So I really want to get back into this blog thing. It’s been a while. Again. I know, I know — at this point the gaps between posts are practically a tradition. But this time the silence has been longer than usual, and there’s a reason for that. Quite a few reasons, actually.
After my last proper update, I joined one of the big cloud hyperscalers. And I’ve been there ever since — almost nine years now. In that time I’ve worn a few different hats, learned a huge amount, and honestly, gone through some pretty significant shifts in how I think about my career and myself.
The Journey Through the Roles
When I first joined, I was in the professional services team. Paid consultant, statements of work, the whole deal. Effectively a cloud architect and engineer, doing hands-on building in customer environments, helping them design solutions, and advising on strategy. The role really ran the gamut — advisory, consulting, and getting stuck in with the actual implementation. It was great. I learned more in those early years than I probably had in the few years before.
From there I moved into an APJ specialty team, which was a really interesting gig. It was twofold — still being brought in as a specialist on customer projects, but also helping train other team members on project delivery tooling and techniques. These were prescribed artifacts, code, processes, and design patterns to help accelerate customer projects. Building the playbook and teaching others to run it. That was genuinely rewarding work.
Unfortunately that team got dismantled, as these things sometimes do in large organisations. So I moved around again and landed in a solutions architect role. Still a really cool position, but significantly less hands-on than what I was used to. Less building directly with customers, more advisory and strategy. That’s been an interesting adjustment, to put it mildly.
When the Spark Fades
Here’s the honest bit, and probably the real reason I’m writing this.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve had to reinvent myself. Maybe not reinvent entirely, but definitely change the way I work. I used to be so focused on being technically adept — doing the code, the automation, the infrastructure builds. That was my identity in a lot of ways. But as the roles changed, and as my experience level and tenure grew, I found myself needing to re-understand where I fit in.
For a while, I genuinely thought I was becoming obsolete. I couldn’t keep up with every new tool and framework the way I used to. The negative thoughts crept in — not good enough, being left behind, this isn’t for me anymore. The work stopped feeling like a passion and started feeling like just a job. And if you’ve been in tech long enough, you probably know how draining that can be.
I got stuck in the drudgery of it all. And when you’re in that headspace, it’s hard to see a way forward.
Doing the Work
So the last couple of years have really been about figuring out how to do this better. Not just the job, but how I approach it mentally. I’ve done a lot of thinking — and a lot of personal mental health work — around understanding the way I operate. Where my brain gets obsessive about certain topics, where it spirals into negativity, and how to catch those patterns before they take hold.
What I’ve started to realise is that my value isn’t just in the technical execution anymore. It’s in the experience. Over two decades of building, breaking, fixing, and designing systems gives you a perspective that’s genuinely useful — even if you’re not the one say writing the Terraform for example. There’s also the aspect that I started and developed foundational IT skills early. I learned bits of servers, networks, databases, and other core topics. That set base knowledge for problem solving.
I’ve also noticed that people have started leaning on me for advice, particularly newer team members. Not because I set out to be a mentor, but just through tenure and being around long enough to have seen a lot of things go wrong (and occasionally go right). And it’s made me think — I can actually do this. Coaching, guiding, sharing what I’ve learned. It’s not something I’d considered as a skill before, but it turns out it might be one of the more valuable things I have to offer.
Finding the Groove
So that’s really where I’m at. Trying to be more present, more positive about the work I do, and more intentional about how I use my skills. Not just the technical ones, but the softer stuff — communication, mentoring, strategic thinking. The things that come from years of being in the trenches.
I’m also trying to restart my curiosity. AI is obviously the big thing right now, and I want to understand how it affects what I do and how it can be utilised in my work. But beyond that, I want to find those spaces that reinspire me. To kick off the spark that I once had about technology and figure out how to bring that to life again. Maybe even combine some of the things I’m passionate about outside of work into what I do professionally.
This is more than just a work thing, really. It’s about life in general. Finding my groove again after spending years heads-down in implementation and advisory without coming up for air often enough.
What This Blog Becomes
Now, this might not always be the strictly DevOps content that this blog originally started with. I’m going to keep the name — Driven by DevOps still feels right, even if the scope expands a bit. I want to write about things I’m working on, things I’m coming across, thoughts on the industry, career stuff, and whatever else feels worth sharing.
I’m also putting myself out there a bit more, which doesn’t come naturally to me. It never really has. But I’ve learned that staying quiet and heads-down isn’t serving me the way it used to. So here we are.
Hopefully this sets the tone for where things are heading. Hopefully I can bring more of these to the table and offer something useful to others who might be in a similar spot. And hopefully — though I’ve learned not to make promises — the posts will come a bit more regularly this time around.
We’ll see how it goes. Thanks for sticking around, and I’ll talk to you soon.