Being Black In Tech

If you count my years in college, I have been in technology for more than half my life. And what a ride it has been! I’ve had the opportunity to build both enterprise and consumer software, as an individual contributor and later as a manager at both early startups and billion dollar companies. I’m still busy writing key chapters of my story, but so far this journey has seen me stumble and get up countless times, leading to the person that I am today. Over the course of this story, I’ve learned to understand, embrace and express the individual I have become; and yet, there is still one part of me that I am still learning to fully understand and embrace, especially as a long time tech professional: my blackness. 

Late last year, I attended a LinkedIn mixer for black and latino employees, and one conversation in particular, convinced me that it was time for me to write about this topic. I left that event with a strong conviction to share my thoughts in a blog post by the week’s end, but that never materialized as my excitement quickly gave way to uncertainty around how to even broach this subject.  How do I make sure I don’t overdo it and come across as an overzealous social justice warrior or even worse, the stereotypical angry black dude? Or underdo it and get dismissed as a no-op to the black cause? So it took me months to put it all together, and now with Black History Month in full swing, it feels like just the right time to reflect on this topic.

As an African immigrant, I would be the first one to admit that my experiences are probably not representative of the larger black population in America or even Technology. I never had to consider the implications of race until I was a fully grown adult because I was always surrounded by people that looked like me in my homeland of Ethiopia. I came to the US for college and went to a school that had only a handful of black students, but quite frankly, we were all too busy to notice what people looked like. Then I started working and I had much to figure out in the real world. 

One of the first challenges I faced early in my career as a black tech professional was the lack of role models that looked like me. Why does this matter? Well, very few things can be more reassuring to a young black professional than to see someone like them make it before they embark on the same journey. If someone like me did it already, it’s much easier to imagine that the only difference between that person and me is hard work and maybe a little bit of luck. In a slight twist of irony, during my first job, I actually ended up in an org that was led by a black VP, but he was probably far too removed from me hierarchically to ever become someone I could see as a true role model. And now, as a people leader, I can’t help but wonder if I would have dipped my toes in management a lot sooner, had I found a role model that I could relate to earlier.

As my career in tech progressed, I learned to adapt even more and laid aside my blackness in favor of a more whitewashed identity that fit more naturally into the broader tech demographic. In some ways, that actually forced me to be more outgoing and social, helping me develop some critical soft skills that would continue to serve me well throughout my career. But in other ways, it also suppressed any urge to stand out as different and unapologetically be myself. From the way I dressed up to how I talked, I devolved into a scripted act that catered to what passes for normal in Silicon Valley. Now, that is not to say, I would have acted much differently but my blackness played a decidedly important role in how I saw myself perceived by my peers, whether it was real or imagined.

But even as I was learning to be the master of the racially ambiguous, I was still getting the occasional reminder of what it really meant to be black, even in the most progressive corners of the world. I once sat for hours in a Fremont traffic court as the judge went through all the cases alphabetically, only to pause when he got to my name and skip it until the end of the session, presumably because he didn’t feel comfortable pronouncing my name. Another time, I ran towards a lady on the Stanford campus to ask her for directions to the orthopedic clinic, only to have her almost run into oncoming traffic trying to get away from me. Even at LinkedIn, I recall walking into a room to interview an engineering manager, only to have him keep looking behind me waiting for the real interviewer to walk through the door. Driving while black? Yes, I’ve had my share of those too. The struggle is real. It’s not always malicious or even willful but as a black man, it’s something I have learned to quickly spot, triage and deal with. Over time, I’ve learned to process it in a way that does not compromise the fabric of my black identity or the career I’ve built on the basis of racial ambiguity. And I have learned to accept that some people will continue to behave a certain way, and I would be foolish to let those moments decide who I am and detract from my pursuit of happiness and a better life.

But, my struggles, like any good story, did not come without characters in capes. I got a lot of help along the way. I was able to get important breaks in my career in large part thanks to the help and support I got from my non-black allies in the industry.  For every racist incident, I was blessed with countless others that helped accelerate my growth and provided me with plenty of opportunities to make positive impact. These individuals gave a little kid from Ethiopia a chance to believe and become so much more. And that experience instilled in me the belief that the system, despite its rough edges, would let me keep going as far as my conviction would take me.

And then things got weird. I got older and became a guy that black students and tech professionals started reaching out to, looking for mentorship and guidance. Suddenly, I was made acutely aware of my blackness and compelled to embrace my role as someone who may have some valuable experience to share with these younger me’s. And in the process, I became more and more comfortable with the idea that for some, I could perhaps be that “role model” that I wished I had when I was younger. With that realization came a renewed understanding of my black identity and with it, an even stronger desire to express it more openly so others can get more used to the idea of the black tech professional.   

Being black in tech carries with it a contract to try our very best in the service of the larger cause and show the rest of the tech community that we too can excel and get it done. This pressure can at times be a little taxing especially when the burden can be shared only by the few. The most obvious remedy to this problem is to grow the number of black tech professionals, and I’m excited about doing my fair share by being a positive ambassador for our race and someone the next generation of black tech professionals can hopefully look up to. So yes, I am, without question, starting to embrace my black identity more everyday. But like any lifetime journey, it is a process, and everyday will bring new lessons on how to strike the right balance between being a tech professional who happens to be black and a black person who happens to work in tech.

Happy Black History Month!

I want to thank Sabry Tozin and Chris Pruett for being generous with their time and giving me helpful editorial feedback.