Introduction

Hello!

Since you are reading this blog, you probably want to know something more about me. Well, you are in luck, as I will share my life story from the very beginning. Although the blog is quite comprehensive, it provides insight into my career path from Windows administrator to DevOps, the decisions I've made over time, and my plans for the future. Let's begin.

I was born in 2000, so you might assume that technologies were around me as I grew, right? Ha-ha, not so much, since I was raised in a post-soviet country, and my parents weren't interested in having a computer. Eventually, though, we had our first computer with the internet in 2011- even after that, I was only allowed to use it for 1 hour a day.

It was in 2014 when I saved some money, so I decided to buy a PC. However, I was 200$ short of any decent one. That's when the crazy idea was born. I would buy only some parts like the motherboard, CPU, RAM, and HDD, while I got other components like the PC box, DVD mechanic, and power supply from people giving them away for free.

It worked, the custom-built PC was born, and with it, my passion for technology. A crazy idea I had at 14 opened the doors of the technology world, eventually leading me to apply to the High School of Technical Engineering.

That's where I first learned Software Development fundamentals, Website development, Windows and Linux administration, Databases, Cisco networking, and many more. Although it's only High School, it was the 2nd best-rated electro-engineering school in Slovakia. Consequently, it took its price; It was extremely exhausting, which eventually resulted in me losing interest in being a software developer or administrator.

Right here is when the story gets interesting, as after school, I wasn't looking for a job in tech. I opted for "easy" money— my plan was to work in a foreign country for three weeks and then return home for one week. Now, repeat the cycle over and over again, and you end up with interesting, everchanging work environment, right? Yes, I a way. But it's impossible to build career like this.

I didn't know that at a time, so I found a job as an electrician in France. After the first two weeks, I realized how repetitive and non-challenging it is. All I did was connect distribution cabinets according to the prepared electrical schemes.

It started to be boring as hell and I saw no point in continuing to do that. Therefore, after some time, I changed my mind, returned to Slovakia for good, and started to look for a tech job.

After a few months of searching, I landed a job in T-systems, where I worked as a Windows administrator. The focus here was limited to Windows, quite strictly. I wasn't working with Active Directory, I couldn't run any scripts there, and even application logs were the responsibility of the other team.

Anyway, it was a good starting point as I had no university degree, but I felt the need for a bigger challenge in my life. Therefore, I decided to apply to a university. Sadly, part-time degrees in Košice, the city where I had lived, were not an option.

That being said, my path eventually led to The Open University UK, which offers flexible, distance study. The idea was that I worked as a Windows administrator and studied software development— I hoped these two things would eventually cross and open the world of DevOps for me.

The first year and a half didn't make any difference, as I couldn't find any decent positions. One day, though, I was contacted by a headhunter about a job offer from a Norwegian company with an office in Kosice. I passed the interviews and soon started to work as an infrastructure engineer. It was one of the best feelings ever— knowing that all the hard work finally paid off!

Here, as an infrastructure engineer, the work became more challenging, which I liked VERY much. I wasn't administrating just Windows servers but the whole SaaS solution. Apart from the Windows environment, we had a few Linux machines, VMware for virtualization, and Citrix for publishing apps.

To make things even better, it was a Norwegian company— the colleagues were perfect, the offices were top-notch, and the whole work environment was exceptional— I couldn't be happier in both work, and life. However, I no longer work there, as I left the country for political reasons and moved to Prague in the Czech Republic.

In Prague, I found a long-term freelance job as a DevOps Service owner, so I ultimately achieved my original goal. No more infrastructure logs, just application logs, monitoring, constant improvement in streamlining the CI/CD processes, and finally, a touch of software development. Oh boy, did I find the perfect fit for me? YES, I DID!

At this point, I was more committed to my job than ever. I might have worked 40 hours a week officially, but with all the enthusiasm in me, I have continued to develop my skills even after work. Not only technical but also company-specific, as I started to understand the importance of it. I was a service owner after all.

I remember the first days when I had an introductory presentation by a senior colleague. He said that we have around 140 modules, therefore it's impossible to remember them all and know all their functions. Well, it was far from impossible, as I knew them all next week. That's how motivated I was.

Anyway, all these career changes had me thinking, do I still need a degree in software development? I was already pretty skilled at coding. Luckily, I still had an option to change the direction of my studies.

Therefore, instead of a degree in Software development, I decided to switch to CyberSecurity, as I felt that would be more useful, even within the DevOps field. The plan now is to gain as much practical experience as DevOps, eventually combining it with theoretical knowledge from the university and hopefully leading to DevSecOps positions.

Conclusions

It's been a long way to get to my point, I agree. However, I felt that sharing my life story was the most straightforward way to fully express my motivation.

In other words, technology is not just a part of my life—it is my life. From when I was 14, my world revolved around technology. If the center of our galaxy is the Sun, you could metaphorically say the same about my life and technologies. That and the Sun became even bigger once I got into the DevOps field.

What's more, I have decided to share my journey through blogs. The plan is to not only document my career life but also to write blogs that have informative characters, like the series Introduction to OpenAI. If you are interested in more content, make sure to add me on LinkedIn- where I will post a post whenever a new blog is released, or follow me on Instagram, where apart from upcoming releases, you can follow my personal life.

Last but not least, if you have made it this far, I would like to thank you for your time and I really do appreciate it.

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