I'm mixed but to most people I appear white. It's usually only black women for some reason that pick up that I'm mixed. My life experience has led me to take advantage of the luxury of passing and keep it a secret that I'm half black. When you're white, people just tend to see "default", then they look for other identifying attributes about you, like your skills. Otherwise you become the black intelligent guy, not just the intelligent guy.

My younger brother is going into the tech industry but has a much darker complexion than me. I'm not sure what to tell him to be honest.

My older brother is an engineer. He is by all appearances black. His approach was similar to mine but to a greater extreme, he disassociated himself from anything resembling black stereotypes in America down to the very music he listens to, the way he dresses, everything. Unfortunately he takes it a step too far and is quite often jokingly(or not, I can't tell) racist himself. He's finding success in his career but I don't know how much of that is due to the way he presents himself or due to his merit.

I have friends that do the same thing, they have a work face and a home face. I try not to think about it. It's very distracting.