A Recap of My Year 2023

Leaving behind?

I left Capgemini in January 2023, after a long 8 years. It was the place where I learned and grew as a person. But I felt that I had no more room to grow in my career. I wanted to try something different, and I was curious about working with startups, scaleups and unicorns. Capgemini has shaped me into who I am today, and I am happy that I still have a good relationship with my former colleagues and can chat and have fun with them like nothing has changed.

Restarting!

I started working at Microsoft in February 2023. I did not expect it to be my next job when I wanted a change, but it was what I was looking for, working with startups, scaleups and unicorns. And I was (still am) impressed by how advanced Dutch ISVs are. I was eager to join a skilled and enthusiastic team, and to learn from some of the best experts in the field. But I also felt some tension about my new role, because after almost 17 years of coding, architecture, design and team lead, I was about to start a journey of being a technical pre-sales architect.

Growing Within New Role

I had a lot of experience with cloud-native application architecture, but this was a new challenge. I realized that Azure is a collection of technologies that are endless and complex. I found out that success for an ISV required not only design and architecture but also strategy, revenue, go-to-market, growth and innovation. I learned how to plan and conduct workshops for developers, architects to CTOs and CEOs. But most importantly, what helped me adjust to this new situation was getting to know my new colleagues and not only learning to rely on them but also how they started to trust me. I think this was the main factor for anyone to grow and excel in their new job.

Public Speaking and Blogging

I enjoy and feel excited about sharing my knowledge in front of a crowd. But doing this also involves a lot of travel and time away from home, which makes my son unhappy. So, this year I decided to speak at conferences (if selected) that are only a few hours away (by road/train) from home. This made someone very happy, but I also had many big FOMOs this year. Still, I managed to speak at JSpring, Devoxx UK & Ukraine, Microsoft Build & Ignite, Anywhere365 Beyond, Utrecht and Amsterdam JUG. I attended Teqnation, KubeCon, Azure fest, Microsoft Inspire as a happy participant. Maybe not as much as my "conference-colleagues" but still glad to reduce my travel and balance it with my new job and role.

My goal for 2023 was to write more, but I fell short of the amount of articles that I planned. Some of the best moments of my 2023 writing are:

1.????? Blogs about Semantic kernel in Microsoft tech blog and Java Advent calendar.

2.????? Blog on Azure Open AI at LinkedIn blogs.

3.????? GraphQL article in NLJUG Java Magazine.

Diving Deep into GenAI

I am amazed by what GenAI can achieve and how it can transform the way we create and design applications. And ISVs also see this opportunity and through their questions and my curiosity I got to know the world of GenAI.

As the year is almost over, I still think that my knowledge is only touching the surface but I am glad that I explored this new wave and learned a lot to help others. From learning and developing applications with AI and vector databases to running workshops for developers and architects, the journey was wonderful. I have never encountered so many talented and curious people in my life as this technology enables.

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The year was full of new experiences, such as a new role, new technologies, new friends and colleagues. I look forward to the next one.