Career Journey & Vision

Building a Meaningful Future in Technology

1. What I Love and Hate Doing

Love Doing

• Peaceful Quiet Solitude: Being in an environment where I can think deeply about things and am not constantly distracted.
• Purposeful Impact: Tackling critical issues such as AI alignment, environmental sustainability, mental health, obesity, healthcare improvement, and elevating human well-being.
• Deep Engagement: Being fully absorbed in meaningful tasks driven by genuine passion.
• Leveraging Unique Talents: Roles blending my skills in juggling, music, and technology, with dedicated time for daily practice, community orchestra involvement, chamber music, and hobbyist activities, funded adequately to maintain passion (e.g., a replaceable but quality instrument like a $1,800 viola, or a $10,000 AI home lab; a home with a stage area where I can invite friends and performers to play). I'd love to host concerts in one of my homes like John Harbison does.
• Continuous Growth Environment: Regularly learning from respected mentors and leaders, happily being the least experienced, skilled, and intelligent person in the room.
• Healthy, Resilient Culture: Distinctive workplaces promoting genuine employee health and longevity through practical initiatives like science-based personal training, plant-based diets, adequate rest, and meaningful rewards (cash bonuses, vacations).
• Collaborative and Inspired Coworkers: Colleagues who maintain peak health, pursue meaningful hobbies, and actively engage in personal growth—especially those passionate about juggling.
• Optimized Remote Work: Embracing remote environments designed for peak health and longevity, minimal unnecessary meetings or commuting, ideally a 32-hour, four-day workweek. Occasional face-to-face retreats that include camping or hiking trips would be okay. Working alongside competent, exciting individuals who are positively oriented, healthy, and high-achieving. I want seeing my co-workers to be an amazing experience. Convening at cutting-edge tech conferences or similar for special occasions, on the company dollar.
• Psychologically Advanced Organizations: Valuing cutting-edge psychological research, openly encouraging truth-seeking dialogues, and celebrating evolving opinions based on evidence. Supportive of mental health. Antiauthoritarianism.
• Meaningful Outcomes: Engaging in work producing tangible, impactful results addressing critical societal issues.

Hate Doing

• Meaningless Tasks: Jobs with arbitrary goals lacking personal significance; false promises of autonomy undermined by constant criticism.
• Fear Based Cultures: Fearing all your choices because you know there is nothing you can do that will not be unfairly criticized. Immediate firing rather than constructive feedback and growth through learning. Poorly implemented frameworks such as performance reviews based on arbitrary metrics. IBM Design Thinking principles or Agile methodologies implemented in a way that has the opposite effect of their intent.
• Harmful Work: Developing or promoting products/services negatively impacting society, including fast food, environmental harm, isolation-promoting technology, and weapons (especially wartime AI).
• Incompetent Hierarchies: Arbitrary power structures managed by demonstrably incompetent leaders.
• Passionless Roles: Positions filled by uninspired individuals compelled by necessity rather than genuine interest, fostering resentment and stagnation.
• Toxic Micromanagement: Cultures demanding sudden overtime, prioritizing immediate fixes over long-term, preventative solutions; rewarding "heroic" reactions to preventable emergencies rather than those who do careful work and do not cause the problems in the first place.
• Replaceable Roles: Generic positions treating workers as expendable and interchangeable, lacking recognition of individual skills.
• Unhealthy Corporate Cultures: Environments emphasizing the grind to an unhealthy and counterproductive degree. Cultures where employees burn themselves out without much to show for their effort.
• Communication Challenges: Workplaces discouraging open and safe communication. I need to safely express myself—even during extreme situations—without career derailment. Employers should recognize and accommodate my mental health needs, even intervening proactively in crisis scenarios.
• Unrealistic Expectations: Ambiguous roles with impossible goals, resistant to feedback or realistic adjustments.
• Pointless Participation: Engaging in tasks without meaningful impact, feeling like participation in a meaningless cult.

2. Your "Must-Haves"

Aligned Manager

Technical manager that competently reviews my changes, matches my passion for abstract technical wins, and is able to communicate beyond simple "the ticket has not been closed" or "there are not enough lines in this code" ideas.

Work from Home

I want to be a global citizen, attending the EJC every year, owning property abroad, being able to find love wherever it finds me. I want to be location independent. I want to be able to play my instruments, eat my own food, and have my own work setup. I want to redefine what it means to work. I want work to be an activity done to improve health and wellness, as well as for financial security.

High Salary

I am entering my 2nd decade of experience as a technology professional. I must maintain the progress I have made in my income by continuing to earn over $100,000/year. By the end of my 2nd decade, I would like to be making $200,000 or more. Otherwise I would rather not work in tech at all. I'd rather be a professional viola player, juggler, or some other creative pursuit. For low pay, I would rather not work in tech at all.

Artificial Intelligence

I am 100% sold on the coming AI revolution. I believe it will be more significant than anything we've experienced before in humanity. It will be like the invention of fire. We will have the "feel the AGI" moment around 2027, and I want to be one of the "asses in seats" at the table of that moment. I want to be the Ford assembly line worker driving my Model-T around past everyone else riding in their horse carriages.

Diversified Income

I'd like to work with people that are monetizing other things they do on the side. I'd love to get paid for my creative endeavors and passions. It's been my dream since I was a child to get paid to play the viola, but even after having invested $10,000 on an instrument, well over $20,000 or more on music education, and hours and hours practicing and performing, I PAY to play viola for people. I pay dues to a community orchestra and for instrument maintenance. I pay over $100/month to play music right now, if you include my Zimbabwean band. I have never gotten paid enough to offset my costs. I'm a highly skilled musician and juggler, but I currently pay to juggle and to make music, rather than getting paid for it. I feel like I'm in a parallel universe where the things I love are devalued. I can feel the harm this does in our society, and it frustrates me. Imagine if everyone who smokes cigarettes instead carried with them juggling balls or a tin whistle, and paid into those activities the same amounts they pay into smoking cigarettes. I think society would be better.

