, what is your experience with cloud? And, you know, they basically told me that they're going, they're looking into cloud next five years.

And so that was 2021, five years of 2036. So, so, so my head of like, there's no way, like if this is the most technologically advanced company and they're looking in five years from now, I'm like, okay, I instantly found out, or I recently got, got to the realization that what I want to achieve right now is bigger than my country. It's bigger than my environment.

Right. I have to look outside elsewhere for me to achieve this goal. And, um, that was tough, you know, because it was like a miracle had to be done for me to be able to, I didn't, I didn't have a clue what I was going to do.

Am I going to leave Turks and Caicos and move back to USA? Am I going to move to somewhere else in the world? The, the best, the, the, the best, um, opportunity would have been remote, right.

Which is one of the, um, reasons why I went into tech, right. Cause I wanted something that was flexible enough, but even at that time, fully global remotes was still a dime a dozen. They want, they want to be a lot and the, the, um, the competition was so high to be able to land a role like that.

Right. But, um, I just knew that for me to be able to even have a chance, I needed people to know who I was, how people in Turks going to know this little boy in Turks and Caicos, how are they going to hear about me? And I started to post about myself.

I started to go on social media. I went on Twitter. I went on LinkedIn.

I started joining Twitter spaces. I started joining communities. This is all on the internet, right?

I didn't step foot. I didn't go to any like in-person tech community. They didn't have any of those like impersonal tech meetups in Turks and Caicos.

That was non-existent. Right. So I had to do everything remotely, virtually.

So, um, uh, I started putting a lot of my effort more on visibility and talking about my story and what I was doing and what I was learning and also sharing my, um, my opinions and my feedback on different resources I've learned that I've shared with other people. And I started realizing that, um, I thought I was so far behind, but I realized there's also a lot of people who I was either one step or two steps ahead of. And that started growing my, my, um, my social media presence because people are now looking at me of, Oh, this person is literally just one step ahead of me.

Let me start following them and asking them for feedback. And I started mentoring other people. And it was so weird.

Cause I'm like, dude, I hardly know anything.

Alexis

Like why are you asking me for I could applaud. I could applaud right now. I cause I think that's the most important thing.

You, when you look at the grand scheme of things, it's really easy to feel like you're behind because you're always looking ahead of yourself, but it's so easy to forget that there's people who are just one or two steps behind you, where if you're sharing, like what you're doing as you're doing it, it's so, so helpful to them.

Ifeanyi

Yeah. It, it almost creates a path for them to try and, um, honestly follow exactly, but they can use that as a template. Okay.

This person is doing this. And, um, I say, I also think that my story was, was, was, was really compelling. Um, transition from a pro athlete to cloud.

Like I didn't know I was going to pull it off, but from the beginning I started posting about it.

Alexis

So also people, people want to see a success story. Like if you're constantly posting about your goals and they can see that like you're putting in the effort and you're driving towards something, it's like everyone always wants a happy ending to a movie. And if they can feel like they had a small part of your success or they were to help, they were able to help you on your journey.

A lot of people get like some sort of personal satisfaction from that, even if it's just interacting with your content. So they, they feel like they know you as you're going along.

Ifeanyi

Yeah. Um, I definitely think that's exactly what happened because I started realizing that people who weren't even a tech would start following me just because they saw the story, just because they were like, Oh, this story is so inspiring. Um, I'm going to follow this person just to see if they're actually going to accomplish this thing.

They didn't know anything about tech. They're just like, let me see this person's actually going to accomplish this thing. And then some of them would even, um, like refer me to other people in tech.

Like, Hey, I have this friend, I'm not in tech, but I see what you're trying to do, go and contact them. And I just started getting referrals to other people. And I'm not necessarily referrals to jobs, but just to talk to someone.

So people are connecting me to other people and connecting me to other people. And, um, I started realizing that I started becoming in the middle to where people were like five, 10 years of experience in tech, started mentoring me. And then I started mentoring other people who were a few steps behind me.

