#TheHustle: Ernie Omondi - Solutions Engineer @Facebook

Halle Rubera shares the stories of accomplished African professionals from different backgrounds currently working at top global firms. #TheHustle sheds light on the wide array of career opportunities - and highlights the wit, grit and hustle of these high-achievers in investment banking, management consulting, private equity, engineering, scientific research and more.

Ernie Omondi - Harvard College, Solutions Engineer at Facebook. Hometown: Nairobi, Kenya. When Ernie switched majors in college, he was uncertain about next steps in his career. He proactively sought advice from upperclassmen and fellow Computer Science Majors - and that’s how he learned about Facebook University. With just a few days to the application deadline, Ernie enlisted the help and encouragement of friends and peers to apply to Facebook. The rest is history. Ernie’s experience is a wonderful story of proactivity, courage and resolve.

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Transcript

Hallie Rubera (00:03):

Hi, and welcome to The Hustle, a professional development podcast series in conjunction with the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program. I'm your host, [inaudible 00:00:00:11], an alum of the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program at Wellesley College. With this series, I will share the stories of accomplished African professionals from different backgrounds currently working in investment banking, management consulting, big tech, and more. Each episode discusses the wide area of career opportunities and provides listeners with advice about working our top firms, such as Goldman Sachs, Facebook, and Novartis.

Hallie Rubera (00:37):

The title of this podcast, "The Hustle," is an ode to my hometown of Nairobi, Kenya, which I love and where the spirit of the hustle, hard work and resilience shines bright. Today, I have the pleasure of hosting a good friend of mine, Ernie Omondi. Ernie earned a BA in computer science from Harvard University and just graduated this year. He's currently a solutions engineer at Facebook in Seattle. His past experience has actually been at Facebook with a couple of software engineering internships from the time that he started coding. So Ernie is also from Nairobi, Kenya. Ernie, welcome. Tell us just a little bit about what your professional journey has been like up until this point as a solutions engineer at Facebook.

Ernie Omondi (01:27):

Yeah. Thank you so much, [inaudible 00:01:29]. I have, as you said, right now, I'm working as a solution engineer at Facebook in Seattle. So my journey was a little bit interesting. I started applying for internships in my sophomore year. At the time, I was really scrambling to get an internship. I honestly chanced upon the Facebook internship, which was specifically Facebook University engineering, which is specifically for first years and second years. That's really the start of the path that led me to where I am today. So originally, just that first internship and then getting to now, my job as solutions engineer.

Hallie Rubera (02:16):

What has it been to be a solutions engineer?

Ernie Omondi (02:17):

Yeah. So solutions engineering is a very unique role at Facebook. So it's sort of like... I like to think of it as a combination of a PM, project management, and the traditional software engineering role. So solutions engineering works specifically with Facebook marketing and advertising partners to find technological solutions to whatever challenges that they may have, so that Facebook can help them meet their needs. So in particular, I work with the small business divisional solution engineering, which means that I work closely with small businesses to figure out how can Facebook help with their marketing, with their outreach and with their advertising so that they can better reach their financial goals and also, so that they can better connect with particular customers that they want. So this involves coming up with new features, new tools and also, new products and building them. Yeah. It's a really great role. I like it so far. It's really engaging.

Hallie Rubera (03:25):

Ernie, thank you for sharing that. I think as someone who consumes social media just to kind of update family on what's happening in my life or to kind of follow friends and old classmates, et cetera, I don't necessarily associate Facebook with businesses. I do know that they're be going advertising and stuff like that, but what would you say should be the motivation for someone who's trying to look for a career at Facebook, but doesn't necessarily feel that they fit in, especially because they're not maybe a traditional techie or maybe a UX designer? How did you go about even finding out that there was a role like solutions engineer at Facebook and that it's something that you probably could have enjoyed?

