Introduction

Working at IBM has been very good for me in the same way falling off a road bike and breaking my elbow was good - I’ve learned many, many valuable lessons, had many of my presuppositions invalidated, and had my eyes peeled wide open to the realities of the industry. Some might call them wake up calls, others may call them reality checks, I choose to call them blessings.

How does one sell $50,000,000 of work? I still have no clue, but I’ll be finding out shortly.

So many of the things I believed (or was taught) about the technology industry in University were untrue, fabrications, lies, pipe dreams, fluff and Silicon Valley fuzz. They did not hold up to the money-fuelled, budgeted, systematized, tough realities of the modern technology industry. That being said, all of this may just be the time and place when I have entered the space - late 2021 through to late 2024.

In the case of the road bike crash, I learned that biking without a helmet on industrial roads was very stupid and dangerous, and I lived and was able to apply the lesson. I am stupendously and incredibly blessed that I didn’t get my head squished by a semi truck that day.

At IBM, I have been given a conceptually similar environment, and similar grace. There is danger, there is the potential to sink a project, and every individual has the ability to sour the relationship with a client. Millions of dollars, in the present and in the future, are on the line. Like the construction worker who handed me some sterile gauze and patched me up enough to be on my way, and the road that scraped my shoulder enough to warn me, IBM as a group of individuals has provided good counsel, good training, good mentors, and safety nets for their consultants.

To prevent big mistakes and improve their assets, IBM invests a tremendous amount of time and money into ensuring their consulting associates are trained and ready to perform for clients, and it shows.

To date, I have taken or am currently enrolled in the following training:

1. Executive Presence training with Brad Antle during Extreme Blue¹
2. The Extreme Blue future leader incubator program generally¹
3. The initial month of training upon entering the Associates Program
4. A week-long Software Architect training bootcamp
5. IBM Leadership Academy run by the Ivey school of Business
6. Ongoing Band 7 Consulting Academy training

…and these are just the big ones. Innumerable smaller courses on Enterprise Design Thinking, leadership, cybersecurity, generative AI, and other topics are taken regularly. Much of the business training not provided as part of an engineering undergraduate program is now being provided as potential use cases peek over the horizon and the consultancy adapts as a single organism.

All of this training, taken together with all of the experience and good mentorship I have received over the past three years, have grown me far more than getting stuck in a corner pasting together JavaScript ever could have.

Back in University I thought that my career would be as a super hacker man writing great software and having interesting problems to solve. I’m sure jobs like that are out there - at the moment, not many of those types of jobs are here where I am. As noted in You Can’t Automate What You Don’t Understand , you can’t do anything by yourself in a box. You need context, and friends, and to engage with the world to find problems worth solving.

Though it’s a long and twisted path, I am nearer to my goals now than ever before thanks to my present work.

1. I know considerably more about implementing things in the cloud
2. I have become a formidable facilitator
3. My technical problem solving skills are growing sharp

Here’s the thing: I’m not doing what I imagined I’d be doing. In realigning my post-University dreams with reality, I have discovered that I have worked my way into a position that I am good at, that the world needs, and I can be paid for, and currently I am doing what I love and pursuing hacker activities on the side pro bono.

What is best for your growth is sometimes unexpected.

The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, And He delights in his way.

– Psalms 37:23 NKJV

More than anything else, I feel a strong commitment to a few core principles has done me more good than any other practical wisdom I have been given, though I have certainly received a lot of that. As technologies rise and fall, business skills and principles and wisdom are evergreen and universally applicable.

Why should you, A. Hackerman, second year engineering student, read this article? Perhaps for the sole reason of gleaning some kernel of wisdom from my own experiences - or to hopefully avoid some of my mistakes and learn these lessons early. The significance of any of these things relies on you entering the crucible of personal experience - so I don’t really know what I’m expecting to teach. Yet - here we are. Lastly - do not take any of my words as gospel. My journey is only just beginning, and the more I see, the less I seem to know.

Key 1: Always Produce High Quality Work

I can’t overstate the importance of this lesson. It was one of the first lessons I was taught, and something I have heard echoed by all of my best mentors:

In your service to industry, the quality of your work is how you will sink or swim. Consistently produce high quality work, and you will be highly valued and quickly move up. Produce crap, and you’ll be seen as a liability. Never release a rush job - always ensure what you produce is up to your personal gold standard.

It is often very difficult to meet this bar, but doing so will make your reputation shine, and make the stresses of your career good ones. Going above and beyond in producing quality deliverables also protects you from the floundering, lying, gaslighting, errors, and egotistical blunders of others. To summarize, it is valuable not to skimp and put the extra effort into high quality output because:

• It is how you will be known
• In workplace games, it is easy to defend
• It will set you on your best path
• You will learn more than is apparent

When confronted with a large or powerful enemy in an organization, your entire approach may come under scrutiny, and any gap in your conduct, work, or words (and even things you didn’t say,) will be used as leverage to pin the blame on you. You may be gaslit into acknowledging agreeing to things you never agreed to. You may be bullied into figuring out how to twist and adapt to delivering features you never promised. These twisted circumstances are made substantially more navigable with intelligent record-keeping, honesty, and a dedication to excellence.