And that just like rolled, it was just like a, a, basically a boulder rolling down the Hill. And it just continued to like torpedo.

Alexis

Yeah. And you need, you need one. Yes.

Like one of those connections is the one that has to work out for you. I also wanted to, uh, I was going to say, I wanted to double click on, but then I was like, that sounds so corporate. Um, can we, can we go, what does that mean?

Kevin

I've never heard that before. Like double click, no double click. Like I know what it means on a computer, but like in corporate tech, what does that mean?

Alexis

Oh, like I want to like dive deeper, talk more about that.

Kevin

Open it up. Yeah. You know, when you double click on your computer, I've never heard that before.

Alexis

Yeah. I just, I wanted, I wanted to, uh, double click on just the realization you had that, wow, I actually have to leave my country. Cause I've been in a, I've been in a position where I've had to move or I realized I've had to pivot, but to realize like you have to leave, not just the state, not just the city, not just the industry, your entire country, behind to move into this goal.

Can we talk like, can we talk about how monumental that was? Was the, and was that just like a light bulb moment or did it kind of come in and trickles?

Ifeanyi

It was, it was a light bulb moment, but it was also, it was defeating at the beginning. I was like, man, I really want to like, I'm really pushing towards, towards this thing, but I'm realizing that it's bigger than where I'm at. Right.

It's, I can't achieve this thing here. And, um, I had two decisions either to give up or settle like, Hey, let me just get some, find some other role here locally, because that thing is just too big of a, of a dream or lean in on it and be like, Hey, you know, I'm going to risk and sacrifice a lot and do what I can and see what's going to come out of it. And I chose the latter.

Right. Um, because, uh, I'm a person who, who have a lot of faith and also, uh, think big ideas. And I, I risk a lot, not everything comes to pass, but I'm someone who, who, who is like, I'm going to go big.

And I decided to double click on him. Like, like what you said, I'm like, I'm going to do this and I'm going to put my, put my all in it. And at the time, all it, everybody thought I was crazy locally because what I was doing, people were, I was posting about it.

I was posting on my Instagram, posting my LinkedIn. And my friends started to see that withdraw from them a little bit to like go and study or go and learn about something. Right.

And they started realizing that they were asking me about it. And I couldn't really explain to them because I didn't have the tangible, um, I didn't have tangible evidence that I was going to achieve this thing. So it was hard to put it into words, to tell them what I was about, what I was trying to do.

But I'll just tell them that, you know, I'm working on something big, I'm working on something. Well, also most people don't know what the cloud is. Exactly.

Like, I was like, I'm not about to sit down and explain this thing to you. Cause y'all definitely going to think you already think I'm crazy. You're going to think I'm insane.

Alexis

The cloud, but not the one in the sky, the one that's made out of like computers.

Ifeanyi

Exactly. And, um, but they knew I was studying tech by myself and doing stuff. And at that point, they thought it was, it didn't make any sense.

And, um, even at the, I'll tell you the truth, even when I was going through it, I also thought, Hey, this doesn't really make any sense, but I just felt something impressed in me that just keep going, just keep doing what you're doing. Something is going to happen. And, um, what had happened was at that point, I was trying to go back to USA.

So I was trying to get roles. I was going to get me like a, you know, H1B visa, which is huge thing. That's on the news right now.

This is crazy back then. It was extremely tough because it was doing COVID companies and have, you know, the, the, the financial, um, they weren't willing to like really the money and the, the, the, the investment and the capital to be able to get entry level H1B person to come in here. I was like, no, they're not going to do that.

So people weren't open to do that. Um, so that was tough. I was trying to get an opportunity, hoping for some miracle that somebody just gives me a chance.

Um, but then I started to pivot a little bit. I was like, okay, let me stop targeting just USA and start targeting the world. So I started going a lot bigger.

I started getting people from UK, from Europe. I started networking with people there. I started following them.

