About

TechManagement.Life is all about helping others learn to better navigate their careers in the software business. Our vision is a more productive and healthier software industry through better, more compassionate leadership.

I’m Dexter Sy and I’m an engineering manager. I started out my career as a software engineer and at some point found myself in the awkward situation of being appointed to a manager role. I’ll admit, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing for the first couple of years. But I realized when I started embracing the role that it’s not that different from the work I did in engineering, but it’s a whole lot different at the same time.

While I definitely could have benefited from more guidance when I started out as a manager, I’m also thankful that I got the opportunity to learn as I went and come up with perspectives of my own, which I’ve found to be useful in my work from time to time. I’ve also had the pleasure of talking to a lot of brilliant people in my work. Those moments give me a lot of insight into how people think, how organizations think, and most importantly, how I think.

So that’s how TechManagement.Life came to be. I started writing down my thoughts and experiences via my LinkedIn page and thought, “hey, this could be a blog”. I’m hoping my perspective and stories help others transition better to management roles. I look forward to learning from all of you as well. Feel free to comment and contact me as I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Here are a few more tidbits about me:

• I live in Cebu City, Philippines with my wife, Gen, and our lovely daughter, Harper. I often find that family life offers a lot of lessons that translates well into management work, and I’ll write about these from time to time.
• I currently work as an Engineering Lead at Synacy, a software company in Cebu building FAX, SMS, and ISP products. Before that, I worked for 12 years as an engineer and manager at KYOCERA Document Solutions, a multinational company with five R&D sites in Cebu, Japan, and California. While both jobs have treated me very well, the contrasts between both have helped a lot to shape my perception of good engineering management.
• I co-founded a software company called ATeam Business Software Solutions Co., also based in Cebu. We build bespoke software solutions for clients and partner with other businesses to develop apps for end consumers.
• I’ve also been involved in the local music scene for a while so I like writing about those experiences as well. If you’re interested, I write for Indie Cebu, a local music online publication. I also co-founded a small record label called Melt Records, which releases music from independent artists in the Philippines and around the world.
• Speaking of brilliant people, I try to get the people I work with to write from time to time. It takes some convincing, but I love learning from others and I’d love for you to get insight on their thoughts as well.