After publishing Erik’s blog which is rather technical I thought might be interesting to bring something lighter. Upon considering potentially interesting topics it became apparent that they should stem from personal experience. So I proposed five topics to the guys. Women in IT -> but on this one we agreed has been extensively covered, or how is it to work for a startup comparing to a big corporate. In the end guys were most intrigued by my recent career switch. Yes at the time of building company I decided to switch the role. Someone might say I am over-motivated, I simply love being active.

So to give you bit of a background. This is not my first switch. During my time at university I started to work as a software developer and after that I continued for 2 more years. While I enjoyed the technology, coding itself was never my true passion. I was the person who always ended up in a compiling problem who never had faced before.

To put it into perspective for non-technical people, imagine being a driver and constantly getting lost during your shifts, experiencing a flat tire every second day, or encountering technical problems that no one has ever seen before, forcing you to take the car to three different garages to get it fixed. Would you still want to be a driver? While I may be exaggerating slightly, it conveys the challenges I faced. :)

Eventually I realized I was much more into what my product manager colleagues are doing. Designing the functionality of some applications, organising people, organising timelines etc. But I knew it wouldn’t be easy to get a job as a product manager with 0 experience. So I waited for my moment, and eventually, a release manager position opened up at my company. At that time, it was the first time when I heard of such a position. And frankly, I had no clue what it was about. However, my inner sinn was telling me it’s position which could be exactly what I was looking for - being a manager, but still being technical.
Only over time I learned how important it is for a tech company to have a good release manager, especially if different teams are building different parts of applications “independently” with plenty of cross-dependencies in the background.

As a release manager, it is your responsibility to ensure that technical and business people are aligned, make decisions about functionality, architecture and timelines together. You need to have a high-level architectural overview of every application and its inter-connections. Of course in an ideal world, we would have plenty of time, a huge budget and the best skilled professionals. And everything would be smooth. However the reality is bit spicier :). We are all in a hurry, juggling ten tasks at the same time, pushed by the business to publish applications on time and with nothing less than exceptional quality. Therefore, it is important to have a gatekeeper who ensures everyone stops for a moment, takes a deep breath before the big showtime and ensures that the left hand knows what the right one is doing.

Time flied and 2 years later I looked back and realised what I built. A release management department that at the beginning served for 4 applications, now for more than 20 with over 40 stakeholders releasing at least twice a week. Many things were still manual, many things were not perfect and it became very challenging for 1 person to handle. At the same time I was so so occupied with my daily routine tasks that I didn’t have time for lot of improvements. What started to frustrate me more and more until it unfortunately culminated to the point when it didn’t bring me so much joy anymore. Time to move and consider my options. Kind of difficult for someone who is very adaptive and eager to try everything new.

On one hand, I was aware that in last 3 years I had built quite a few management skills that would be a pity to give up. On the other hand I knew it can be my last chance to get back to coding as later its gonna be already too late to catch up on all the technological innovations. So I did different analysis. First , I researched release management positions on the market. However, I quickly recognised that being a release manager for the rest of my life might not be fulfilling, and it's a position that I can easily move into later on. Next, I looked at developer positions. Since finding a developer job at the market would be more challenging for me, I decided to do some internal research. After speaking to different colleagues two options have piqued my interest. Joining either the SRE or Blockchain development team.

And thinking it through I came to the conclusion that SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) would be a better fit for me. This job is closely related to release management and allows me to leverage from gained high-level architectural knowledge of applications and stakeholders (whereas a release manager takes care about releases from a practical point of view, a SRE ensures technical stability and reliability). And SRE is not only about coding. I find it also much more logical and broad instead of focusing only on one application and strong programming language principles.

Additionally, the demand for SRE developers is expected to grow across various industries, making it a promising field to pursue. Although the demand for blockchain developers has also been increasing, the blockchain market is from my point of view still limited at the moment. After spending 2,5 months back in the developer’s shoes, I can say that it has been challenging but incredibly rewarding to daily gain new skills and knowledge. Besides, I am enjoying the absence of jam-packed calendar full of meetings, context-switching, chasing people for their approvals or task completion and so on.

What is great, is that it all has fallen into place and I can continue enhancing also my growing entrepreneurial and managerial passion here at CherryPeak. At some point an important decision will most likely have to be made again. And I already have my secret guess. :)

Closing advice?

It's important to be patient when pursuing something you want, but at the same time, don't hesitate to seize opportunities that come your way. Don't let someone else grab the opportunity that you could have taken. If you're not sure what you want to do, don't stress too much, and just try something new. In the worst case, you'll gain more experience and broaden your horizons.

Cheers,

Zuzana