Hang loose!

As of June 1st I will start a new adventure at SURF! After two years of having to deal with corporate enshittification I’m extremely grateful that I can be a part of this fantastic organization. It took me almost 20 years to get an appointment, I first applied there in June 2005 when it was still called SARA. Third time’s a charm I guess, I also applied for a position back in December but since that was for a storage specialist there wasn’t a full match.

Looking forward to starting there. Back to the field of education and research, I worked in that field before at the University of Amsterdam for 8 years back in the 00s. It feels like the circle is round, at the UvA I tried really hard to get a Linux position but I was deemed too light for every application I did. But now almost 15 years later with a lot more experience and a solid resume I really was a valid contender for this position, for which I’m happy and also a bit proud.

I’m assigned an Specialist Engineer position within the internal operations team, in my case specialist as in Linux specialist. Work location will be the SURF location at the Science Park in Amsterdam, close to the infamous CWI. Can’t wait to have a daily Linux driver again instead of running a non-sanctioned OS with FreeRDP to be able to access my backlog. But first, document everything, improve and update existing documentation and transfer as much knowledge as possible to my current team members. And also migrate all Ubuntu 20.04 machines and getting the whole software stack to run containerized.

Hang loose!

New job

Working at home during the Intelligent Lockdown got me thinking about a lot of stuff, including my job at Cyso. I started weighing the many positive aspects against the negative ones and unfortunately the balance tilted too much towards the negative side. So when I got contacted by Evidos I decided to bite the bullet because their offer just ticked so many boxes. Started there in August and I’m now at the point where things are starting to roll. I’m hired as a cloud engineer but as a jack of all trades I already find myself meddling with all kinds of things. Besides maintaining the current cloud platforms, which are mainly used for testing purposes, I’m also heavily involved in the upcoming migration of the current setup into the cloud. And I offer a fresh outlook on a wide variety of subjects that could be done better in my opinion. Think of monitoring, automation and security but also how operational work could be organized better, how existing processes could be improved and I’ve made a start with setting a proper standard for documenting all the things we do.

Evidos itself is a company that does digital signing. Think of all kinds of contracts, deeds or other official documents that need a signature. So no need to go to a notary office, estate agent or your new employer physically, just add your signature in a digital way to the official documents and end up with documents that have been fully signed by all involved parties with a solid judiciary basis. This just saves a lot of time, paper and physical encounters that should be avoided as much as possible these days.

For me this means improving my skills when it comes to encryption standards and methods, security awareness and compliancy. And a great opportunity to make good use of the knowledge I’ve amassed over the years. So far I’m happy about the decision I’ve made, it’s quite a step to change jobs, especially when you already work for a great company with a permanent contract and also given the current circumstances. But sometimes you’re just forced to step back and reconsider. I’m glad that happened, I’m regaining my enthusiasm to work with Linux and open source software in general which is a good sign and I’m starting to find more focus and peace in my current job. A good thing, not just on a professional level but also on a personal level.

New job

Employed!

Got a new job! The 16th of September I’m starting at Cyso, a top-notch hosting provider. Located in Alkmaar, very close to the place I’ve worked for the last two years. It all went very fast, less than 3 weeks. Didn’t expect to find a new job that suits me so quickly. This will be a huge step forward for me and I’m very happy and grateful the people at Cyso offered me this opportunity.

Employed!