I started connecting with them on LinkedIn. And it was about a month after my, uh, putting efforts into really networking people from Europe and UK. When I got a DM in my LinkedIn, which basically said, I read it, I think I would know.

So I was in a car and someone was driving. I just read it like flippantly on my phone and I said, Hey, um, I see the, uh, cause I heard a blog, it was a blog on, on functions and, and, um, basically serverless blog I did. And I posted it and somebody responded to it and basically said, Hey, I really liked this blog that you wrote.

The things that you're doing in this blog is exactly what we're doing in our company. And I think you'd be a great person to add to our cloud team. And when I read it, I was like, Hmm, who is this?

Cause at that time people were messaging me with some stuff and some of them weren't really real. So I'm like, is this a, is this a recruiter? Is this someone who works at the company?

And when I looked at it and I clicked on the person's, um, profile, it was the CEO of the company. I was like, hold up. I was in the car.

I was like, I was like, there is no way the CEO of a company is going to message me. So, so many things was running my mind. Like how does the CEO know what they're doing technically?

Like, is the CEO supposed to be like the high level? Like, like how does he know? And I realized it was a startup and he was very close to the technology.

Yes. He was very close to me, understood what they were trying to do. And I was like, okay, cool.

I was so excited. I was like, I can't do an interview right now, but maybe sometime maybe the next hour or so. He's like, no, no, no, no.

We can do it next week. Like we're prepared. This is on a Friday too.

I was like, I was so excited. So I was like, okay, yeah, let's do another one. Let's do an interview next week.

The interview came, um, it wasn't a technical interview. It was more of a, are you a good fit? And it blew my mind because even after the interview, I asked them, how come you guys didn't ask me like technical stuff?

And it was like, we saw the work that you've done. We saw all the gloves that you put out. We know you're technically sound.

We know the things that you can do. We don't think you're an expert, but we know one you're driven, you're passionate. You, you, you actually like this stuff.

So once you come in, we know that you can, um, we can train you to be the person who you want to be. And I was like, wow, dude, that's literally insane. Yeah, it was crazy.

Kevin

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Kevin

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Alexis

Thanks to meter for sponsoring this episode. You can go to meter.com slash liu to book a demo now.

Kevin

That's m-e-t-e-r dot com slash liu to demo. Now back to the episode.

Alexis

And I feel like there's a lot of technical interviews that go that way too. Because a big part is, are you a fit for the team? And people overlook that.

The certifications can't show your personality. Your resume can't show your personality. The way you write a blog or show up on a podcast can totally show your personality.

Ifeanyi

Yep. That's when I was writing my blogs. What I tell all other people also is that the blog is your canvas to show who you are and what you know, but not so necessarily like technical, but it's like a canvas and you have to like put your personality in there.

Like you don't want to just put step one, step two, step three. Like write what you went through, the troubleshooting, how you fixed it, and then add templates of who you are in it. It differentiates your blog from somebody else who's just writing like steps from one to two, like actually putting personal flavor into it.

And I think that makes a big difference when someone reads someone else's blog.

Alexis

Yeah. Because anyone, I mean, anyone can make a video about basic technology or basic troubleshooting, but it wasn't written by you with how you approached it and what you were thinking when you went through it. And I think so often, again, someone's two steps behind you just because someone already made a video on, I don't know, connecting VPCs, right?

It wasn't done by you. And they might resonate with your perspective and your thought process more than anything else that's already out there.

Ifeanyi

Yeah. Yeah. Each for everybody has their own personality, their own personal stories.

And a lot of people think they don't have content to share. And they always ask me, how do you share content? You have unlimited content.

Every single day you live and breathe, you experience things, and that's enough to share with people and it's going to resonate.

Alexis

100%. Can we talk a little bit more about, I guess, your mindset through all of this? Um, do you feel you mentioned before, um, you're very resilient.

You went through a lot of hard training when you were an athlete. Do you feel like a lot of that carried over now that, you know, I mean, let's be real. We're all working remote jobs, sitting at a desk right now.

