Yes, I Have A Job

I often get asked what I do for a living because people are so used to me “living the life” on Instagram, always being on the move, or trying pack a million different events into the week. Well I’m here to tell you my life isn’t all gumdrops and rainbows. All the fun stuff I do is because I’m usually doing it on limited sleep or don’t give myself time to decompress and relax (hence me wanting to focus on practicing better consistency and persistence in self-care per my previous post). So let me tell you the story of where I came from to where I am now in my career.

I graduated with a degree in Biomedical Engineering from ASU in May 2013 and immediately started by first job as a Quality Engineer at Stryker in Tempe, AZ. I had no clue what I was doing, and at the time I was one of the youngest people at the entire company. Naturally, I was curious to learn so I worked a lot of 12-15 hour work days and latched onto every opportunity thrown at me. It landed me a in a lot of unique situations that allowed me to gain quite a few leadership skills, as well as attain a lot of accomplishment people in my career don’t get to say they until much later on in their lives. Now eventually, some younger folks closer to my age showed up at the office and we ended up having a really tight knit friend group, but I was still thirsty to get out of AZ. Fast forward 3 years, a manager from Stryker in San Jose, CA heard about me and asked me to join the team. While I was sad to leave what I thought was the best job and group of friends ever, I knew I needed growth (plus it was always my dream to live in CA).

I spent almost 2 years at the next job until I decided I wasn’t enjoying coming to work anymore, especially since I made it even harder on myself by living all the way in San Francisco. I really had this mentality that I was going to stay at Stryker forever, but ultimately I became depressed due to a bunch of factors that were against me with work. Why torture myself by commuting 3 hours a day for work to do something I didn’t want to do, and not get paid well for it on top of that? It took a great deal of will power when I felt guilty for wanting to leave a company that had done so much for me, but I started applying for new jobs. At first I thought, “Maybe I don’t even want to do medical device anymore, what about tech?” Well I found I found the perfect solution, a medical device company that specialized in AI and software. I nailed the interviews and was extended an offer, and even better, the office was located in SF!

Side note…for those who are seriously afraid to leave their jobs, don’t be. Take that leap of faith and always ask yourself if you are where you want to be in your career. For most people, your job is your home 8+ hrs a day. You better enjoy what you do, like your boss and co-workers (or at least be able to be friendly with them), and hopefully be respectfully paid. If at any point you’re not getting fulfillment in something that is of strong importance to you in a job, don’t feel bad about making the decision to leave. If your company truly cares about you, they will be happy for you. The day you start the next journey on your career path, you won’t even remember how stressful it was for you to make the decision to leave.

I spent the next year loving my work life at Arterys which was a convenient $4-10 Uber ride away from my house. I made close friends with a few of the people I worked with and was loving start-up life. For the first time in a while, I was getting to do things I wanted to do and was good at. Since my position transitioned from engineering to quality systems I learned a slew of new stuff while also getting acquainted with software (I had only worked on physical devices and capital equipment before). While I was at this job, I got to become one of the few people in the medical device industry that had experience creating FDA and EU compliant processes/product for Software As A Medical Device (SaMD). Again, I thought I was going to stay at this company for awhile since it was such a sweet deal, but soon everyone I grew to know and love at Arterys was either let go or left for a new job…I also was not a fan of my manager. At around my 1 year anniversary at Arterys, I had left to my current job.

So rewind to before I took the new gig. Now this company seemed pretty sketchy when I first received a LinkedIn email from a recruiter. The job was very similar to my last job, except it was advertised as 100% REMOTE. That’s like everyone’s dream, basically you can be wherever you want. Curious, I decided to respond to the recruiter. Turns out they were legit, and I really can’t say much about the specifics of this company in regards to the actual product because I’ve signed an NDA. To my dismay, apparently they had changed their mind about being 100% remote and wanted me in NY for at least 25% of my time. I figured, “Okay, I’ve always wanted to check out more of NY, I guess I can do 25% for now.” After I interviewed in NY, I immediately received an offer while I was boarding by plane back to SF, however, I was hit with another roadblock. They wanted me on-site at least 50% of the time, or even just completely move to NY if I was willing to. MY ENTIRE LIFE WAS IN SF. I have no family on the east coast, nor have I ever spent any amount of time there. California is warm, laidback, and beautiful, while NY is notorious for bad weather and a hectic, fast paced lifestyle. After much consideration, talking to my friends/family/mentors, and the company’s willingness to pay for my apartment here, I accepted the offer.

