Welcome to DevOpsDerek.net, my first blog!

I know this should probably be on an about page or the first page of the blog, but I wanted to get my first blog out of the way. This blog will be about a few things that I want to focus on initially, but will likely expand over time, or perhaps get a bit more focussed. I will focus mostly on technology blogs with a sprinkle of the below:

• DevOps Technologies
• Professional Development ideas
• Some personal stuff, including my dogs, and my own life experience.
• Tips on dealing with stress, impostor syndrome, and how it’s affected me through my career.
• World problems

Who am I?

Hello, my name is Derek Campbell, and I try and go with DevOpsDerek as a “personal brand.” Sorry, that sounds a little egotistical but we all need to develop one in some way or another. You can find me hanging out on Twitter, and generally, that’s the best way to contact me.

I’m a Scottish man based just outside of Glasgow, and I live with my wife and my two chocolate labradors. I like technology, particularly DevOps and Automation technologies. I love quadcopters, dogs, dog walks, reading, football, cars, DIY, and generally just tinkering and learning stuff in my spare time. I do spend a good bit of time on the Sofa as well as watching Netflix, films, and all sorts of documentaries.

I’m about as Scottish as it gets, unfortunately, so what that means I am a haggis eating, caber tossing, kilt-wearing, whiskey-drinking aficionado.

Work and motives

I work as a CI/CD Architect at Octopus Deploy as part of the Customer Success team, and I am based just outside of Glasgow, Scotland. I work with some of Octopus’s largest customers and also help write content that helps the users of Octopus. This blog holds my own opinions, ideas, and content, and it won’t be part of my work at Octopus.

I tend to be more of a speaker than a writer, and I’ve presented in a few countries and several cities around the UK. I’ll be writing about a range of topics freely and may split this over time into multiple websites, but now, it will be on what I mentioned previously. I want to increase my blogging skills over time, and I will likely look back at this first blog and cringe, much like I do when I see old PowerShell scripts I’ve written in the past. We’ve all been there, no doubt.

Occasionally I may write about Octopus Deploy and some of the cool things it does, and my aim is only to educate you and also have a place for me to write cool stuff down over time and reflect on it.

Background

I come from an Ops background and have been doing DevOps before I even knew what it was. DevOps isn’t always about being a developer, writing the best code, and it’s more about being open, honest, and direct with people while building and fostering a better culture between Development and Operations. I am a big fan of describing DevOps as Dev+Ops, and roles being defined as DEVops for Developers in DevOps, and devOPS for Operation focussed DevOps Engineers.

I worked seven years in London, 3 in Melbourne, and a small-time in Singapore, but have also consulted and spoke in a bunch of other countries. I moved back to Scotland a few years back and have never looked back.

During my career I’ve done many things starting in a Help Desk in Glasgow, System Administrator in a technical agency in Hammersmith, a System Architect in a Digital Design agency, Head of Technical Services in Melbourne, DevOps Lead, a Solution Architect and then I moved back to the UK to start my own IT consultancy contracting, and made the jump to Octopus Deploy in 2018 as a CI/CD Architect.

Frequency

I am going to aim to write a blog a week, and hopefully more often, and some may be quite long, and others shorter. I may extend this out to vlogging if I can find the time. The quality of the blogs may be higher and lower, depending on what I have on at work and in my personal life. Yes, it’s ok to have a persona life in technology.

Summary

Hopefully, you found this educational and happy to get the first blog out of the way.

Until next time, stay safe, love each other and try and be a little more empathetic and kind to other humans.