The year that was, 2024

The end of the year approaches and another strange one. Far too much work, and I really don't feel like I've done a lot. However, the actual results are quite different so I'm not sure why I feel less than satisfied with myself. Let's dig into the detail - there is certainly more than Helldivers 2 and Dave the Diver.

• 13 posts on this blog (14 including this one) - tenth consecutive year of a post per month
• Continued posting my blog posts on LinkedIn and getting some good responses
• Passed my Magistrates application interview
• Another year of the Year in Pictures - tenth year and we're up to 47 photographers
• 347 Github contributions - well up on the last few years
• Including extensive rewrite of styling for Year in Pics site, removing old Foundation 5
• And a performance rewrite which cut build time from 85 seconds to 6
• Complete upgrade to all Ruby apps and code including migrating Postgres databases (again)
• Changed my email setup again - sigh
• Resurrected an old Pixel C
• Rebuilt my desktop computer
• Updated my music system
• Another year of Saturday Pain and made a t-shirt
• Learned to make candles
• More cooking
• Started writing D&D again
• Started bread again! Although not a great first run...
• Made a Lego Piranha plant, Optimus Prime, and URB Studio
• Made a dice display
• Showed my photos at the St Swithins creativity event
• Pie making cookery course
• Ran quarterly dinner parties - a fancy name for games and food
• Made a few different photo decorated items and books
• Escaped another couple of escape rooms
• Another year of exercise with a personal trainer
• Ongoing good physiotherapy regime
• Spoke at a conference about AI in the charity sector
• Another year on the Data for London Advisory Board
• Yet more instagramming
• More photos on my Flickr stream

Resolution count - 5/10. Not bad, and a lot better than last year.

So yes, this has been an odd year. I've achieved a lot more than I thought despite a rough year at work. A year ago I wrote this, for the millionth year in a row:

Looking forward to 2024, I'm going to write the same thing I write every year. I need to spend less time working and more time living.

Well, I'm happy to say I worked it out this year - I finally found a way to regenerate my energy and spend more time on the things I enjoy. Unfortunately, that way was leaving my job so it feels a bit all or nothing...

Overall though, I have two thoughts about 2024. First, I am quite pleased with how much I did this year. This time last year I struggled to write the above list, and really felt I was bulking it out with non-events. This year I managed to write a lot more and the general quality feels a lot higher. Good news! On the slight downside, far too many of these are from the last couple of months of the year - that is, after removing work. So I still have no idea how to balance my life properly - hurrah for adulting.

Second, as I said in the intro I don't feel like I've done a lot. The evidence is there - I'm wrong and I did Many Things - so why is the emotional component not? Some is because the year has been backloaded, so for much of the year maybe that feeling is more accurate ... but still. What would I feel to be a successful year?

My low energy levels is likely partially a cause. For the second year running I have ended the year with another series of blood tests for fatigue - clear for the second time, fortunately, but the fact I keep having these tests is not a good sign. I really need to bring my physical and mental health to the point where normal fluctuations don't keep dipping me into a bad place.

But overall, I don't have a good answer to the question about why I am not satisfied with my own achievements. I do have a bit of an opportunity at the start of 2025. Being between jobs I'm at a natural point to be introspective and really think about what I want to achieve going forward, and also what would make me happy. So 2025 is going to be the year of working out where I want my life to go, along with actually doing some of it. Oh and getting a job, I guess. Boo.

One thing I do need carefully consider is how I interact with other people and the world. I have definitely withdrawn over 2024, mostly as a defence mechanism. Through tiredness and some bad experiences I deliberately focused on the things in my life over which I have some control, which is to say I looked inward. This helped, but I think the balance is off. I have the inclination to become a hermit if left to my own devices so I need to make sure I am remembering to look outward too.

Right, enough ruminating. 2024 was objectively a decent year, if hard work. I hope for more from 2025, but to add in the emotional component. In the 2021 version of this post, I wrote that I wanted to find and restore my sense of wonder. I think I did, but it has slipped again. So this year I want to bring it back again.

It is time. Onwards! To 2025!

Leaving Macmillan

Back in mid-October I closed my Macmillan laptop (my MacTop, if you will) for the final time, leaving my role as Director of Engineering. I left behind the Engineering division I had created and some excellent and passionate people - not an easy decision and I'm still working through how I feel about everything, including the wider Tech industry. This is one reason it has taken so long to write this reflection.