Ernie Omondi (04:07):

Yeah. So I think that, especially with these big tech companies, one of the advantages that they have is you have a lot of breadth and just a lot of diverse array of different roles that you can feel because Facebook, it's not just a tech company, it has a finance division, it has a marketing division, it has legal needs. So really, almost anything that you can think of, Facebook is hiring for. So really, I would say the best thing is to talk to people who work in these tech companies or work in these companies and see what the vibe is because at the end of the day, you also want to make sure you're fulfilling a role where the vibe fits with you. I'd say that that was definitely the case in solutions engineering.

Ernie Omondi (05:03):

My [inaudible 00:05:04] ... in solutions engineering is an interesting story. I didn't really apply for the role. I did my software engineering internship in junior summer. Usually, at the end of your internship, Facebook decides to either give you a return offer or not based on your performance during that internship. I was able to finish my project, so I did get a return offer from Facebook for the software engineering role, but throughout the entire time in the internship, I kept talking to my manager and I mentioned to him that a lot of the things about the work that I was doing, I didn't like, like the fact that it wasn't collaborative. Specific things I was doing, I wasn't really that interested in.

Ernie Omondi (05:49):

So I kept having that conversation with my manager. I think he put this down somewhere because about two or three months after the internship ended, I got an email from one of the recruiters at Facebook and they're basically telling me, "Oh, we have this role that we think would be perfect for you," and they didn't even want you do any phone screenings. They just invited me straight for an onsite interview, which I did. That's how I got the role. So I think what I learned from that is just being open and honest about what it is that you like, what it is that fits with you in any of the conversations that you're having. I think that the fact that I was able to do that in my internship is really what led me to during this role that much better fits with the sort of work environment that I would like to be in.

Hallie Rubera (06:36):

Honestly, I have to also commend you for being proactive because I think even just from the onset and you mentioned that you kind of stumbled on Facebook by chance, and it wasn't necessarily in your plans that you were going to apply to Facebook. Then even when you finally got the internship, you kind of [inaudible 00:06:56] ... and open with your manager about the things that you wanted and the things that mattered to you in your professional development and stuff like that.

Hallie Rubera (07:03):

I think that's really important, especially because we both would agree that when you're a college student, it's kind of not clear what you want to do with yourself once you graduate. There's questions about impact, like the kind of impact that you want to leave or make, or the kind of professional development you'd like to have, those kinds of questions that don't necessarily have answers when you're starting out college. But I think that a lot of us also suffer from not reaching out, kind of letting that moment in your life almost paralyze you. It's like, "Oh, I really don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm not going to do anything about it." I think that's the wrong approach. So even just for you figuring out like, "Okay. I know I need an internship," because why? Why did you then decide to get an internship your sophomore year? Why was it important?

Ernie Omondi (07:55):

So I think my wanting to get an internship, it was more of trying to go with the plan that I sort of felt like I was getting pushed to do from every direction. So once I got to sophomore year, I had to decide what courses I wanted to major in and I decided on computer science. Once I decided on computer science, I started to think what is the path that I wanted for myself? Did I want to continue onto computer science as an academic, as a scholar, or did I want to go into the industry or something completely different? Then I started having conversations with upperclassmen and I realized that for computer science in particular, a lot of people get internships pretty early on and those internships seem to sort of secure the bag in terms of getting job offers for after college.

Ernie Omondi (08:57):

So I sort of was on a scramble then and that's what I alluded to before. Once I realized this, I sort of looked like I was very behind because I decided to become a computer science student in my second year of college while other people had come into college knowing what they wanted to do. So I would say that it really depends on what it is that you want to do after college. Considering the time that I'm an international student, I also factored that heavily because doing a STEM major allows you to stay in the US for an extra two years, which is something that I was interested in. Computer science itself has a lot of job opportunities [inaudible 00:09:43] ... the rise in the interest in tech that we've been seeing in the last couple of decades. So I'm really, those are the main factors that I was looking at when it came to deciding whether or not I wanted an internship. Yeah.

