A new blogging challenge has shown up on the scene: WeblogPoMo, where bloggers answer questions asked to them in the style of ReddIt’s AMAs. I’m always game for a blogging challenge so I’ll throw my hat into the ring.

I’ll start with a question from Annie, who asked it to Gabz:

annie @annie@social.lol

@gabz yay for more

1) I would actually love to read about your work (genetics? agriculture?) but I'm not sure how to phrase the question other than "So what do you do for work exactly?" but maybe more like what's something you really like about your job? (or hate) or what's your typical workday like?

2) what's your favorite brand and/or flavor(s) of fizzy water? I am a fizzy water drinker till I die.

1:27 PM • November 1, 2024 (UTC)

Question 1: What do you do for work exactly?

I’m a senior software developer at a company called Blackmagic Design. It’s predominantly a maker of hardware devices for video production — cameras, video switches, recorders, etc — but they recently launched a bunch of Cloud services, which is what I work on. I’m working as backend engineer, doing a lot of Go (which I love) and Kubernetes (which I tolerate) which is all running in AWS.

Working with hardware is an aspect of the job I find very interest. Our team doesn’t work on the devices themselves but we work quite closely to those that do, trying to integrate them with the services we build. I’ve had dreams of working in hardware, and for a while I regretted not doing electrical engineering as a double degree at uni. As is always the case, the dream is usually rosier than reality, and I am thankful that the tools we work with are of reasonably high quality.

But it’s still fun to work at a company that deals with hardware. Not many software companies can make that claim. And I did get a chance to see the actual hardware production lines once, during a brief work trip to Indonesia, and that was fascinating.

Another thing I like about my job is the variety that can come of it. It’s not without it’s knowledge silos — system experts naturally form in a software team because it’s just easier to ask the person who worked on a system to change it rather have someone learn about it first — but we are generally expected to “pivot” on a dime when the priorities of the business change. This is definitely not for everyone, and we’ve lost a few people soon after they joined that just didn’t like working this way. But I think it’s a way of working that works for me. Or, much like Kubernetes, I tolerate it.

Question 2: What’s your favourite brand/flavour of fizzy water?

I don’t really buy flavoured fizzy water myself. I have a Soda King (sort of like an Aussie version of Soda Stream) which I use to carbonate my water. During the day I just have it straight, or somethings with orange juice. But in the evening or on the weekend, I mix it with lime cordial, bitters, and ice.

If you’ve got a question — about a topic suitable for publishing online that’s not too personal — feel free to send me an email or post it as a comment here.