While I can’t disclose specifics about where I work and our products, this is what I can say. I am still in medical device software, however, in addition to my last job’s responsibilities, I also added Regulatory to my job title. This means I will be writing the 510(k) pre-market submissions for the FDA and compiling the Technical Files for EU CE Mark under their Medical Device Regulation. Additionally, I get to work on De Novo products (novel devices) with this company. Arterys was approaching 80 people when I left, and the new company is at 15, so…it’s a lot of work. Start-up life means long hours and filling the responsibility of roles you weren’t originally signed up for. The smaller the company, the faster I learn and achieve things. It’s hard to describe my job to someone, but in a nutshell it’s primarily ensuring that we are compliant with regulations and standards, but also doing everything else outside of my role that it takes to get a medical device to market. You can say that I’m on my way to becoming very well rounded in what is now a niche part of the medical device industry, but soon will be a huge part of it with AI really taking over the world.

Financial District | Manhattan, NY

My career journey has been a little crazy to say the least, but the one thing I can say is that it’s taught me to seize every opportunity I get. If I think something is the right decision, it probably is or I at least have it in my power to make it worth it. I know for a fact that this job will take me to the next step in not only my career, but also my life. Not many people get to say that they live truly bicoastal. I have my own place in both SF and NY, and have solid friend groups and an established life in both places as well. If anything, I’m becoming even more efficient with my life with all of the travel. It’s stressful, but enjoyable at the same time. And little by little, I’m learning how to live a balanced chaos.

Consistent Persistence

***NOTE: This post was originally written on January 5, 2019 on the way to Tokyo from Nagano.

It’s the start of my 3rd full season of snowboarding and I’m on the way back to Tokyo after having pushed past my limits on the board for 3 days in Hakuba. That also means that I smacked the icy hard snow numerous times (not everything is fun and powder). While that resulted in massive whiplash and an extremely sore body, it was well worth it because I can confidently say that my snowboarding skills improved in the following areas:

“Giant” at Cortina | Hakuba Valley, Japan | Photo By: Ian McCreery

1. Double Blacks: I was finally able conquer gigantic moguls sans a single spill having to resort to falling leaf noob stuff. If you’re not keen to mountain speak, a double black diamond is an expert level course and falling leaf is when you’re riding heel edge instead of carving (heel-toe).

2. Switch: I started to ride switch (my non-dominant side, which is goofy) for the first time. By the end of day 3 on the mountain I could get down steeper greens (beginner) and blues (intermediate) with an occasional fall. This skill is necessary for advancing in the park and mountain, being able to ride for longer periods of time, and just feeling really comfortable on your board in general.

3. Jumps: I can now consistently hit jumps (multiple in a row too) with solid landings and decent air. Next step will be to add grabs and shiftys, hopefully by the end of the season. A bonus would be to do a 180 if I’m able to master switch.

This was originally going to be a post about snowboarding, but since it’s dark outside and there’s nothing to look at I’m starting to think about what else I would like to accomplish this year. I came across this article, “Why Consistency And Persistence Are Two Vital Ingredients To Success,” where Tony Fahkry opens with a strong statement made by Thomas Carlyl on the subject, ‘Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.’ Honestly, there’s no way you can become great at anything if you’re not continuously executing on something and still doing it even in the face of adversity. I’m sure I’m speaking for more than myself when I say this, my level of skill in something is always directly proportional to the amount of time I invest into practicing and learning said skill. 

For a majority of my life I would consider myself a jack of all trades, master of none. I dabbled quit a bit in various interests, but never took the time to get really really good at something. Even down to my major in college, Biomedical Engineering, I still felt like I only knew the basics of the engineering and science disciplines by the the time I graduated. Something I’ve also become self-aware of is that I am often more successful in my accomplishments when I have a routine. Failing to have a consistent routine results in my mind wandering off in La La Land and forgetting to do the things I meant to get done, which then makes me discouraged the next day when I realize I’m behind on my goals for the week. 

To tie everything together, I would say snowboarding is the one thing that has taught me about how impactful the forces of consistency and persistence are. In the short amount of time I’ve been boarding, I would consider my skill level to be about equal to someone who has been boarding twice as long as I have. This alone has given me motivation to also exercise consistency and persistence in the following:

1. Photography: I picked this up 4 months ago out of necessity for my business (which I’ll talk about more in a later post). So far I’m really enjoying it, but I have so much to learn before I feel even confident saying I’m decent.