Hallie Rubera (09:57):

Yeah. Again, I have to give it to you for productivity. Reaching out to upperclassmen, I think that's our resource that we heavily under utilize, people who've gone before you and kind of know what the path looks like. Even though, maybe at the onset when you did take the internship, it wasn't necessarily for you to get clarity, but you did get clarity in the end because you did your sophomore internship and then you did your junior internship and then realized, "Okay. This isn't necessarily the path I want to take," regardless of whether you had decided to pursue computer science and a career in software engineering.

Hallie Rubera (10:30):

So I definitely have to underscore that. You also mentioned a little bit that you had decided to change your major your sophomore year or declare your computer science as your major in your sophomore year. I know that you had started out as a mechanical engineer. So why did you make the switch? Is the fast question. And the second is, at the time, did it feel like a momentous decision? Like, "Oh my goodness. I'm changing the entire course of my life. It's going to be so hard". I'll let you answer that in kind of follow up after.

Ernie Omondi (11:07):

Yeah. So I grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, and I feel like other Kenyans who would be listening would completely agree with me that the sort of careers that are pushed on you as you grow up are the, "stable careers," like medicine, law, engineering. So I feel like that's what I had in my head as the possible paths that I could have. So I came into Harvard wanting to be a mechanical engineer. I took my first engineering class my freshman spring. So this first year spring, and honestly, I did not like that class. I really didn't like it. I have this particular memory of the first project that we're doing in class where we were given a hand drill and we would take it apart and then sort of understand the mechanics of it.

Ernie Omondi (12:08):

I was just sitting there looking at my drill and thinking, "I really don't want to do this for the rest of her life." It was almost like a light bulb moment. I was like, "This is not for me." So immediately that happened, I sort of panicked because basically, the entire time that I was applying to universities, I was so clear that I wanted to be an engineer and now that I started this class, I was like, "Maybe this isn't the path for me." So I started to look around, started to think, "Okay. So what is it that I can do?" keeping in mind that I only wanted to pursue STEM careers because I wanted to stay in the US a little bit longer. So that sort of narrowed my field. In the end, I was heavily considering taking psychology. I considered taking English literature at some point because I do love reading, I do love writing, but of course, because of the STEM...

Hallie Rubera (13:07):

That is not STEM.

Ernie Omondi (13:08):

Yeah. English is not STEM.

Hallie Rubera (13:12):

The, "E," is definitely not for English literature.

Ernie Omondi (13:15):

It definitely is not English literature. No, no. Maybe it should be, but it's not. [crosstalk 00:13:22]. Yeah. So definitely, that was the case for me. Eventually, I... So CS 50, which is a really popular first class of computer science at Harvard is offered online as well. During the summer before my sophomore year, I decided to take the class and sort of see how it was and I actually, really enjoyed it. It was so, so much fun just coding up and creating things. I thought, "Well, this might be something I like." So I ended up taking the class, really liking it. And honestly, that was the beginning of basically, the path that led me to where I am right now.

Hallie Rubera (14:04):

Yeah. The theme of this podcast episode should be productivity because you [inaudible 00:14:11] ... process of didn't want to do mechanical engineering, but that was not necessarily a death sentence just because you were kind of switching parts to something to an unknown. You did go online and kind of check out a couple of other options and put your heart into it and here we are now. Yeah, looking back, what's the lesson learned from making that decision? Have you felt kind of decision making has become easier as time has passed? What's kind of that you're... Yeah.

Ernie Omondi (14:44):

Yeah. I don't know. You just mentioned that it seemed like it wasn't a death trap, but honestly, it felt like that in the moment. It felt like I had just cut myself loose from all that I've known to be safe and secure and I was trying to find like, whatever it is that I could latch on to. But definitely looking back right now, I think definitely, as you said, the lesson is productivity. What I'm seeing is the moments that I was proactive, I kept asking people and sort of being open and honest with what it is that I wanted, how it is that I felt really helped me be able to sort of figure out what particular paths would be more suited to what I was wanting at the time. So definitely a lesson that I've learned about making decisions is just being honest about...