I was at Macmillan for nearly three years. When I started, the organisation had some in-house technical capability but the people were scattered around working under project managers on systems that were badly in need of modernisation. I can write lots about how we created technical strategy, developed a software engineering culture and community and brought in greater automation, and all of this would be true, but the most important work was bringing the software engineers together and giving them a voice. The most important work is always with the people.

Over these three years I've seen many people grow into new versions of themselves by giving them space and encouragement. Some have embraced the wider context of their roles - looking beyond the specific technical problem to why it's important and realising they have a voice in this space, which can result in better solutions. Some have taken better ownership of their work, owning processes rather than simply implementing them and then flourishing as they realise they can improve and refine. Others have been able to express the needs of a previously ignored service - very common with infrastructure elements - and deal with issues and annoyances to move those areas forward. Still others have taken on line management or team leadership duties and started their journey into wider leadership activities.

I've spent the last eight years or so of my career trying to show the value of technical voices at all levels in an organisation, so having the opportunity to demonstrate this in action while enabling lots of people to grow and flourish has been great.

On a personal level, I've also grown a lot in these three years. I've learned a ton about being part of a director cohort in an organisation, and this is the first time I've worked in the charity sector. I was also recognised at an industry event as part of a group of up and coming "next CIO"s which is not only fantastic for the ego, it's also something I wouldn't have even considered a couple of years earlier. I've experienced several forms of restructure, all of which have taught me something new, and I've been responsible for shifting organisation culture in ways that go far beyond what I've done in the past.

I've also worked with some amazing people who have helped shaped my thinking and career in hugely significant ways. I'm not going to name names, but if you think it's you you're probably right. If I worked closely with you and you DON'T think it's you, you're probably wrong. In both cases, thank you.

So why leave? Primarily, the organisation needs to crack some really knotty legacy technology issues. I've been working on these since day one, and I believe I've built foundations on which solutions can now surface. However this has been a long journey, including migrating physical server rooms and a load of hiring and restructuring, and I did not feel I was the right person to take things forward in the next phase. The org needs someone fresh and enthusiastic for the challenge and after working on this for three years, I need a new problem to re-motivate me.

However, I am still sad to leave behind some excellent people - some of whom I've helped make serious changes to their careers. I'm going to miss them, and I hope I can work with them again. I've been part of a huge change in Macmillan technology, and this is something for which I can feel some pride. A friend says that a mark of success is leaving the place better than you found it, and I think by that metric I've done ok.

Looking forward, I'm enjoying some time away from work and considering my options. Reading back my Leaving GDS post was an interesting insight - at the time, I said "I'll likely jump into another maelstrom of "interesting problems"" and this proved to be rather prophetic. I am my own worst enemy when it comes to containing work and maintaining balance with the rest of life so I'm going to embrace this break as another opportunity to reset myself. Certainly, I'm currently enjoying the freedom to work on my health and fitness and learn some new skills. I've been making candles and writing lots of code, as well as starting to write again - all things I've been too tired to do while in role. I really want to find the not-work person underneath and bring them out enough to do a better job surviving the next job.

I'm considering my next professional steps carefully, especially how much Data I want to be taking on going forward. Do I want to push in the direction of a Chief Data Officer role? Do I want to stay very much in the core technology space? Regardless the answer, this is certainly something to look at in any job spec to avoid adopting data through the back door into a software engineering role, which I feel will set up a role for disaster. The tech industry is going through another seismic shift - we are in the early stages of the AI revolution, with everyone racing to "do data and AI". There is a huge software engineering component to this, but it goes a lot wider into organisational process and culture, and this work needs clear air and appropriate reach to have any chance of success without being overloaded. Fortunately, culture and technology is an intersection I have a lot of experience working on so there is certainly also potential here.

Before jumping anywhere, I need to revisit my own motivators and see what I actually want to be doing. Macmillan has been amazing experience, but I want to build on this, not just do it again somewhere else without some serious thought first. Last time I wrote one of these posts I said I was keen to continue promoting technical leadership and I feel the same way now, but I need to decide how.

In the meantime, if anyone would like to talk about the tech industry, data, growing your software engineering capability, people or anything else please do give me a shout in the new year - I'm easy to contact on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Right now, I'm enjoying the peace in that strange time between Christmas and New Year when the world is on pause and nobody expects anything of you.