Career Roadmap

It has worked for me well, and I hope it will work for you, too.

Uki in Harman Connected Car (Maserati)

Motivation

I have written this post a while ago as a personal reminder. Since then, I visit it every few months and add all these things that seem important.

Manage the Distractions

In today’s world, distractions abound. As you are reading it, I am distracting you from what you really should be doing.

Every day, there are hundreds of social media posts, great ideas, gadgets, and personal messages competing for your attention.

There is a whole advisory industry, especially on YouTube, making loads of money by telling us what to think and what to buy.

You could refuse to deal with it and retreat, the trend to delete social media accounts is trending. If you choose to do so, there are many retro-niche markets there for you.

Or, you can try to manage distractions wisely.

Personally, I love learning new ideas. If I had an unlimited amount of time I would study an infinite number of things, but that is not the reality. I do have to make selections. Please read on, I have some techniques I found useful.

We all are facing dilemmas

In addition to tiny distractions, here are few dilemmas I am constantly facing:

• Should I invest the time and effort and get an advanced degree or at least a new certification?
• Should I be focusing on machine learning, autonomous driving, or robotics?
• Should I spend time writing articles, or software apps?
• Should I work on weekends developing a new start-up?

Trying to do everything will surely lead to failure and depression, so I have to be very diligent at prioritizing.

Write a list, prioritize, and make some hard choices. Keep only the top three.

Uki with the Udacity vehicle — Self Driving Nanodegree

Eliminate bad choices

Please read this title a few more times “eliminate bad choices”.

It is important to eliminate things you do not want to focus on:

• “Commodity skills.”
  If everyone and their grandma can do IT, then you might choose something different. Yes, pun intended, choose the path less traveled.
• “Naysayers”
  Nothing will bring you down as quickly as a “friend” who is a psychopathic pessimist, sadly, most people have some predisposition towards it.
  Do not talk to them.
• “Complainers”
  Again, people with victim syndrome will justify almost anything in their life, then, they will spend the rest of the day on Facebook.
  Do not talk to them.
• “False authority”
  Surprise, your bosses, parents, what-have-you, could be making some terrible career decisions. Ask me how do I know.
  “One word.. plastics” might have been a piece of good advice in the sixties, “silicon” in the fifties, “Pets.com” in 2000, and “There is an app for this” in 2010, but today, maybe you should follow Mike Rowe.
• I cannot list all the bad things you have to eliminate, they will be specific to your situation, but I suggest you list them in your little red book.

Choose what is right for you

So, you might ask yourself the question, what is the next, next thing? What should I focus on in the next few months?

Review your interests, your talents, your experience, and build upon it.

If you have nothing going on yet, just follow what interests you the most because otherwise, you probably won’t stay on course.

Do not jump around, select one single thing you want to do in the next two years. Life is longer than you think, you can change your mind 20 times in your career.

Once the decision about your future is made, you can relax and study.

Uki with CNH tractor — vehicle and implement control

Pivots

I do make this kind of career direction choices every-so-often, then I micro-pivot by a few degrees. I believe we should always build upon our prior experiences. Starting from scratch is generally a terrible idea.Here are some of my own pivots:

• in 1997, I decided to leave USMC and study computers
• in 1998, I changed from Electronics/Automotive Mechanics to Web development
• in 2001, I changed to Java Web server programming
• in 2009, I changed to Android Java Mobile programming
• in 2012, I changed to vehicle control at CNH
• in 2016, I started to study machine learning programming for automotive
• in 2017, I started to work for Harman on Android Infotainment Systems
• in 2019, I started to work in ADAS, Autonomous Driving
• in 2026, I sold my AI company and retired to teach at college, write books and build the next thing

Uki in Google Waymo car

Checkpoints to follow

Here is the path I have developed and follow in my career, you can use them as checkpoints:

• Pick something you want to do about 2 years from now.
  - It has to be meaningful to you.
  - It has to be useful: people must be willing to pay for it.
• Study it
  - Get a basic understanding of what you are doing.
  - Beginnings are slow and hard, it is OK.
  - Study “first principles” as Elon Musk would advise.
• Study more
  - Lookup “David Goggins” if you wonder how much you should practice.
  - Listen to Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers” to understand how much you need to study.
  - Read everything written on the subject.
  - Carry a few “want to read” articles (eBooks) with you at all times.
  - There are more articles published than anyone can consume.
  - I have a Kindle with over 900 books and scientific papers on it, most unread, yet.
  - At some point, you will see a dramatic increase in your understanding.
• Become a “go-to expert”
  - Teach at meetups, organize a special interest group.
  - Write articles or blog posts, they do not have to be very good at first, you are doing it for yourself.
  - Write books, it is a tall order, I know, I did and have failed many times.
  - Make tutorials (e.g. videos on YouTube).
• Prepare for the next job
  - Get references for prior-jobs well done.
  - Review job requirements, update LinkedIn profile accordingly.
  - Find professional connections on LinkedIn, more is better.
  I have more than 8,500.
• Apply for jobs.
  - Funny thing, most people skip this step.
• Prepare for the interviews.
  - Study the company.
  - Study the interviewer.
  - Study their topics of interest.
• Get the job
  - Get good at what you are doing.
• Adjust your path and pivot every two years.

The 15-minute rule of mindfulness

The great opportunities come to people who are highly trained and ready. There is a saying “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”

Try to remind yourself every 15 minutes to reflect on “what have I done to make my life better” and to make a decision on “what to do next” to become a better human being.

This is one of my critical principles, this 15-minute evaluation of the time well spent. Often the answer will be to eat, or sleep, or laugh with friends, sometimes it will be to get out to breathe and exercise.

The differentiator, however, will be how often you will decide to study and work hard to improve yourself. It is all about good habits. Once again, in case you have missed it, your habits will define your success.

Surprisingly, a simple statement works for me very well, “I shall not be a lazy person.” That is all that is needed, I pick up and get going.

Back to Basics

The next aspect of career development is keeping up to date with the basics, the first principles. I have followed this rule for years, but to be honest I have learned the terminology “first principles” only recently.

The next section talks about computer science, but it applies to anything, really. The military professionals will tell you “Smooth is fast and fast is smooth”.

Honestly, it does not matter how hard you work in your job, you will not pass the “whiteboard hazing”, err “the interview”, without any preparation. I lost countless interviews with fine companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook to what I’ve felt was a “power trip” of some young engineer without any social skills straight out of a cookie factory. For years I was saying, “Why do I need that? It is not worth it”.

Only later, I have read books and articles on interviewing and realized that the “whiteboard” is simply a thing the computer companies do and that people prepare by studying algorithms and zen-koan-like mind-bender problems for months. This is some great news for idle students, but not so great for busy people who have real jobs (and families). This is particularly painful for managers and architects like me, who deal with projects and teams and do not write code for a living. Still, to get a job in a top company you have to have outstanding skills.

Thankfully, there is a huge backlash, and HR departments are realizing that ability to “invert a binary tree” on a whiteboard has no correlation with creating beautiful, or useful products. The focus in the next few years should be on “thinking on your feet” and diversity of experience.

My suggestion for anyone would be to have a profession-oriented blog and for any software engineer, a GitHub account, and to be prolific on daily basis. You should be writing and committing code every day, regardless of your day job.

Keep the chin up

Finally, if you are interviewing, do not get discouraged by numerous rejections. In fact, you do not want a job that does not fit you.

Eventually, if you really apply yourself, and if you are a half-decent human being, you will find a great team that will love you, while willing to pay well for the privilege.

This post should not be considered a “shortcut”, but rather, a best practice on how to organize your career roadmap and prioritize your options.

Thank you!

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