Building DLM Consultants has been a hugely rewarding journey. I’ve learned so much, and I’ve had a whole bunch of great experiences. It’s been far more profitable than I ever thought it would be.
Business continues to run just fine. But, I’m tired of consultant life.
During the first couple of years of DLM I was always at airports. I went to a lot of places, and I met a lot of wonderful people. Consulting is great when you meet real people, face to face. It was a dream job, for a younger me.
But then: pandemics, parenthood, and a growing sense of my own impact on our world. My perspective, and my working practices, have changed. DLM Consultants hasn’t bought any plane tickets since Covid. I’ve not even driven anywhere. However, consulting and DevOps are both about people. Dealing with people through the medium of short-term Zoom or MS Teams engagements is not as exciting or rewarding.
Instead, what I’ve really enjoyed is more hands-on work. I’ve been managing a fleet of SQL Server upgrades. I’ve been codifying vague requirements as Pester Tests to validate assumptions and ensure consistency. I’ve been creating complicated database deployment pipelines: figuring out the limits of what’s achievable with Octopus Deploy and Azure DevOps, and scripting out the bits that don’t come out of the box.
This stuff, I’ve loved. But, as long as I’m doing this through DLM Consultants, I’m an outsider. And I always have to be “the expert”. No-one wants to hire expensive consultants who know less than their own employees! This means I rarely, if ever, get to work with people who know more than I do about the technologies I specialise in. And customers don’t want me spending billable hours on things that aren’t directly within my established area of expertise. They’ve got employees for that.
I’m pigeon-holed. While I do enjoy my work, and I hope I’ve still got many decades left in my career, the idea of being stuck in a box until I turn grey isn’t particularly appealing. I’d far prefer to broaden my skillset, solve new problems, and learn new things.
I want to do more Platform Engineering. I want more hands-on experience. More code. I suspect there will be plenty of databases to deploy wherever I work. (Probably SQL Server). However, alongside the databases, I also want to work with other stuff. I want more experience with popular programming languages, like C# or JavaScript. I want to do more work with either Azure or AWS.
I want to work on the inside, with a genuine sense of stewardship over the things I create.
I want to work with people who know more than I do. I want people to review my code and to be Radically Candid about the things I could do better. I want to pair program, in a professional context, where I can safely be the student.
I’m looking for a Senior DevOps / Platform Engineer role. I’m open to working remote (UK), office-based (in/near Cambridge, UK), or hybrid within 1-2 hours (including London).
If you know of a role that could be a good fit for me, please get in touch.
My CV is on GitHub:
UK version (A4 format): https://github.com/Alex-Yates/curriculum-vitae/blob/main/bin/CV_AlexYates_EMEA.pdf
US version (Letter format): https://github.com/Alex-Yates/curriculum-vitae/blob/main/bin/CV_AlexYates_US.pdf