Hoi aka Hoiboy
Before all the AI stuff, I spent eight years at Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu. My title said Data Centre Engineer the whole time. Flat organisation, and I never needed a new title to prove what I could do.
Superpowers: ADHD and OCD for getting shit done properly.
Current role: AI Product Engineer.
What I quietly did: the role outgrew the title almost straight away. Data Centre Engineer on paper, but in practice the infrastructure architect, the procurement lead, the project manager (PMP certified) and the data centre manager, all at once, running the sites largely on my own for years. I designed and rolled out Canonical’s cloud data centres across London, Boston and Taipei, mentored the engineers who came after me, coordinated remotely with everyone from contractors to the COO across disciplines and teams scattered all over the world, and negotiated the supplier deals down hard enough to save the business a small fortune. Whatever I was handed, I gave back in better shape than I found it. Nobody threw a party for any of it. The work just spoke for itself, even when the title didn’t. That is usually how it goes for the quiet ones.
The identity bit: I grew up in Birmingham, in mixed-culture schools, and my best mate growing up was a ginger. I started tinkering with tech when I was 7, and it never left me. For a long time growing up I had no real idea who I was. I was clueless and aimless, with no goals or ambition, and I tried loads of things that never felt quite right. A few things always stuck around, and a few more I only discovered much later in life. Those are the things that make up who I am and what I do now. When I was younger I rejected my own Asian culture, and it was only when I got older that I really came to embrace it. I started out a bottled-up introvert, but I outgrew it. After years of self-development, and a few catalysts like wine and Guinness (a lot of it lol), I’m more of an open book now. When I am not socialising or dancing, I still like spending most of my time alone in my mancave though, working on things I find interesting like trading, tech, AI, and community building. It’s been a constant struggle to work out who I am, and to keep developing who I want to become.
The flex, nothing to do with tech: I started dancing at 28, the only bloke in a room full of women. I went and found teachers, practised and practised, explored, and kept a curious mind wide open. The hard knocks humbled me, and that is exactly how I got pretty good. Years later I’d helped build one of the biggest Brazilian Zouk communities around. The learning never really stops, that is the way.
Tech tip: don’t let the AI lead, you lead it. A good harness (rules, guardrails, review gates) beats a clever prompt every time. If you are still prompting constantly, you are doing it inefficiently. Learn to build a harness, or easier: mine is public, so point your AI at it and ask it to build one into your own setup using mine as a framework.
Life tip: you don’t have to become the loud one to get noticed. Do the work, then let someone you trust point at it. That’s what this group is for.
To anyone reading who never puts their hand up: your work is worth more than your comfort with self-promotion. Come say hello, and we’ll do the shouting for you.