I was dissatisfied with my current employer's backward attitude towards development and innovation (a verbal warning for creating a pull request was the last straw) so I spent several months looking for a new job. I found that the embedded space in Auckland seems to be shrinking and at my level of seniority and expertise there aren't that many jobs out there. What worries me most is that I can find another job now, but what about 5 or 10 years time? I really don’t want to end up as an unemployed developer before retirement age (and not really then).
I had a company business trip to Berlin in June to meet new colleagues (we've been buying companies) and discuss infrastructure. While I was there I got talking to a new colleague over a burger and we ended up complaining about our current roles. I admitted to him I was looking for a new job, so a few months later he emailed me and asked if I'd be interested in transferring to a new division he was setting up dedicated to cloud development and operations. Obviously I don't have any experience in this area but they wanted to setup the cloud operations team from people already in the company who have related experience and know the company structure. It seemed like a great opportunity; to have the time to learn new technology whilst keeping my current salary and accumulated holiday, to move away from the silly management of R&D into a new division that was all about devops (the mindset and the tech) and to move upstairs in the company (literally). I went from this:
So I'm about 3 months in now and I've learned a lot but there's still a lot to go. I think the key difference from my old role is that I used approximately the same set of tools (C++, compiler/linker, IDE, source control) for most of my career, whereas in the new role the sheer scope of technologies I'm trying to get to grips with (AWS, Azure, Docker, Terraform, Packer, Python, Go, C#, Vault, Sentinel, Elasticsearch, Prometheus, Grafana and that's just what I can remember right now) is blowing my mind.
Goals for 2019:
- Do more meetup talks. I've already down for NZISIG on Tuesday 26th February talking about WPA3 and possibly Bluetooth.
- Do some CFPs. I've really enjoyed the conferences I've spoken at, I'd like to do some more.
- Do more open source. I'm halfway through converting the examples for Terraform: Up and Running to Terraform 0.11.
- Follow up ideas outside of work. I have a couple of ideas (one Infosec, one medical) I'd like to pursue.
- Learn to make Ceviche. I visited our factory in Ensenada, Mexico a few years ago and was introduced to Ceviche at a cart in the market. It turned out this is one of the best Ceviche places in the world so lucky start!
- Do more blog posts. This is my first since 2007, so a bit crap.
