26 years ago, I graduated with my Electrical Engineering HTS diploma (HTS = Higher Technical School, equivalent to Bachelor's level in NL) at TH Rijswijk (is now: de Haagse Hogeschool).
Specialization: Telecommunications / network management.
But I found software development more fun so I went that route. Now I'm back to the roots 😅
I'm currently going full speed on Microsoft certifications: Up next is AZ-305 → my 7th cert since last year.
I started thinking about the bigger picture because of the exams and then got two realizations:
- Because of all the ops work lately, I wasn't only developing software anymore, a better job description for me is: DevOps engineer
- During AZ-104, I realized the connection between my original diploma (Telecommunications: network management) and Azure networking
Now with AZ-305 (Azure Solutions Architect), I'm finally combining:
- My HTS network background (finally picking it up again!)
- My software development experience (C#/.NET, React)
- My Azure/DevOps expertise (AKS, Service Bus, AZ-400, AI-102)
That network knowledge had faded a bit after 26 years... but the beautiful thing is: DevOps is exactly the bridge between network management AND software development.
Career is not a linear path, it's an evolution!
