2025-09-30
Short update and what's next for me.
I quit my corporate job a few days ago.
It was a hard decision but it made perfect sense.
Let’s start with why I left in the first place.
Sky is a great place to work. The people are amazing, the London Osterley campus has everything you could dream of, and the pay and benefits were good (at least for me). But there was one critical thing I was missing: interest.
I worked at Sky as a Software Engineer in the Network Automation team. Working as a developer, there are many different areas you can work in, and you can always learn the nuts and bolts as you go. But it is easy to end up in one you don’t necessarily find interesting. Python (my preferred programming language, for example) is used by countless teams in endless use cases. I have used it for web development, data analytics, data engineering, AI/ML, cybersecurity, and network automation.
Yet I did not find networks even remotely interesting. This became quite evident as soon as I joined, reflected by my overall mood (sorry, Vanessa!) and my performance.
Worst of all, I knew this and I didn’t quit. I did not allow myself to quit for the idiotic reasoning of the following variation: “What will others think?”, “How will it look on my CV?”, “You can’t spend less than X amount of time in one company.”
Well, all those reasons are BS. If you’re unhappy, get out. Fast.
This, mixed with personal reasons, made my time at Sky terribly unfulfilling. Things were so bad that two months before quitting I was offered the role of Cloud Engineering Lead, with all the bells and whistles of “becoming a manager”, but I decided to reject the opportunity. I knew I did not want to be a “manager” in a corporate environment. So, finally, I decided to take action.
The silver lining is I learned multiple important lessons from one year of bad work.
Always, always, always trust your gut. “When in doubt, always follow your nose.”
If you’re fortunate enough to choose where you work, who you work for, and what you do, make sure to choose well. Give it some thought and pick something challenging and interesting. If you don’t know what you like, want to do interesting things, and don’t want to move slow: consider working at a startup.
Via negativa. My entire time at Sky I thought that if I did other enjoyable things outside work, it would help mask or improve the fact that I was unhappy. It did not work. Sometimes, it’s best to know what not to do, and then remove it from your life.
Most people think of work as just something they have to do in order to get a regular paycheck. Patiently waiting for the weekend. Searching for “work-life balance”. I realized this is not what I want. Unfortunately, most of your adult life will be spent at work and if you see work as a nuisance then that is something you should change. Work and life are not separate things, one is an integral part of the other. You might as well enjoy it, do cool stuff, and take care of yourself.
Big companies tend to move slow and that makes it a default comfortable state for you. Don’t get used to it. Instead, get used to moving fast and being uncomfortable (by joining a startup!).
As to what is next for me, I only have a couple things to share.
First, it has been an eye-opener to see how many software engineers are reluctant to accept the impact of AI in the world of software. Most believe they will never be replaced by it. Many I worked with often joked and mocked it, disregarding it as all hype and buzzwords. I think they are wrong and, to make matters worse, that they will be replaced first. Tom Blomfield saw this too. I have decided to stop purely writing code and instead begin leveraging AI tools that help me do most of the building, including here on my blog. AI will change the world and understanding how to work alongside it will be critical for those affected industries.
Second, I am going to go work at a startup. One working with and leveraging SOTA AI.
I am not sure where that is yet. I am also considering starting my own. Recently I did a work trial at an AI agent startup here in London but decided to cut it short as I did not like the particular use case for AI agents (like I said, I’m being careful where I choose to work).
I’ll update this post as things move forward.
For now, I am happy I quit. I trusted my gut and it will definitely pay off.
Onwards.