Um, do you feel like a lot of that mindset or mentality has carried over or still applies, even though you're not doing something that's physically demanding?

Ifeanyi

Yeah. Um, so the hard part about tech, especially those who are transitioning or in general, you can have 10 years of experience is that, uh, whenever you're learning something new, um, you really don't see the, the, the fruits of that labor like months after. Right.

So the hardest part for those who are just starting or just learning something is when they first begin, they don't see the, the, the immediate like results. So they stop or they give up like, man, this isn't good enough or stuff like that. But I've learned as an athlete that, that discipline of understanding that, um, you have to be able to sacrifice now for the long-term results because as a pro athlete, most people don't realize this Olympics is every four years and world championships every two years.

Most people think Olympians prepare for the Olympics the year of, but we actually prepare for the Olympics four years before. So that mentality of understanding that we need to train today for four year goal that has been drilled in me for years. So when I got into tech and I started like starting my journey, I understood quickly that people didn't understand this fundamental thing that you have to put into work that has to be a journey and you have to focus on what do you do today to help you six months, seven months in advance.

And how that mentality of understanding that is what kept me going and kept me resilient. And most people just don't know how to like really put that into perspective, knowing that, you know, the work that you put today may not show up tomorrow or next week, but it might be, it might be a two year, uh, goal. It might be a two year journey, but you have to be willing to sacrifice that now for that greater, greater goal.

Alexis

How did, what comes to mind is how did you balance that with also, and this is something I struggled with too, with the flexibility of being able to pivot or change. So when you first got into cloud, you didn't know you wanted to be a cloud engineer. You were taking these certifications.

You spent seven months taking certifications without knowing really which direction you should go into, whether that would be cloud data center, security, cybersecurity, maybe networking, maybe there's all these different directions. So how do you balance? And again, this is, this is for me too.

Um, cause I feel like I'm also in the middle of the pivot at the moment. Um, but having that big five year, 10 year plan of overall where you want to be down to, and still having the flexibility to pivot as you see fit. And do you know if you're throwing in the towel early, right?

Is this something like, am I actually not interested in this? I'm going to give up on it or no, no, no. I should grind through because it contributes to that broader goal.

Ifeanyi

Yeah. Whoa. That's, that's, that's a, that's a heavy.

Alexis

I told you it's for, I told you it's for me too. It's something I've been thinking a lot about.

Ifeanyi

No, it's deep because I think that's something that we all are managing and maneuvering about. But I'm thinking back then and even applying it to now, because, um, personally, I don't know if cloud is going to be something I'm going to be in forever. I might still be something I stay in, but my pivot into, um, AI or, um, actually very interested right now in AI education, but yeah, we talked about that.

Um, but I think when you, so I will start with a goal and then work backwards. Um, this, the earlier when I was starting, I don't think I had that, that structure to where, Hey, this is the goal. And you have to kind of like work backwards of what you want to do.

But now I'm understanding that if you have a main goal, you work backwards and, um, you look at the possible things that you want to, that you think is actually going to attribute to achieving that goal. And to me, you don't necessarily have to hit all of those, but I think, I think you're not going to figure everything out on, sorry, you have to figure stuff out on the way, which is you just have to take the first step in something that you're interested in. And you're curious about, which to me should be the driving force.

Don't jump into something that you're not necessarily interested in. Um, unless it's actually something that's going to help you, um, achieve that thing that you want to, because we're not going to be interested inside everything. Right.

But once you work backwards and be like, okay, this is what I want to do. And to do that, I do this, this, and this, then, um, once you map that out, you can stay around the vicinity of those things, but you might pivot. And you have a little bit okay with pivoting.

Yeah. Like you can't pivot too much, but you have to be okay with pivoting a little bit. So when I was doing all those certifications, um, I was getting some information of, of, okay, what are the, the exposure, exposure and experience and fundamental stuff that you should get.

And that's what made me get A plus security plus, because I understood, oh, these are the things that I need to understand. What is the thing that's actually going to help me get it? And it was the certs that started me there.