Ernie Omondi (15:36):

First of all, being honest with yourself about what it is that you like, what it is that you're feeling and also, being honest with other people who is going to help you. You never know... In fact, I vaguely remember this, but I think someone else told me about Facebook University. It was something that I was completely going to miss out on. So I ended up applying to it about five days before the deadline and this is just something that someone was like, "Oh, Facebook University is a thing that exists," and I checked it out and I applied to it. Three years later, I'm working at Facebook. So it's definitely important to be honest with the people around you to let them know how everything's going, what your current state is and how maybe they could be of assistance with whatever it is you want to go.

Hallie Rubera (16:22):

Yeah. My next question was going to be, when should students start thinking about internships, how do they go about resume prep? All that stuff. But it seems to me like that's kind of almost secondary. The most important thing is to even have a clear path about what you want to be doing, and then talk to the right people who help you get to that place. Right? Because even if you had a great resume or had started applying for internships early on, if you hadn't spoken to someone who told you about Facebook University, you hadn't spoke to upperclassmen who talked about kind of what the typical path is for computer science students who want to go into industry, you wouldn't have stumbled upon Facebook and you're happy where you are, right? This has been a good opportunity for you.

Ernie Omondi (17:07):

Yeah, it definitely has. [crosstalk 00:17:10]

Hallie Rubera (17:12):

I'll just underscore like, hey, if you're listing and wherever you want to end up, I think, we really underestimate the power of connections and the networks that we make and how those [inaudible 00:17:25]. But I'll still ask now that you've gone through the whole scramble when you were a sophomore, and now you're a sensei as a solutions engineer at Facebook, what do you have to say to students who are looking to apply to Facebook or are thinking about career choices? When should they start applying to internships? What should they be doing? What should they be thinking? Who should they be talking to?

Ernie Omondi (17:48):

Yeah. You mentioned how important it is to sort of think about what is you want to do. I sort of want to emphasize the fact that at the moment, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't apply to Facebook University with the goal of working at Facebook after I graduated or working specifically as a solution engineer after I graduated. What happened was that I was just honest and open about what it is that I wanted and sort of was shifted onto the right path, so to speak. So it's really about not thinking about planning out every single moment of your career. It's more important to know how it is you are in your current state of mind than to know exactly what job you want to be doing in five years.

Ernie Omondi (18:44):

If you do know that, that's great, but that's not for everyone. So I definitely would say talk to people, talk to people. I think that one thing that I was always told in every career talk throughout college was that you should always reach out to people. They always want to talk to you. I totally agree with that. I didn't reach out to as many people as I would have hoped to, but the people that I did really, really helped me.

Ernie Omondi (19:11):

So I think just talking to people, find people who have a connection to things. If you're in a class with an upperclassmen, just ask them what their past summer was like, what did they do? For example, if you're trying to apply to certain companies, odds are someone in your school has worked at that company. Look for that person. Talk to them. Ask them how it is to work there. I think definitely just making connections with people, that's one of the most important things. It's even more important, I think, than working on your resume or trying to figure out what would look best. Just talking to people can sometimes just open doors that you didn't even know existed.

Hallie Rubera (19:51):

Yeah. Our audience is a wide area of students. So it's not going to be a fact that every single person has an alum who works at Facebook, but you can cold call, right? There's so many different points of connection, that connection that you can find with people who work at... and they're human. I think maybe you can attest to this. I don't know whether you felt that way prior to going to Facebook because, let's be honest, these are kind of big names. So there could have been that sense of intimidation at the beginning, but as we're just having a conversation right now, and I'm sure the same conversation you could have with someone else at Facebook, and obviously, not everyone's going to respond to cold emails or cold calls and there's definitely ways to go about it that are more efficient and kind of yield better results, but I think that's also something that maybe... I don't know. ... is it not a thing that we do that we reach out to people, but people should be doing it. Right?

