Chris Vailalo

In one sentence, what’s your employer doing and what's your area of responsibility?
 
Datacom is the largest IT services company in New Zealand. I am part of the Cloud Platform Services team in Wellington. Our team helps businesses and organizations find ways to leverage the cloud in their day-to-day activities, whether it be using a database product such as AWS RDS or migrating their entire workload to one of the many cloud platforms.
 
What are you doing day to day in your role? 
 
I'm currently working on a project to help an organization migrate its workloads to the cloud. Some of my day-to-day activities as part of this project involve daily stand-ups, where I catch up with my stream. Everyone informs the rest of the team about their progress on the Jira tickets they are assigned. As a Cloud Engineer on this project, I've helped build the foundations, which includes - deploying infrastructure using code (IaC) - which includes creating virtual machines, securing them by creating rules that allow only certain people to access them, and deploying backup solutions.
 
It's not all technical work though - sometimes I might be reviewing documentation and analyzing data to make sure it is accurate enough for other stakeholders to make informed decisions.
 
Where did you grow up? 
 
I was born in Wellington, spent the first 11 years in Porirua before moving to Lower Hutt. My parents are Samoan - Dad is from Falefa and Mum is from Satuiatua in Savaii.
 
What would you say we're the most important stages of your life?
 
The year 2016. It was my second year as a library assistant and I still didn't have any idea as to what I wanted to do. However, I had an epiphany to study IT because I had always enjoyed working with computers, but it never occurred to me that I should pursue a career in IT.
 
Working with TupuToa in 2019 - Applying for TupuToa was another important stage. Before applying to TupuToa, I had applied to dozens of IT graduate and internship roles across Wellington, some of which I made the final interview, but to no avail. With TupuToa, they immediately paired me with an internship with RBNZ which was a fantastic experience. After that internship, I decided to apply again in 2020. This time they paired me with Datacom, which would turn out to be a gamechanger - after finishing my internship, Datacom offered me a graduate role of which I am in now.
 
How did you get to your current job position and how long have you been in the role?
 
As per the last question, through TupuToa. My internship ran from November to February. I immediately rolled over as a graduate - So I've been a graduate for seven months.
 
Is there any other personal information you're happy to share that has shaped you/your life journey? 

• Do what makes you happy. You want to minimize the number of regrets you have.
• When planning, be clear and concise. Make sure your plan is measurable so you know you're making progress.
• Question everything, don't take anything at face value
• Everything you do is either moving you towards or pushing you away from your goals. 

What characteristics and/or skills would someone need to get into your line of work? 

• You like to solve problems
• You're conscientious - attention to detail
• You enjoy coding
• You want to work with amazing people from all backgrounds
• In any job or undertaking, communication is a must - good communication

 What do you love most about your job?
 
Working with people from different backgrounds. To be able to collaborate with people who have different skillsets, there is always something to learn. Moreover, you can develop some really good work relationships, which in turn makes it easier to collaborate with them.
 
I also like the challenge. There have been many opportunities presented to me that have forced me to think in a different way. In my role, I'm constantly challenged in that I need a new way of thinking to solve a problem. I love that because it conditions me to constantly think, to be creative.
 
3 pieces of advice for students

• Think about where you want to be in the next 10 to ten years, then work backward. If 10 years is too far, then change it to a time where you can see yourself. By working backward, think about what you need to do to get there. This will require some time to research, but it'll be worthwhile. You will find that what you want to be may change, and that’s ok, but ensuring that you have a plan written out is crucial to help you get there
• Fail fast. Feedback is king. You won't know how you're doing unless someone lets you know. From the perspective of a student, you want feedback to know how you can improve your work. In the workplace, this is very much the same. However, failure in the workplace, especially on a technical piece of work, can be disastrous  (I'm simplifying failure in the workplace here). Learning the fail fast concept early on, ideally before you start working gives you a huge advantage
• Always be learning. The end of your studies does not mean the end of your learning. I've been advised, especially as an engineer, that your ability to learn is if not, the number one trait you should have. This is because, in my case, technology is always changing, and always changing very fast. What you know now may not be valuable or used in another two or three years. Broadly speaking, your ability to learn and learn quickly will allow you to grasp concepts and ways of working, which in turn will make you a more effective employee