When I first started my consulting career at MNP, a mentor told me:

The top thing to keep on your mind at all times is the quality of your work. The quality of your work, tied to your name, determines your entire future. Consistently producing the highest quality work that you can will ensure that you eventually make your way to a position where you can grow and be nurtured to your maximum capacity.

From my personal experience, this lesson is true. In my journal I wrote:

“Just today, I opened up my office door and found the Head of Data Science, AI & Analytics of IBM Consulting Canada sitting in the usually-unoccupied second desk of my hotelling office. He mentioned that he had heard about me, and we had a brief but highly engaging conversation. Quality work takes you far.”

While I know this section has been highly repetitive, it’s tough to improve or further refine such a beautiful gem. Even Scripture has much to say about this simple but timeless lesson:

Likewise exhort the young men to be sober-minded, in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you.

– Titus 2:6-8 NKJV

Key 2: Trust, but Verify

This one I learned the hard way, despite being warned. I had asked a coworker to produce a report with specific data, and had neglected to check it before delivering it to the client. The report had serious errors, and I ended up with egg on my face.

Every one of us has taken the words of our coworkers on faith - but faith is not enough for such worldly matters. You must make a point of understanding and remembering the following idea, lest you fall prey to a coworker’s shoddy work:

If it’s got your name attached to it, it’s got your reputation attached as well.

This lesson ties in well with the previous lesson of “always produce high quality work” - even if you aren’t personally producing something, if you are responsible and your name is attached, the additional effort of verifying that the deliverable is up to your personal standards is well worth your time.

Key 3: Be Pleasant and Network!

What is the point in having a reputation for quality work, or running a team which produces quality work, if you aren’t also known by a network of people who could utilize your skills or expertise? While the merit of quality work does spread your name on its own, it is not enough - you must draw attention to yourself as a rockstar consultant. Going above and beyond, and ensuring you are sought after for work in your domain, requires a particular set of corporate social skills.

Perhaps the only good book on business ever written, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, is a masterwork on this topic.

On the flipside - the consequence of not being pleasant can be disastrous. Nobody wants to work with a grouch, and there are a few notable people who despite being skilled have been quickly ushered off projects for their poor treatment of others.

I have discovered that this is what has happened to all the insufferable geniuses (in the consulting environment) - they were ushered out, stage left. Playing nice in the sandbox is required to work on a team. If you can’t or won’t, your incredible reality-bending technical prowess does not matter, you will be blacklisted.

Especially at IBM, a venerable institution, the term of thinking is far longer than most companies, who only look quarter to quarter. People are kept around for longer, and your reputation matters more. While rash decisions are occasionally made like with all companies IBM tends to hold on to its consulting resources long term, preferring not to reactively adjust hiring and firing to match the market.

Career Realism

As fun as it can be to radically idealize the mythical role of the programmer, the harsh reality is that the broader industry of programming is so strung up with completely incompetent ‘software engineers’ hired for the wrong reasons that it’s a wonder that all of our IT systems don’t suddenly grind to a halt.

Checking the peanut gallery, it seems that most career developers and technical consultants are unhappy² and that a great many do not enjoy their jobs. Programming is a cost centre, unless you work at a web giant or catch a venture-capital wave, programming jobs are increasingly dull and squeezed³ from a variety of angles. “Despite being unhappy at work, most developers code outside of work as a hobby (68%)”² Lately my thinking has been this - perhaps it is a huge blessing that I am able to pursue programming as a hobby, slowly tailoring my skillset to the rapid creation of genuinely helpful tools for fun or profit.

As discussed in a few Canadian news outlets⁴ (covering for our trashed service-based economy and coping with having to work forever, but a good idea independently,) the Japanese concept of Ikigai is something I note to friends and family often. Nailing the center of this diagram is tough, but possible with compromises.

Even in a position where you are uncomfortable or unhappy, there are benefits. You may not understand how much you are growing right where you are now. Blessings can be hidden from view, and only reveal themselves when a new challenge comes along. In this sense, it is important to keep your head up and understand that work is work, play is play, and you must seek wisdom when making career decisions.

And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.

– Colossians 3:23-24 NKJV

Per Ardua Ad Astra

I can’t see myself leaving IBM anytime soon - unless the local tech scene here really picks up, and a fun opportunity at a startup that doesn’t reek of baseless positivism and empty promises appears, it has become apparent that with effort you can grow indefinitely at IBM.

Perhaps with enough time or a good enough idea I’ll snap and finally break off to create a product on my own - but frankly, I’m happy developing my business skillset for now, which is very much a required component of good entrepreneurship.

I hope to write another of these in a few more years, ideally with another three really great Keys to share. Stay well, God bless.

R