Reflections on 2024: A Year of Transition, Growth, and Impact

As 2024 draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on a year of significant professional transformation. After spending over eight years in engineering management roles, I made a pivotal decision to return to my roots in Enterprise Architecture, finding a new and fulfilling home at REWE Group. This transition has been marked by a mix of introspection, renewed purpose, and exciting challenges in a domain that continues to evolve rapidly.

The Middle Management Dilemma

One of the key motivators for my shift beginning of this year was a growing frustration with the realities of middle management. While the opportunity to lead and support teams has always been fulfilling, the role itself often feels like a paradox. Middle management is a position that claims power but is, in reality, constrained by organizational priorities.

You strive to advocate for your team, ensuring they have the tools, resources, and support to thrive. Yet, you are simultaneously under pressure to meet organizational demands that sometimes contradict the very principles of good leadership. This duality is exhausting, creating a constant push-and-pull dynamic that can sap energy and focus.

Stepping out of this role and back into a contributor position has been liberating. The burden of managing these competing priorities has lifted, allowing me to channel my efforts into achieving meaningful deliverables. It has been a reminder of the joy that comes from focusing on concrete goals and delivering real value - an experience I had been missing in recent years.

That doesn't mean that I've given up on leading and managing teams, as I still believe this is one of my core strengths and something I deeply enjoy, but stepping back and regrouping has been a great way of altering my perspective and regaining energy.

Exploring the Complexity of Retail IT

My return to Enterprise Architecture has been nothing short of eye-opening, particularly within the context of retail. The IT complexity in retail is astounding, encompassing a vast array of processes and value streams that must work together seamlessly to deliver exceptional customer experiences.

From supply chain management and logistics to in-store technology and e-commerce, the interconnections of systems are both a challenge and an opportunity. This complexity has made my role as an Enterprise Architect deeply engaging, as every decision requires a nuanced understanding of how technology impacts and enables the business.

Being part of one of the biggest IT transformation programs in Europe right from the beginning was another great experience. It's a great opportunity to deliver a meaningful impact, shaping the future of IT for one of the largest retailers. This not an easy journey, managing such a huge transformation with literally hundreds of people and dozens of teams involved (just at the start) is not an easy task and as an Enterprise Architect keeping the head over water to ensure that all is still going into the right direction can be exhausting as well.

Expanding My Role: Shaping Engineering Maturity

As the year progressed, my responsibilities evolved beyond the realm of Enterprise Architecture. I now play a key role in shaping the engineering maturity of product teams, guiding the profession leads for frontend and backend development as well as quality assurance.

Why is fostering a true engineering culture so vital? Because engineering is more than just writing code - it’s about establishing a mindset of continuous improvement, technical excellence, and collaboration. A mature engineering culture empowers teams to take ownership of their work, embrace accountability, and deliver high-quality solutions that align with business objectives.

By working closely with our profession leads, I’ve been able to influence the way teams approach their craft, ensuring that we’re not just meeting immediate needs but building a foundation for long-term success. While this transformation is sometimes cumbersome slow, there is still progress and its great to work with a team of highly engaged individuals that not only perform their profession with pride but really try to bring it to the next level.

2024 Achievements: Building a Lasting Impact

This year has been marked by several key accomplishments that reflect both the depth and breadth of my contributions:

• Creating the Technology Insights Board

Together with the team of profession leads a new powerful tool was created and is continuously expanded that gives developers, architects and engineering leads insights into the technical state of their products as well as compliance with company and architecture standards. Started as a simple MVP it has been growing every since, with bottom up adoption and more and more feature requests from its user base.

• Driving Group-Wide Architecture Standards

As part of the IT transformation it was an engaging, but also not always easy and sometimes time consuming, process to discuss and shape the future standards for architecture, integration, development and quality assurance throughout the IT organization.

• Drafting the Quality Assurance Manifesto

Quality Assurance has always been a special interest of mine, as I still believe that it is underrated and not yet properly embedded in any organization. Being part of the group that discussed and shaped the foundational manifesto that shall drive all quality assurance activities within the IT was a joyful experience, especially since we had so many different viewpoints and approaches in our working group.

• Designing a Target Architecture for the Group-Wide Data Platform

Rather late in the year I joined the ongoing activities around designing the target architecture of our analytics data platform, again another personal favorite of mine. The discussions, bound by various constraints and full of opposing forces, were though so it was even more gratifying to reach an agreement at the end. It still a journey how this one will play out, but the foundation laid this year is definitely a good starting point.

Looking Ahead

As I reflect on 2024, I’m filled with a sense of gratitude for the opportunities to learn, grow, and make a meaningful impact. Returning to a contributor role has reignited my passion for solving complex problems and delivering tangible results. At the same time, the chance to shape engineering maturity has allowed me to influence the culture and practices of the organization in lasting ways.

The IT complexity of retail continues to challenge and inspire me, and I look forward to 2025 with a renewed sense of purpose. Whether it’s architecting systems, mentoring teams, or driving strategic initiatives, I’m eager to build on the foundation laid this year and continue to evolve my role within the organization.

Let's see where the road will take me, as yet another year has passed so has raised my confidence that I'm ready to master whatever challenge might be around the corner.