2. Writing: I’ve always sucked at it, but here I am writing this post to get better at effectively communicating my thoughts and ideas in a clear and concise way, that’s also not boring. I believe being a skilled and creative writer will help me immensely in all facets of my career.

3. Regulatory: So I’ve never actually been in regulatory in the medical device field, yet I somehow have it in my job title. I’ll be working with a couple mentors as well as attending workshops this year to try and master the art of regulatory. If I can do this, I can start seriously thinking about completely working for myself as a consultant in regulatory and quality.

4. Self-Care: I working on this a lot last year, but honestly, I could still use improvement in this area. Anyone who knows me knows that I am always on the go, running a million miles per hour. Instead of taking the time to read a book, write, meditate, or just go to sleep at a normal hour, I’m busy packing my schedule full of events and hanging out with friends. My bicoastal life and excessive travel has also resulted in a lackluster workout regime as of late. For me, being in shape is an essential part of being able to maintain high levels of energy and focus. I’ve learned over the past few months that taking time to myself is absolutely necessary to find peace and be less stressed in my chaotic life. In the end, even if I were to only focus on this one thing, reaching my other goals would be much easier.

After this bit of self-reflection, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s nice to be a jack of all trades in some scenarios, but not all. I’m going to be spending a lot of time honing in on the skills that I’m most passionate about to become a master of...some. 

NEW YEAR, NEW ME

New Years Resolutions are a funny thing. We wait until the beginning of the year to start something we probably already should have done, and then get demotivated somewhere about 3 -4 weeks in and stop doing what we set out to do. I like how the most popular resolution is to get in shape or lose weight. At the same time, this is exactly when the gyms are overcrowded and it’s entirely too cold outside in most parts of the world to even do anything active (especially if this is your first time working out in like forever). In the end, a New Years Resolution is just another way for us to continue our tendency to procrastinate or make excuses for why we aren’t getting things done. So that’s why I am writing this entry one day earlier than New Years Day in the US. ***NOTE: I wrote this on the first of the year, but with having to catch up with work I’m just now posting this along with a couple of other posts.

I want to end 2018 on a productive note. One should also note that I’m saying this as I’m sitting on a bullet train from Osaka to Tokyo drinking a tall boy of Asahi beer. However, it has been hard to be productive during down time as I got a sinus infection right before I hopped on the plane to Japan…convenient right? Well thank god for drug stores. Did you know that in Japan you are expected to work even if you are ill? That’s what all the face masks are for. It’s not a fashion accessory or a means of keeping pollution out of lungs, it’s literally being courteous to others of the germs you could be spreading, or trying to keep yourself away from germs. You’d understand if you’ve ever walked through some of the packed markets or been on trains here. There’s no room for personal space, so you’ll always be breathing someone else’s air. Something else I learned is that the over-the-counter medication in Japan is super freaking strong. The cold medication often has other additives in it like caffeine so that you are still alert even when you’re sick. SS-Bron, a popular cough syrup, is closely related to oxycodone. Eve A, a popular painkiller, also has caffeine and a sedative in it. So note to self, stock up on Japanese medication if you want to kick your colds fast. Anyways, I’m done with this tangent on Japanese over-the-counter meds for now.

I wanna talk about 2018. This was the year that I encountered the most important inflection point in my life. I was in an on-again off-again relationship that literally sucked the life out of my ex and I. I felt horrible, he felt horrible, a lot of damage was done to the both of us. If he’s reading this, I want to say I am sorry and wish we had ended things sooner. It’s hard letting your first love end, even when that’s the best thing to do. Additionally, a friendship ended with someone I had considered one of my best friends. And I actively destroyed my mental and physical well being through many bad decisions. I effectively spent the first half of 2018 being a shell of myself, and it wasn’t until I decided to stop making excuses and be exceptionally more proactive that I finally broke free from my destructive black hole and became a much better person, the person I was meant to be. Some of the things that had the most positive impacts on me this year included:

1. Leaving my comfortable life and job in SF to a start up in NY where I had to live there half time

2. Learning to embrace the beauty of life itself at Burning Man and other experiences

3. Stepping out of my comfort zone and making a lot of new friends in both NY and SF

4. Picking up new hobbies (i.e. photography) that involved at lot of time investment

5. Starting a business with two of my friends

6. Putting my mental and physical health first by going to therapy, ensuring I was eating healthy, and exercising more regularly

So what does 2019 have in store for me? I think a lot more than a failed New Years Resolution. Time will tell, let’s wait and see…