CareerZ Cast Guide to Navigating Early Career Choices

Marcio Saito

Do I need a vision?

My 30+ year career was shaped by rapid technological evolution and seemingly random opportunities. While “successful” people will share and then prescribe their path to others, the milestones and transitions in my trajectory were dictated as much by external factors and luck as they were by my decisions and foresight. Consistency and integrity are more important than vision when it comes to career development.

Don’t have a vision on where you want to be at the end of your work career? Don’t bother. When it comes to career, both successful and unsuccessful people have the same high-level goals (money, respect, purpose). What matters is what you do, not what you dream. Let’s figure this out together.

The Pressure of the ‘Perfect’ Path

Society pushes the myth of a neat, linear life plan: graduate from college, get the job, and climb to success. But the truth is, our twenties are about exploration, growth, and even some healthy confusion. Early career choices are stepping stones, not an unbreakable vow. The ‘perfect path’ is the one you create along the way.

The world of work is vast, and the sheer number of career possibilities can be overwhelming. It’s normal to feel paralyzed by the fear of choosing wrong. Every experience teaches valuable lessons.

Well-meaning advice from friends, family and mentors can feel overwhelming and is often based on experiences of another era. While their input is valuable, it’s essential to distinguish between what’s right for them and what’s right for you.

Follow your Passion – or not

Celebrity advice to “follow your passion” does not take into account the luck that was part of their success. While talent and dedication matter, as an example, for every NBA passion-for-basketball success story, thousands of hopefuls fail to achieve a professional career in sports. Get inspiration from your heroes, but find your own path instead of following someone else’s footsteps.

Choosing a line of work should consider the future, not today’s job market trends. Jobs in high demand now might not be it when you are actually building a career 10 years from now, particularly in Technology jobs. The Internet in the 2000 and Large Language Models in 2025 are examples of broad nascent technologies that disrupt and shape the types of jobs available.

Ideally, find work that both energizes you and aligns with in-demand skills. Expect your career path to solidify over time, but be ready to adapt early as technology reshapes the job market. Work is essential for a livelihood, but finding meaning and passion in your profession enriches your life.

So, What Can You Do?

Choosing an early career path isn’t about getting it perfect the first time, it’s about starting on your journey of discovery. Here are some strategies to help, and some of my personal experience:

• Explore with curiosity: Limit the impact of external pressure, try different things. Take classes on subjects that intrigue you, volunteer, intern, or pick up side gigs. The more you dip your toes, the clearer your likes and dislikes become. In every role I took in my career, besides delivering on my work, I have strived to learn about the industry, functional area and technology far beyond what the job required.
• Introspection over Perfection: Pay attention to what sparks your interest. While competition might be an indication of where the money is and being influenced by your peers is part of the game, don’t be afraid of being different. I was lucky picking a college major (Electrical Engineering) based on competition, but when I started working on Computer Networking, I did so because I was interested, not because I knew the Internet was going to transform our lives.
• Seek Multiple Mentors: Don’t just rely on one person’s perspective. Talk to people in different fields, job shadow, and get a feel for the day-to-day realities of different careers. Most people would love to help, don’t be afraid to ask for advice. In 2004, as I pursued my first CTO role, I sent a cold email to Avie Tevanian (at the time, CTO at Apple) and he agreed to meet for breakfast for a career talk that had a profound impact on my thinking and career.
• Reframe ‘Failure’: False starts are valuable lessons. Building a career takes experimentation and course corrections to find what fits. Resilience is your superpower – embrace those ‘detours’ as part of the journey. Look at my LinkedIn profile. While I can tell you a compelling story about going from humble beginnings in Brazil to having an impactful role in the industry to leading a Technology organization at Google, the sequence of roles is far from linear.
• Don’t Compare Your Timeline: Your friend is on their second promotion while you’re still feeling lost? Everyone has their own timeline. Obsessing over others’ achievements leads to misery. Focus on your process, not your relative position in some imaginary race. After arriving to California as a starving entrepreneur, I remember being mocked by friends in boring corporate roles about the insecurity of my work. Time has shown that an unstable beginning can result in more satisfying and exciting journeys.
• Optimize for learning, not money – Compensation grows exponentially along a successful career (e.g. if you learn and grow early and take important roles later, your compensation at peak will be 10x – 100x your first year out of college), so you get more money overall by learning earlier and growing into a long-term successful career.

Marcio’s Views on Career Development

Success is the result of talent, dedication and preparation. To me, the timeless essence of career success involves knowing more than just what is necessary, being attentive to recognize opportunity when it strikes, being decisive and taking bold action to seize them, nurture relationships and act with empathy, generosity, optimism, and integrity.

Dedication doesn’t necessarily mean working long hours or on weekends. Consistency is more important than “hard work”. The notion of “hybrid” work recently made the concept of multitasking between attending meetings, doing laundry, and cooking lunch popular, but that is not the recipe for learning, productivity and growth. Regardless of where you are, when working, do it with focus and concentration.

Some level of specialized knowledge is important early in the career (and college is one of the places you can acquire it). Later in life, your value as a professional is in connecting dots, combining multiple skills and transposing experience from one area to another. Do not put yourself in a limiting box. Specialization value fades with time. For example, data analysis is not very valuable if you cannot use it to inspire and move others towards action. Later in life, skills like storytelling, communication and thought leadership become important.

Finally, the people you work with early on (particularly your manager) have a profound impact on your career. Find roles that are generous with learning experiences and work with people you admire. If you find yourself complaining about the work environment too often, stop, take responsibility and do something about it.

Call to Action

If you find this article thought-provoking and useful, please share with your friends, mentors, children, parents and use it to have a conversation. It takes a village to build a successful career and most people are enthusiastic about sharing their ideas on what you should do (listen, filter, take what is useful). This is the link to share.

About the author

Marcio dedicates a portion of his time sharing experience, inspiration, and advice with the younger generation of innovators and thought-leaders. Schedule a conversation here. The coaching fee are waived for students and early-career professionals. Sessions can be specific (job interview preparation, thought leadership, etc.) or general career advice.