But, um, I think that if you don't have a goal, it's harder for you to find that thing. So when I was getting into tech, I didn't have a goal of getting into cloud. And during those times, I think you just explore strictly your interest and just keep going to things.

But if you do have a goal, you have to be able to, to break it down, start from the, from the beginning, start from the end, and then look at like what other people have done and just ask them like, Hey, what did you do? That has been like, I think my secret weapon, which is just talking to people and who's been in the job, who's doing it and ask them how they did it. I think that has actually collapsed a five-year plan for me for like two years, because I had a four-year plan to end up working at AWS, which is where I work right now.

And since I joined, uh, since I started my cloud career, it took me about 1.7 years to, from zero experience to land a role at AWS because of the many people who I spoke to. And it helped collapse that goal of I had a five-year goal to enter AWS, but it ended up being less than two years. So many people in the industry and in the roles that I wanted to.

Alexis

It's part of the reason we started this podcast was to just help expose people to new knowledge and information. And I think the other thing is that, and I'm sure you experienced this when you were networking on LinkedIn. Um, a lot of people gravitate towards asking people for help who are very public asking you, me, Kevin, you know, other podcast hosts or content creators.

What do you think about this? What do you think about that? There's so many people who hold the same job or have the same expertise who just aren't public and would be thrilled to give you their advice or answer their question.

You just have to find them.

Ifeanyi

Yeah. It's, you know, I go with numbers, right? So I'm a person who, um, if I want information about a specific role or a specific thing, I literally go on LinkedIn.

I start filtering people, either in my area, in the same job, in the same company. And I get the same message and I send it to about 50 people.

Alexis

One of them will respond.

Ifeanyi

Listen, one of them. So I have like a, out of 50 people, about 20 will respond. 10 would actually be, um, uh, like actual back and forth communication.

About four of them will actually be an ally. That's what I've realized. If you sent about 50, you're going to get like four people who actually be actively trying to help you and, and, and invest inside you.

And I've been doing that. I've just been rinsing, repeat any information I need. I send it to about 40 people.

And then I ended up with four people in this specific thing who I can always reach out to.

Alexis

It's amazing. And that's the power of virtual networking too. We've talked, we've talked a bit about going to NOGs and going to things in person, which is incredible.

And I do think they're great resources. And if there's one near you, it's a great option. But if you're like, in your case, you were in Turks and Caicos and there's no networking group or no technology clubs, you can join, use every tool at your disposal.

Ifeanyi

Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm very bullish on, on, uh, networking on online just because I think that's where, that's where I grew up on, which is as far as being in Turks and Caicos, trying to get that, that role.

That was my initial exposure. And I've been using that a lot. Um, I tried to go to some in-person ones, which I think are great.

Uh, I didn't really understand how important in-person, uh, meetups were until I went to AWS reInvent.

Alexis

Oh yeah.

Ifeanyi

First of all, it was my first in-person. It was my first meet, like first conference ever. And people said, Oh, you're going to be spoiled because this is like the biggest cloud conference in the world.

Like this shouldn't have been your first one. When I went there, I was like, Oh, I see now why in-person meets the amount of people who I met and exposed. I was like, yo, this is insane.

Alexis

I thought I knew conferences and then I went to reInvent and I was like, what is this? What is this?

Ifeanyi

Um, but I have a question for y'all because this, I mean, I'm, I'm still new to the tech career. So I'm still like, um, strategically trying to map my career. I've really only been here for like two, two years, something.

And I'm thinking of people who have like 10 years of experience, or at least five years of experience. So I'm always thinking two to three years in advance of what I want to do, because I understand that you can't plan for a goal next year because you have, you have to start like, especially if you know what the goal is in advance, you have to start like three years before, like start strategically putting things into place. And, um, the earlier you can, the better.

So I think maybe it might be a question that you asked, uh, um, which is how do you steer your career to like what's next?

