As the saying goes “time flies when you’re having fun” and the past half decade 😳 has certainly flown. To think, all the way back in April 2018, I was a monolithic enterprise engineer concerned about having invested £7k up front (laptop & 2 transatlantic tickets) in order to join my first start up, a little known company called HashiCorp.

My first day “in the office” I had flown half way across the world and by the evening had a pint in my hand, seated on a San Diego beach and was listening to Armon Dadgar sharing his vision on what HashiCorp would become. Both Mitchel and Armon have consistently been inspirational leaders through out my time there.

Images like this never really helped me convince my wife and family that I had a real job – and no, the “work hard play hard” line has never worked for me.

It has been an exciting adventure working at the leading edge of the Cloud Infrastructure and Security transformations across the globe with our customers. Mutually learning how best to leverage and grow our products, together.

I’ll let everyone into a little secret here, it’s never about the technology – the people and processes are the key – and they always will be, technologies will come and go. Partnerships are the path to success.

Building the EMEA Technical Account Management team and then transitioning this team over to a Customer Success team, all the time watching our renewal rate growing, was both exhilarating and exhausting at the same time. It’s this very team, however, that made me so successful in my career at HashiCorp. I was standing on the shoulder’s of giants and I’m forever grateful to everyone that I’ve had the pleasure and privilege to work with – a sincere and heartfelt thank you to all of you.

I have to give a special mention to Alain, Alvaro, Peter & Cristina – my early day start up mentors – it was a lot of fun, cheers.

Iain Gray, no longer with us today, but a true friend whose humour, wit and professionalism kept me going during the chaotic cycles, may he rest in peace. Give me at least another 3 decades Iain, and I’ll have that long awaited pint with you. You literally were a rockstar, or was that a groupie, I always got confused 🙂 .

Well that £7k up front investment, all those years ago, was it worth it? Am I glad I joined a start up?

Absolutely! I’ve had an incredible, challenging and always enjoyable time at HashiCorp. I’ve made many friends, and been humbled by so many clever folks always willing to share, listen and support. I truly felt HashiCorp really was an ally to diversity and that diversity was not merely another company marketing exercise.

It has been a fantastic phase of my career and I’ve loved every minute of it. If you get the opportunity to join a start up – do it!!!

So, what’s next…

Well, it just so happens that this is the first time in my career where my children’s summer holidays and my employment status have aligned to allow me to enjoy the summer break with them HELP!

So, come September/October, I’ll be back on the hunt for my next challenge. If you’re aware of any exciting Cloud Transformation projects, or are struggling to adopt a Cloud Operating Model, or even trying to implement a zero trust deployment pattern and would like some experienced support do look me up.

Long live geeks!