Blogging: Day 1

I highly expect this to be my least read blog post, and that’s saying something 😀

About Me

A brief introduction is probably in order. My name is Brad Misterek, and I’ve been in some sort of Software Development for almost 25 years. I guess this is going to be somewhat of a condensed version of my resume.

I started my career as a software developer at HP (the HPE side). I worked there for about 15 years, and wore a lot of different hats while I was there.

• Software Developemnt – C++ and Java Mostly
• Build Work – Creating and supporting build infrastrucutre for our products. Lots of build tools, software development, hardware support, etc..
• Engineering Managemnet – I found myself as an engineering manager for a number of years
• Scrummaster – I have lots of thoughts and feelings about this role, but maybe that’s for future blog posts.

After a layoff, I moved on to a local company (Spirae) that provided microgrid solutions. My role there started as Scrum Master, but quickly migrated to the role of Software Development Manger

After a year at Spirae, I moved to a role as DevOps Manger at a company in Denver called Vertafore. This was my first introduction to all kinds of concepts – AWS, Azure, Kubernetes, Cloud Architecture.

After that, I moved to a small company called “HubTran” as a devops engineer. This was an amazing move. The comapny, at the time, was less than 20 people – all of them absolutely brilliant. Everyday that I went to work I felt like the dumbest guy in the room – in the best way possible.

A couple of years later, HubTran was acuqired by Triumph (triumph.io), which is where I find myself today, as a Lead DevOps engineer.

About this Blog

Why am I doing this? A few reasons:

• I want to write things that I learn or find interesting down, both as a set of notes, but also as a way to help me think through what I’m learning, and hopefully to learn it better.
• I genuinely would be thrilled if anyone found this blog and learned something. I don’t really plan to promote it or anything, but I love helping people and teaching. If this blog can help me do that, then it’ll all be worth it.
• Sort of with the previous point, I’d love to have people discover this and connect with me. I sometimes struggle to build a commmunity of people that love to talk about technical topics, and if this helps me build it, I’d be super happy. (look at the about me page for how to connect with me)

What Will I Cover?

As everyone is, I’m a multi dimentional person. I love beer, woodworking (not in that order), and lots of other things. I don’t plan to talk about any of those here. This will be purely focused on technical topics.

AI Usage

Yup. I’m using AI. But it will be contained only to the framework of this blog and the infrustructure around it. The words here will be my own. I don’t think there’s any value (for me, at least), in AI generated text and thoughts in this blog. This is meant to be about me, both the good and the bad. I’m not interestd in using this blog as a way to learn how to develop and publish a blog (these are important, but not my focus). Therefore, I’m more than ok using AI for that part. But the words will be mine.

Thank you! ❤️

If you are reading this, I just want to say that, already, I appreciate you.