Alexis

Hmm. I think Kevin has slightly more career experience than me.

Kevin

Slightly.

Alexis

I can jerk. I can take a stab at it. And then I want Kevin's opinion to selfishly.

Um, for me, it's been taking every open opportunity. So working really hard at trying to Excel at what's being put in front of you, finding some stretch goals that you're passionate about. And so for me, I was a Cisco SE or a solutions engineer, sales engineer, whatever you want to call it.

And I was doing a really good job at that. And then I found making content. I was like, wow, I really also like doing this thing.

I'm going to make this my stretch goal and do this on the side. And what ended up happening is that I got an opportunity to do. It's called evangelism, right?

Technical evangelism, or basically like a developer advocate role at another company where now I do content and the public speaking and the community building and all of that full time. And that to me came from doing my base job and then finding a stretch goal that I was really, really passionate about. And I think especially in technology, there's so many jobs and also so many companies, whether you're looking at a big company, a small company, a startup, it could really be choose your own adventure.

And if you are on a path or pursuing a goal or a stretch goal or an interest, you could almost custom create your job depending on who you met. Like you said, that CEO reached out to you and said, I love everything that you're doing. This blog you just wrote, we need to hire someone to do exactly that.

I had the same experience. I also got a message from the CEO and he was like, I'm going to let you write your own job rec, whatever you want to do, send it over and I'll sign it. And if you're out there...

And that's, I mean, both of our examples have to do with content creation, but I've heard stories like that, even internal to Cisco, where people took on stretch projects and it had nothing to do with content. They just did a really good job and it turned into a full time role for them. And so I think there's all sorts of opportunities out there that can be aligned with your interests.

And even just meeting different people and exposing yourself to jobs that you don't know exist. We talked to AJ Murray last week. He's a demo engineer.

Was that his title? Kevin, did I get it right?

Kevin

Yep. Demo engineer.

Alexis

Yeah. He's a demo engineer. And every company has different jobs and different titles, and they're all slightly different depending on what the needs of the business are.

And so if you're just putting yourself out there and doing things that you like, you enjoy, and you're passionate about, eventually the two will kind of collide.

Alexis

I love that.

Alexis

Not that you shouldn't have a bigger goal to drive towards, but in my experience, it's been more, let me focus on doing this thing really good. And then whatever opportunities come out of that, then I have options.

Kevin

Yeah. I would say, Yifani already kind of honed in on what I do. And that is, I let my curiosity drive me.

Whatever I'm interested in, whatever I'm curious about, I dig into it a little bit and see if it's something that is as good as I think it is. Where you don't know what you don't know, but you could have like, okay, what does this thing do? How does this thing work?

You start slowly getting introduced to it via certification or YouTube videos or whatever. And if my curiosity grows from there, I know that I'm interested in it. I know that that's something that will at least in the near future, the next couple of years, keep me interested.

I have to be interested in what I'm doing. The people who have one job and they've been a network engineer for 20 years at one business, I can't relate to that because I get so bored doing the same stuff over and over again. And I know technology changes, the network changes, but the technology, the underlying technology, if you're a route switch guy and you've been doing route switch for 20 years, I could not handle it.

I need something different just to change it up. And so I always have to strive to what, not necessarily what the next big thing is, because I know cloud and then now AI is the next big thing, but it doesn't have to be the next big thing to be a good career. It can be something as simple as for me right now, I'm getting deeper into wireless because the wireless and the physics behind it, I find it really interesting.

And that's an old technology that's been around for 20 years, but that career is still viable. You don't have to have the newest, greatest thing coming out of college. You don't have to do cybersecurity or cloud or AI.

You can just be a normal, I'll say normal in quotation marks because the old technology, the old career is still viable.

Alexis

Is there a normal engineer? Do those exist?

Kevin

No, we're all, we're, I mean, personally, we're all weird. We're all, we all got quirks. You can't work in technology and be sane.

Either you start out crazy or you end up being crazy. But yeah, I let my PRC drive me.