Ernie Omondi (20:59):

Yeah. Yeah. I really liked your point about cold calling people because cold call people, but also don't get de-energized if they don't respond. Remember that people are also human. The same way you might forget to text your friend for a week or two weeks is the same way someone might forget to look at your email. So don't take things too personally, but also be persistent. If the first person doesn't work out, go onto the next person. Yeah, as you said, it's definitely like... You might not always know someone who's working at these companies, but for sure, especially in this age of LinkedIn, it's very possible that someone who knows someone. So definitely just try and make use of whatever network it is that you have. Even if you don't know someone that works at these companies, maybe you know someone who's heard of a job position that's open. That's exactly what happened to me in Facebook University. Someone I knew told me that there was a job position open. So yeah, definitely just making the most use of your network.

Hallie Rubera (22:12):

Yeah. I think that those have been the two top themes; productivity and networking. I think that's a great segue into my next question, which is you've taken on a couple of mentorship roles ever since you graduated high school. Ever since I knew you, you were always at PACE Kenya or you were doing [inaudible 00:22:33] and you also happen to be a peer advising fellow at Harvard. Why were you drawn to being a mentor, I guess is the question? Why did you think it was important for you to kind of share the lessons that you've learned? I'm guessing that's what you did as a mentor, but why was it important for you to do this? Yeah.

Ernie Omondi (22:54):

So, for me, I think... One of my really good friends, his name is George [inaudible 00:23:03]. He was a year above me in high school and he sort of took me on as a mentee and someone who he would give advice to and help out. I really liked that. He really helped me. He helped me discover my passion for choir. I always knew I loved to sing, but he's the one that pushed me to join the high school choir and I ended up joining a choir club as well. He's the one who applied to universities in the US and he helped me out with my application. He connected me with so many people. So I really a lot from mentorship and not just George, but a lot of other people throughout my life have helped me so much in so many ways.

Ernie Omondi (23:52):

I always felt the sort of need for me to find a way to also help someone else in the same way. Also, I'm the kind of person that I really enjoy connecting to other people. I think that the things like being a peer advising fellow at Harvard, I realized that my time as a first year was so hard in some ways and a lot of things might've been easier if someone had just told me about them. So I definitely didn't want other people to experience the same things I experienced in terms of the difficulty of being a first year at a university. So yeah, I think the main reason I love mentor mentorship is just we can learn so much from each other. From that, so many doors are opened, so many ideas that you couldn't even think of could be brought to you. So it's definitely something that I encourage everyone to try and do; either be a mentor or mentee. Yeah.

Hallie Rubera (25:05):

Yeah. I really like that. No more questions on that. You really alluded to why it's useful for yourself to be mentored. It's useful for you to mentor others, just kind of paying it forward. I guess the final question I would ask is how do you seek out mentors? For you, was it more organic? George and you went to the same high school, so there was kind of a lot of connection points there. But I'm wondering for someone who just is starting out, or maybe I should probably retract the question because I think when we say mentors, we forget that mentor can take on a lot of different forms. It can be like a peer who's a little bit older, it can be even an uncle or a relative or whatever. So what if you're not able to access that if that's not in your immediate environment? [crosstalk 00:26:02]

Ernie Omondi (26:02):

Yeah. So I think first of all, this is something that you just alluded to is reframing your definition of mentorship because mentorship is not just knowing someone who gives you a job or tells you, "This is the path to follow." Mentorship is something that is ongoing. It is happening all around us at every moment. Even with your friends, once you share an idea with someone else and then someone gives you criticism of that idea, someone gives you encouragement of that idea, that is mentorship. So it's really about, and we're going to go back to this, about leveraging your network. Look at the people who are around you, the people and try and see where are the connections; what we have in common, what are the similarities and then try and figure out how it is that you can help each other.

Ernie Omondi (26:57):

It's definitely something that you could always try and figure out, okay, so this person has done this, this and this, and try and ask them like, "How did you do this? How did you end up being where you are," and try and get that information. Then that information could then be useful to you in other ways and other instances because at the end of the day, what mentorship is, it's just an exchange of information. So the more people that you can get information from, the better, and also the more specific that information is to you, the more specific it is in terms of what it is you want to do with your life, the better it is for you.

