A new job at NeoNomads!

Reading Time: 3 minutes

It's time for a little personal update on what's happening, it's been a while since I've blogged. I wanted to write and post this for myself, but it might be interesting for others. It was a period of heavy soul-searching and job hunting, eventually leading me to join a new consulting company named NeoNomads as a Cloud Architect starting July 1st 2020!

Leaving

I was a bit restless for a few years now, but it took me a while to realize this. I was also focused on buying a new home and similar things. But eventually I realized that I wanted to go on a different path than my employer OGD ict-diensten could offer. Eventually I concluded that it meant changing jobs. In some ways it was not an easy decision, I was with this company for over 18 years! It was my first real job and I learned a lot about IT, saw a lot of environments, got excellent opportunities, and have worked with a lot of good people. But sometimes the best thing to do is to leave. And that's okay, these things can happen.

I made the decision to leave somewhere in February this year and March was my last month working. At the time I didn't have a new job lined up, especially as I wanted to figure some things out during a several months long sabbatical (or vacation). This including investigating self-employment but I also figured that I needed a reboot opportunity before starting a new job. I planned to do city trips around Europe, sometimes combined with a local "Microsoft Ignite on Tour" edition. But yeah, then life (well, a virus) had other plans…

Job hunting

It has been an interesting sabbatical as it started immediately with job hunting. I already concluded that self-employment wasn't something I wanted to pursue anymore. I then started talking with companies, getting to know them and what they could offer. But most importantly if it would be a good match. Due to the lockdown we had, all interactions where via Microsoft Teams and I believe I had about 18 Teams meetings and two in-real-life (IRL) social distanced meetings in about 5 weeks. Although this is obviously anecdotal, but I do think the lockdown enabled me to have more meetings than without a lockdown. However, I also know that IRL meetings offer insights that virtual meetings can't.

Those meetings where fun to have, I learned a lot and gained new insights just talking about IT. There are a lot of good IT people and companies out there! And yes, I am aware of my specific position and privilege resulting in some observer bias. But in any case, I am thankful for time and effort all those companies and IT people took to investigate what we could mean for each other. And eventually I believe NeoNomads is the best match for me and signed on early May.

Sabbatical

After that I still had May and June as a sabbatical. Focused on some IT home improvement and other tasks that had been waiting for this (digitizing old magazines or reparing old modelkits for instance 😀). But also took time to contemplate my work in the IT community, trying to re-invent myself and looking for interesting new ways to share content. I'll experiment with several formats and look what works for me. Could be writing blogs or even doing some video's, it will still contain my contributions towards Practical PowerShell projects.

But I have not been blind what's happening in my own country and in the world. I realize am lucky and privileged to tell my personal story that had this outcome. It has influenced my thinking about what I could and should do to improve our world.

So, now you are a little updated on what has been going on. Feel free to leave comments and/or ask questions. 🙂