Ifeanyi

I love those. I like those answers. Yeah, I'm definitely going to draw a lot from that.

Because one thing I do realize is, like the stuff I do on social media, like Alexa said, that's my interest. And I do believe that some sort of evangelism advocacy is my future. And I'm just going to continue doing what I'm doing on socials and just doing what I'm passionate about along with my role in and see where it goes with your career, be internally at AWS or any somewhere else.

Alexis

Yeah, there's options out there. And again, evangelism developer advocacy, whatever tech or what's the other word for it? Uh, Oh, field field.

No, no, no, no. Kevin. Almost like a field CTO role too.

They're all very, they're all very, very similar. Where you sit in between the product teams, the customers, the sales teams, the community, and you're almost like a go between to help everyone. They're becoming much more popular.

Kevin

Yeah. And I want to say, like, if there's any engineers listening who might be interested in content creation, I think engineers make great content creators because we approach things logically and we are very good at taking what's working and digging into that and throwing away what's not working. It's like a troubleshooting, right?

I'm troubleshooting an issue at work. I try a couple of things. They don't work.

I try something else that works. Okay. Let's keep doing that.

And that's what content creation is. It's discovering your voice, discovering, you know, what resonates with people and troubleshooting it. And so I think engineers make one of the best content creators out there.

So if you're, if you're thinking about doing it, just do it. Just start. Yeah.

Alexis

Also keep in mind, if you have been with us for the past five episodes, we picked guests that we knew were very, very talkative and most of them also create content. So if we've talked a lot about creating content, that's probably why you don't have to create content. I think it's a great option, but later on in the show, when Kevin and I get better at podcasting, we will find some guests who do not do content.

We can have, we can have some different takes, but I did, I do just, I do just want to make that distinction. And a lot of people we've interviewed are public in some way.

Kevin

Public, but you can create content and have it not be public either. Like we're all, we're all content creators. We all put our work out there.

Alexis

That's like saying everyone works in sales.

Kevin

It is, but it is true.

Alexis

No matter what job you have, you work in sales.

Kevin

I mean, to an extent, it's true. We're all content creators. Like what I'm saying is like the, the, the practical things you get out of content creator, you can get out of your own workplace too.

If you're, you know, creating internal documentation, if you're sharing like whatever, you can create an internal blog, even that kind of like, it doesn't have to be public if you're don't like being public. But I think we all create some kind of product out there and that we can benefit from the practices of improving your craft. That's all I'm saying.

Alexis

That's fair. That's fair. I just, I know a lot of people get intimidated when you use the word content creation.

So I wanted a caveat.

Ifeanyi

I think you're a whole class on content creation, not even how to create content, but the mentality of understanding, um, I want to say how easy it is to create content, but where you can draw content from every single day, which a lot of people don't really understand like how they, how they can do it.

Alexis

Or also when you get into a filter of like, is this a good thing to represent my brand? Do I want people to publicly perceive me this way? Or is this just oversharing?

Alexis

Yeah.

Alexis

Which lately is a line I have been telling. So it's fine. Anyways.

Kevin

All right. If any last question of the episode, if you could meet yourself, you know, five years ago, what advice would you give yourself coming up in technology?

Ifeanyi

Um, I would say continue on the path that you're going. Um, you don't have a clue, uh, the insane amount of places you're about to go, the rooms you're about to be in the people who you're about to meet. It may seem impossible right now, but keep the faith and continue to make the sacrifices and, um, keep putting yourself out there.

Keep looking crazy. Keep looking insane. At the end of the day, you're going to have the last laugh.

Alexis

Hey, love it. Well, if I need, thank you so much for joining us. Um, that's it for this episode of life and uptime huge.

Thank you for sharing your journey. And thanks to all of our listeners for listening. If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to follow this show.

So you never miss an episode. And if today's story gave you something to think about, feel free to share it with a friend or colleague who might need it. So until next time, keep learning, keep building and keep your uptime high.