Quitting to Start: Embracing Change and Deep Diving into AI

Picture this: there I was, comfortably nestled in an engineering management role at Cisco, a legendary tech giant with an amazing benefits and compensation package. Life was good, right? Well, it was... but if you're anything like me, an engineer at heart, something was missing over time. That spark, that fire in my belly that made me fall in love with tech 20+ years ago.So, I did what any rational person would do. I quit my job. 😅Crazy? Maybe. Exciting? Absolutely! Let's talk about it...(Thanks for reading! 😊 I share all this openly with the hope that it helps you with your life and pursuits, both in work and your passion for your craft. May it offer at least one tech industry colleague's experience for your consideration.)Share on LinkedIn

A Leap of Faith

I worked at Cisco for about a decade since the acquisition of OpenDNS in 2015 - the hot security startup I had joined back then. Over the years, I gathered a ton of experience across several teams and roles, including Security Engineer, Network Engineer, Software Engineer, Technical Lead, and Senior Tech Lead.As I gained more seniority and leadership experience, I naturally moved into leadership roles and became part of the senior levels of Engineering Management, stepping in wherever our business needed me. I was fortunate to join, start, hire, and lead teams, working with a ton of smart, awesome people, and together we delivered on some impactful projects.My career in a big tech giant was going well, and the momentum of the business cycles was fulfilling. But deep down, perhaps like some of you in the industry reading this blog, I gradually found it more difficult to extricate myself from necessary but lengthy corporate processes, meetings, and management tasks. I longed to spend personal time on immediate hands-on exploration and building things directly.I loved my team, and fostering their teamwork and growth is something I will cherish forever. However, what was best for the team often trumped my desire to spend time coding and building directly. As it should, and I would pick them over me any day of the week.With my deep passion and obsession with the AI/ML explosion, I came to a realization. I needed a change to follow my heart and pursue more exploration into AI/ML adoption. I wanted to learn and develop directly, something I had been obsessed about lately.After discussing with my family and ensuring I could survive for several months, I made a hard decision and took a leap of faith. I decided to swing the pendulum back to being hands-on by taking 3-6 months away from a traditional "day job" to learn everything I could about AI/ML. I aimed to understand how to work with it, how to code with it, how to develop content and business strategies with it, and ultimately how to build a startup with it.Yes, call me crazy 😜, but I'm simultaneously juggling studying, coding, and building while maintaining my business and leadership skills through a solo-preneur startup project. Let's see how far and fast AI can take us as a force multiplier! 🚀(Spoiler alert: It's only been 3 weeks, and I've never been more productive, excited, and focused. Working long and hard with new tooling and tech, co-developing and brainstorming with LLMs, this is a huge upgrade in personal satisfaction. Life's good 😊.)

Discovering AlvoRithm

During this transition, I felt I needed a new face and brand to reinvent myself. I've decided on the AlvoRithm. AlvoRithm will be a personal brand dedicated to sharing my journey, insights, and discoveries in AI. It’s a play on words, combining my passions for music production, video content creation, and more. AlvoRithm is not just a platform for documenting my experiences; it’s also a space where I aim to inspire and educate others who are passionate about technology and creativity.AlvoRithm's mission is to bridge the gap between AI theory and practical application, providing valuable insights to software developers, tech professionals, aspiring engineers, and anyone interested in the future of technology. Through blogs, vlogs, and social media, I share weekly updates in a Sprint retrospective style, highlighting what went well, what I learned, and areas for improvement.

Learning and Growing

My journey into AI has been incredibly enriching over the last three weeks. I'm currently diving deep into Deep Learning Specialization courses from Coursera with Andrew Ng from Stanford University. These courses provide a solid theoretical foundation and practical skills essential for navigating the AI landscape.In parallel, I'm working on a startup idea that leverages AI to create innovative solutions. This hands-on project allows me to experiment with the latest LLM models, cutting-edge techniques, and applications for software development. It's an exhilarating process that combines creativity, technical expertise, and a passion for problem-solving.

Sharing Knowledge

One of my core beliefs is that knowledge should be shared. Through AlvoRithm, I aim to distill complex AI concepts into easily digestible content. My goal is to save you time and provide you with the most valuable insights from a seasoned tech industry professional.I can start with going over what I believe every tech enthusiast should explore in order:

1. Conversational AI: Engage with chat models like OpenAI's GPT-4 or Anthropic's Claude.
2. Image Generation: Experiment with tools like DALL-E, Midjourney for generating images or equivalent.
3. Foundational Concepts: Understand key AI terms and concepts (e.g. LLMs, Supervised, Unsupervised, Parameters, Quantization, Fine-Tuning, context-windows, temperature, RAG, multi-modal, agents.
4. Coding Assistants: Integrate the latest code workflow enhancing tools (e.g. Github CoPilot, Agentic Frameworks like Crew.ai or Autogen).
5. Local Hosting: Explore local LLM hosting alternatives and open-source models.
6. Popular Models: Try out various open-source models (e.g. LLaMA 3, Mistral, Gemma 2) vs paid models (ChatGPT, Claude)

Looking Ahead

As I continue this exciting journey, I'm committed to launching at least one new startup around September, centered around an AI-based application I'm passionate about and I'll be using AI itself to help accelerate and implement the service. AlvoRithm will be the hub where I share every step of this journey, offering insights, lessons learned, and inspiration to my audience.

Call to Action

If you're intrigued by my journey and want to stay updated and keep in touch on the latest in AI, tech, and creative content, I invite you to follow me:- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alvinswong/- YouTube: AlvoRithm - YouTube channel - X.com (Twitter) - @theAlvoRithmLet's explore together!