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Farewell IBM! ¶

2021-08-20

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.

After more than a decade at IBM, time has come to bid farewell.

I joined IBM when I was around 30 years old, coming from a background of programming (first) and Unix system administration (later), which evolved into more general “solution design” skills. In the 90s, when I more seriously immersed myself in technology, there were some big names for those in the Unix side of things: Sun Microsystems was one, Digital Equipment Company another, and IBM a perennial reference.

This to say that I still remember feeling extremely proud when I joined IBM, and I remained proud to the last day.

It’s always easier to look back and point out things that were not ideal, and this happens in every place. I will, instead, focus on what was the vast majority of my life there

• I was given the space and tools to change roles and address different challenges.

  In my time at IBM, I started as a Technical Solutions Architect focusing on building Unix solutions, and soon after storage. I was a Chief Architect in client accounts, which taught me a lot (although not always without some pain involved) about technological governance in the day-to-day. I pretty much started the Internet of Things and Smarter Cities projects we had. I was assigned for Watson projects around AI and healthcare. I was a Quantum Ambassador and participated in the IBM Quantum Network. I was an architect in the Container Platforms offering, with projects all over Europe around Kubernetes.

  Part of these are due to my own interests, another part is due to my restlessness, but it was only possible because I had those opportunities available, and had the support of those around me.

• I had great managers during my entire stay

  Perhaps one of the things were luck played a bigger role, because large companies will have a similar distribution of managers quality-wise, and also because “quality” here is also greatly dependent on personal affinity, but throughout the years I always had great managers that supported me whenever needed, and with whom I felt I was open to discuss any topic. There’s a feeling of tranquility in knowing this that those that have had bad experiences with managers will certainly understand.

• I met great people

  I’m sure this is true in many other places, and I also met others which didn’t really affected me one way or the other (and I’m sure the feeling is mutual!), but I worked with some amazing colleagues, both in Portugal and internationally. This goes hand-in-hand with the ability to participate in many projects.

IBM has defined a path that is around Cloud, AI, and Quantum, and which will no doubt leverage the Red Hat acquisition. I can only say that I can only agree with the approach, if nothing else because those were the areas which I also defined as priorities for myself, which is why I was actively participating in all three in different ways.

As for the Red Hat acquisition, I was one of those that fully supported the move, even considering the numbers involved: here, too, my background in the free software community (and, later, open source) put me in a different position, and I often (and publicly) corrected misrepresentations of what IBM was and did for open source, and even more so when others were actively fighting it.

The other side of this equation is that IBM has decided that GTS, the services unit, is no longer a part of that plan. This necessarily leads to changes and the need to rethink the future – and when this happens, it’s also an opportunity to rethink one’s place in the world career-wise – although, IBM was a bit more than just a career for me, right or wrong.

I’m not the same person I was when I joined IBM. In most regards, I am certainly a better person now, thanks to everything that I have already shared. It’s time to take the “long brown path before me leading wherever I choose”, with a heavy hearth, but also strong and content.