Hallie Rubera (27:34):

100% agree. You had mentioned that George pushed you to join choir while you were in high school. I know that you sang as part of the glee club at Harvard. You traveled so much. One summer, were you in Japan or South Korea? [crosstalk 00:00:27:50].

Ernie Omondi (27:50):

I was in Japan. Yeah.

Hallie Rubera (27:52):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You traveled a lot. I'd like to say, I think you made good friends. ... Zoom graduation this year. I saw you sing. So it must've been something that you really, really enjoy. It also shows that I'm a fan. [crosstalk 00:28:10] ... graduation. Why was it important for you to pursue your passions outside of your academic interests, regardless of whether George had pushed you to join the choir? Why was it important for you to actually just do it and do it even post high school?

Ernie Omondi (28:32):

Yeah. So I realize I love singing from a very young age. My parents will attest to the fact that I'm almost constantly singing in the shower and singing basically everywhere I go. So I definitely knew that singing is something that I wanted to work on and pursue. The singing in the high school choir was one of the most memorable and just meaningful experiences that I had in high school. So when I joined college, it was literally the first thing I sought out.

Hallie Rubera (29:07):

Yeah.

Ernie Omondi (29:10):

I think just not knowing what it is that sort of puts you in a space where you can thrive, I know for me, that's singing. Singing with other people, especially I really enjoy it. I really feel like I'm alive in a sense, like I'm doing something meaningful in my life whenever I'm singing. So that was something that was very important to me. So I think that you academics, maybe they might be all of your life, but honestly, probably not. You will definitely have other things, other aspects of your life. It's important to make sure that you're having a holistic transformation when you're in college. You don't want to just get out of college as being the smartest person in the world, only having worked on your grades. You also want to work on other aspects of your life. Part of that is seeking out people, it's connecting with people, it's figuring out what your interests are and pursuing those interests and that's something that I did with glee club.

Hallie Rubera (30:07):

Yeah. No, I always ask these questions to my guests because I do want this podcast to be lost in just think about your career or work had or whatever, which I think those are really important, but you know me and you know I'm a big advocate of mental wellness and a big advocate for having a holistic kind of, what's it called, attending to almost all your needs, whether it's your intellectual needs or your emotional, your mental needs. I think there are good thing about having a balance in your life. It reflects in your personal life and your professional life, et cetera. Whatever escape you can have from the daily stresses of life, I 100% advocate for.

Hallie Rubera (30:53):

I think life is for the living. Yeah. So I've really enjoyed speaking to you. Always try to wrap up these kinds of conversations, but this is one also question that I asked almost all of my guests that have been on the podcast is looking back, what's one thing you've done well, one thing you can pat yourself on the back and say, "I did good. I did good" And what's one thing you wish you had done better when it comes to your professional development?

Ernie Omondi (31:23):

Yeah, that's an interesting one. Let me first say thank you so much. This has been a wonderful conversation. It's always great to look back on what it is that helped and what is it that you can improve on. I think one thing I think I definitely did well is, as you said, there's probably the theme of this episode is being proactive, talking to people, being open and being honest about what it is that I was feeling about how it is that I was interacting with some particular thing. I think that has helped me so much in my professional career. One thing I wish I had done better... Wow, actually, there's a lot of things. Interestingly enough, as much as I was productive, I wish I was a little bit more proactive.

Ernie Omondi (32:19):

I feel like there were a lot of opportunities that I sort of missed because I wasn't proactive enough. I definitely feel like there was a lot more people at my school that I could have talked to, a lot more people, even in my network that I could have reached out to, especially when I had to make really tough decisions. So I definitely think that... I don't think you can ever be proactive enough. I think the world really is for the taking for the people who are proactive. I think that's definitely always something that I can improve on.

Hallie Rubera (32:59):

I really like that. I don't think there's any better way to end this episode. The world is for the taking. It's [inaudible 00:33:10] ... for proactive. Thank you so much, Ernie, for being on the podcast. Really enjoyed our chat today.

Ernie Omondi (33:15):

Thank you.

Hallie Rubera (33:15):

As always, always great to connect with you.