Last week, Plaid announced laying off 20% of its workforce (260 people). Today I signed my termination agreement, which makes this week my last week as part of Plaid’s infrastructure team.

Moving forward

While being laid off and having to leave a very talented team is never a happy moment, I have decided to use the time ahead of me as an opportunity to focus on personal growth and figure out were I want my career to go next. I will not be seeking new full-time employment immediately.

First, I want to get back into actually building things by myself. My programming skills and technology knowledge has immensely increased since I left college. Since then, I have not had the time and energy to get into serious side projects. I intend to use the next few months to fix that, although I am not sure exactly what form my new projects will take.

Second, I need some time to explore infrastructure tooling outside of kubernetes. I enjoy working with kubernetes, but I am also starting to suspect that we are close to the peak of the hype cycle. If that’s the case, having a career focused on k8s might become as attractive as being an Enterprise JavaBeans expert. To avoid that, I intend to seek out “what’s new” in the infrastructure space and explore new technologies.

While I’m talking about diversifying my skill portfolio, I also intend to explore subjects that are way outside of my comfort zone, mainly regarding communication. I think effective communication is an essential skill to anyone working in tech, which is currently my weak point. To fix that, I will try to inform myself about writing and visual communication techniques. I intend to practice by writing and talking more about what I do. And while I’m at it, I might try to finish learning dutch.

So with all that, expect more activity on this blog in the next few months. I will do my best to talk about the projects I’m creating, the technologies I’m trying and everything I discover along the way.