So... I turned 30 and I still don't know what I am - (Part. 1)
Published about 1 month ago • 1 min read
12 FEB '26
So... I turned 30, and I still don't know what I am - (Part. 1)
These are the introspections of a newly realized 30-year-old boy.
Hi Reader,
When I was 18, I had this grand dream to try out every career path in tech at least once. I was already a good enough designer, and I got an internship at a Ghanaian tech company where I had the opportunity to sink my teeth into… well, everything.
I got access to one of Ghana's best engineering teams, and I just soaked it all in. For the next seven months, I learned and got good at as many skills as I could from everyone on the team. I even contributed to some of their projects.
I didn’t go this hard because I had the hustle mindset. I genuinely just enjoyed how brilliant it felt.
“At some point you touched a computer and the computer did what you wanted. You made it do what you wanted it to do, and you realized you were a god.” — Robert C. Martin
Maybe it was a little god complex. Who knows? 😄
That was the tipping point in my career, and I owe a lot to those seven months of “locking in” (as the Gen Z kids call it)
A few months later, I decided to pick up Brand Identity and Strategy. It wasn’t directly a tech career, but with the way my brain works, once it locks in on something, I absolutely have to get really good at it.
So I juggled branding, product design, and all the other tech skills I had learned, trying to improve them equally over the next couple of years.
Eventually, though, being a generalist caused some problems. I’d forget to pursue old interests, even when I knew they could be more financially rewarding. I was always chasing the next shiny skill or the newest cool tool.
But that’s the beauty of being young. You get to experiment. You get to explore. You get to find yourself before responsibilities kick in.
In retrospect, it’s safe to say I gave up on my dream of trying every tech career path once I realized it wasn’t sustainable to maintain all my interests as a career.
So I slowly began investing deeply in one thing. What I chose was building products and teams (Turns out, I’m freaking good at it).
Leadership allowed me to continue being a generalist, but it also unlocked a new challenge: getting people to do stuff and grow. (more on this in another newsletter issue)
That’s enough reading for now. I’ll hit you up with Part 2 same time next week.
12 MAR '26 Building software products doesn't just end at launch This article will be published on my website & DULA’s blog in a few days, and I want you to read it first and let me know your thoughts. It’s been inspired by recent experiences in my day-to-day life and conversations with people I work with. Hope you enjoy reading it even if you’re not exactly in the software space. Hi Reader, I’ve seen a lot of software product outsourcing go sideways. And when I dig into why, it almost always...
19 FEB '26 So... I turned 30, and I still don't know what I am - (Part. 2) These are the introspections of a newly realized 30-year-old boy. Hi again Reader, Last week, I wrote to you about how I gave up on my dream of trying out every single tech career path because I realized how unsustainable it is to maintain too many interests. There are always trade-offs. For example, if I’m trying to get deep into motion design, my frontend engineering skills suffer and vice versa. Something has to...