Respect for the Arts

It boggles my mind how undervalued fine arts are in U.S. culture. A must have in my next job is a company that openly values and supports artists. A great example would be a robotics company that tries to mimic great violin players. I love how AlphaGo brought attention to the game of Go. I want my job to immerse me in a historic, long-standing subculture of humanity. It'd be awesome to be associated with the juggling world since I'm immersed in it already. A fun idea is a non-grifting health-span longevity company that uses juggling skill as a metric for aging.

Organic Intelligence

I want to work with intelligent people who do the smartest thing by default without overthinking. I want to avoid working with self-described "nightmare people."

Impact

I want to do something big. I want to be part of the AI revolution.

3. Your "Must-Nots"

Authoritarianism

"Because the boss said so" is not enough reason—especially for things like overtime and micromanagement. I cannot be told Friday afternoon that I'm working Saturday. Unacceptable, especially if it's to address preventable fallout from poor organizational choices. A "yes sir" environment is not right for me. I want an environment of "why."

Penny-Pinching Companies

Companies that give 2.98% raises to underperformers and 3.35% to top performers. I want organizations not baked into bloated hierarchies (e.g. four layers of VPs, Network Engineer I--V roles) where a junior engineer makes more than a senior due to arbitrary caps and freezes, and career advancement simply means having another title and not much else.

Self-Described Nightmare People

I want everyone I work with to be objectively awesome. If anyone on the team is a nightmare person, I want it to be me.

Evil

Grifting, exploitation, cruelty, war profiteering (though I'm interested in drone tech).

Stupid Needless Companies

For example, health insurers when we could have single-payer. I don't want to work for the problem; I want to work for the solution. I'd love to work for a single-payer advocacy or healthcare reform organization, not UnitedHealthcare.

Standard American Culture

I don't want to be rewarded by pizza, wings, and cake. I think a co-op, democracy-based sort of work model where my uniqueness is a valued asset and my vote counts would be ideal.

4. Your Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

• Technical Ability: I have a genuine passion for technology and a strong aptitude for learning new skills that enhance my work.
• Deep Network Engineering Expertise: 10 years of networking experience. Passed the CCNP Enterprise and JNCIP Service Provider exams. Attempted JNCIE.
• Software Development: I code. I love to code. I've worked professionally as a python developer. Since I've started vibe coding my heatmap on Github looks great. I use code to build tools for me in my personal life as well as professionally. I built www.simpleharmonymaker.com
• Life Long Learner: Nearly 1000 educational videos posted on my YouTube channel, covering a wide range of topics from networking to Python programming to Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction.
• Leadership & Mentorship: I volunteer for the Agile Learning Institute, a free non-profit coaching service. I worked as a teaching assistant while in networking school.
• AI Realist: I have situational awareness of the decade ahead regarding the impact of AI development. I participate on Hugging Face and use AI everyday to improve my life, especially for mental health.
• Community Engagement: I am a core member of the Texas Juggling Society and the Central Texas Medical Orchestra.
• Acknowledgment of Weakness: I recognize that I have areas for growth, particularly regarding my disability diagnoses. I actively research and implement strategies to address these challenges. I regularly see relevant, licensed, and qualified professionals for support. I do my best to be a good patient and not have any unforced errors in my treatment.

Weaknesses

• Social Connectiveness: I am mired by a number of mental health challenges, which makes me the perpetual odd man out. Included in my diagnoses is excoration disorder, which can be upsetting for others to witness. Since my number one value is health, physical and mental, I take my well-being seriously and seek environments that support it, which can limit my opportunities. I lack a clear and consistent mental model of which environments are conducive to my success and which are not.
• Limited Cloud Experience: Primarily on-prem networking background, with limited hands-on cloud experience (AWS, Azure, GCP). Actively working to close this gap through self-study and labs, but finding myself mired with challenges in motivation to study.
• Limited Software Best-Practice Experience: Much of my coding has been "glue and duct tape." The difference between my education in networking and in coding is stark. I am actively improving code quality and testing skills via autodidactic means, but I struggle to feel confident in my abilities.
• Selective Opportunity Focus: Strong preferences (remote work, values alignment, health management compatibility) limit immediate opportunities. May not align well with what the job market has to offer, especially in the fields where I have the most qualifications.

5. Your Career Goals (Short-Term and Long-Term)

Short-Term Career Goal — Pivot Away from Traditional Network Engineering

Transition into modern future proof roles like AI Engineering, AI Infrastructure, Cloud Engineering, or Cyber Security.

Long-Term Vision — Entrepreneurship and Leadership

Start my own tech company that reflects my values, with a world-class people-first culture and a remote-first approach that innovates and redefines what it means to work. Innovate and create a highly lucrative and profitable niche that leverages the AI revolution. For example, adult music lessons. People may find themselves drawn to learning music in a more personalized and flexible way, using AI-driven tools and platforms that cater to their individual needs and preferences. They might have more time and resources to devote to practice and skill development for their own personal satisfaction, if AI delivers upon its promises, leading to a highly profitable niche area for a business. I'd like to become the world's first trillionaire through the sheer value my company brings via AI. Not sure how to get there, but it is important for me to be clear that this is the level of my long-term vision. I want to succeed wherever Bryan Johnson fails in his efforts to popularize peak health all around the globe.