What I’ve Learned About Success:

It took some time for me to understand that success is often the result of learning from failure. Throughout my career I’ve realised that most of what you do – about 99% – doesn’t work from the first try. And it is in the remaining 1% that success is achieved. Keep trying and you will eventually succeed. Mistakes get you closer to the right solution, and how you go about it makes the difference.  And one of my favorite quotes from “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert T. Kiyosaki: “Winners are not afraid of losing. But losers are. Failure is part of the process of success. People who avoid failure also avoid success.” 

What I’ve Learned About Overcoming Challenges:

I enjoy solving problems. Being challenged makes me think deeper and come up with new solutions. Every challenge helps me improve, whether it’s ensuring that business needs match IT capabilities, managing architectural challenges, facilitating effective communication with clients, or navigating technological challenges 

What I’ve Learned About Communication:

Communicating well is like the glue that makes it all stick. It’s not only about talking – it is also about active listening and making sure that everyone is on the same page. Be clear and honest in your conversations: It’s the best way to avoid misunderstandings and keep things on the move.

What I’ve Learned About Leadership:

Leading well means caring well for those you lead. When team members feel supported and valued, they can achieve remarkable things. Leading is a team effort, not a solo adventure. That’s why, over the years, I’ve always shared my experiences – good and bad – with my team.

What I’ve Learned About Personal Growth:

I started from scratch with the PHP skills I learned at university. Working on small projects, I gradually picked up my programming skills – with each project getting better. 

Next came the challenge of learning a new technology, Node.js, which I was very excited about. However, I soon realised that using the latest technology is not always the best choice for long-term projects. At the time, Node.js was too new and not ready for enterprise use. 

Talking directly to customers was another challenge and probably one of the most difficult aspects of my journey. I’ll let you into a secret – even now I still get a bit nervous before a client meeting. But it’s getting easier every day. As the saying goes, ‘Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain’. The more you’re exposed to stressful situations, the easier they become, whether it’s talking to customers or giving a presentation in front of an audience. 

What I’ve Learned About Work-Life Balance:

A good work-life balance is essential to keep you energised and focused. For me, activities like swimming (I got to renew my subscription this year – I haven’t found the time… shame on me) and ultra-long runs are not just hobbies – they’re a way to recharge. Pushing myself to the limit keeps me fresh and motivated. 

What I’ve Learned About Mistakes:

Uh-oh, I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my career. Most of them involved trying to put out fires that were burning in several projects at once. 

One notable incident involved a project stored on a single hard drive that I had been developing for over a month. At one point it failed, and of course I had to recover it using tools for recovering data from damaged disks. Fortunately, I had experience of using these tools, as I had a very old, broken computer at home, and I enjoyed trying to work around near-dead systems. 

Another was when we tried to move away from PHP and simulate Laravel Framework in Node.js, which was all the rage at the time. We spent a lot of hours trying to refine the framework we had created, but it was eventually abandoned.

My toughest mistake was deleting a folder on an FTP server using a Linux command from the command line of a test environment in order to save space. The test environment was soft-linked to the images on the live platform, which I didn’t suspect. Running ‘rm -rf’ deleted all files, including those created via the link. This happened just before I went home. During that night, 1.5TB of real user images were deleted. I had a wake-up call in the middle of the night because there had been some suspect activity. Now, as I didn’t have full access to the server, I couldn’t see exactly what was happening. It made for three days of sleepless nights and stress like I’d never experienced before. That taught me that there are significant consequences to using powerful tools without fully understanding their power – or as they say, “with great power comes great responsibility”. 

What I’ve Learned About Innovation:

I think technical innovation is about staying curious and learning. In my case, it’s about my passion for experimenting with new technologies. For example, the time we tried to switch from PHP to Node.js – which turned out to be a great learning experience. Back to learning from mistakes – I remember the time a command error caused a major data loss and showed me the importance of thorough testing and backups. On a related note, innovation is also about working with a great team – it inspires fresh ideas and makes the solution more efficient. As I see it, innovation is about pushing boundaries and always looking for better ways of doing things, but equally about understanding what technology works and what is just hype. 

What I’ve Learned About EBS:

Being the first employee hired at EBS has been a remarkable journey. Watching the company grow and develop has taught me the importance of adaptability and resilience. The collaborative spirit and amazing people here make me proud to be part of this team. 

What I’ve Learned About Making an Impact:

Ensuring that our IT solutions meet the real needs of the business is the way I can make a meaningful and lasting impact. This means clear documentation, strong teamwork and always striving to do better. I dedicate all my efforts to both my personal growth and that of EBS, hopefully together inspiring innovation and motivating people to step up their game in the IT industry.