Five years at Red Hat

This marks my fifth post in this series on Red Hat anniversaries. I use these posts not only to reflect on my accomplishments and aspirations but also to document my journey in free software and open source. This year, my reflections come with a bit of a delay—perhaps because it was a year packed with both good moments and challenges. My actual anniversary was at the end of October 2024, but as they say, better late than never!

I'll probably delay this post in the upcoming years too, so it coincides with the end of the year and not only my work anniversary.

You can catch up on my previous years as a Red Hatter in these posts:

• My first year at Red Hat
• Two years of Open Source at Red Hat
• Reflecting on three years at Red Hat
• Four years of Free Software at Red Hat

As I celebrate this milestone, I'm reminded of the incredible people I've met, the projects I've contributed to, and the vibrant open-source community that continues to inspire me. Here's to many more years of exciting challenges and achievements!

This year's highlights

Now, let me share some of the highlights from my fifth year at Red Hat.

Meeting Rohan

If I had to pick one highlight of this year, it would certainly be finally meeting Rohan Kumar.

I've been closely working with Rohan for the past few years, but we never had the chance to meet in person. This year, we finally had a much-awaited face-to-face (F2F) meeting in Singapore where we spent a few days working together and exploring the city.

Rohan has been a great colleague and friend, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with him.

Projects

Eclipse JKube

This year, we released five new versions of Eclipse JKube. The main focus was on improving Helm support and keeping the project up-to-date with the latest Kubernetes and OpenShift versions.

While we didn't participate as mentors in this year's Google Summer of Code (GSoC), we focused on creating first-timer issues and enhancing the documentation to make it easier for newcomers to contribute. These efforts have paid off, as we've seen an increase in community contributions and participation.

The project now has 298 contributors and 524 forks, reflecting its growing impact.

I'm exceptionally proud of what we've achieved this year as a team and as a community, and I'm eager to see what the next year will bring.

Fabric8 Kubernetes Client

The Fabric8 Kubernetes Client saw twelve releases this year. The first half of the year was focused on stabilizing the project and addressing bugs. We also introduced a preview of the new CRD Generator v2.

The second half was dedicated to preparing the new 7.0.0 release. This release introduced a Java 11 baseline, Vert.x as the default HttpClient, and the general availability (GA) of CRD Generator v2. Additionally, we improved project maintenance by automating model generation for core types and extensions, a significant step towards streamlining future development.

Community contributions remain a cornerstone of the project. This year, we saw significant contributions ranging from new features to bug fixes and documentation updates. Fabric8 Kubernetes Client is a true community-driven project, and I'm honored to be part of it.

Public speaking

This year I didn't speak as much as in previous years. However, the events I did participate in were important milestones for me.

AppDeveloperCon (KubeCon co-located event) 2024-03-19

I gave a talk with Roland Huß on "Deploying Your Apps to Kubernetes Without the Boilerplate".

This was a huge milestone for me, as it was my first time speaking at such a large event in a room packed with people.

Not only this, but speaking alongside Roland was a dream come true. Before joining Red Hat, I had already been following his work and admired his contributions to the open-source community and his talks at conferences. Sharing the stage with him was an incredible experience.

Please check out the recording of the talk if you're interested:

DevBcn 2024-06-13

I gave a talk on "Developing a Full-Stack Reactive Application Using Kubernetes as an Event Producer".

You can read more about this talk and the conference in my DevBcn 2024 trip report.

This was another significant milestone for me, as I received the Best Speaker award for this talk. Considering the quality of the other speakers, and that my public speaking skills are still a work in progress, this was a huge honor and a great reward for all the effort I've put into improving my talks.

Please check out the recording of the talk if you're interested:

OCX - EclipseCon (cameo) 2024-10-23

This year I wasn't able to deliver a talk at EclipseCon (now OCX) as I did in previous years. Nonetheless, I made a cameo appearance in the "Security Audits Panel" session, where I shared my experience when Eclipse JKube underwent a security audit.

Please check out the recording of the talk or the blog post to learn more about the audits.

Red Hat Academy @ IES El Grao 2024-12-17

Together with two of my colleagues from Red Hat, we delivered a workshop on "Introduction to Containers and Kubernetes" to students from the IES El Grao in Valencia.

This wasn't a public speaking event per se, but it was a great opportunity to share our knowledge with the next generation of developers. It was also an important milestone for me as it was my first time delivering a workshop to students.

Conclusion

As I close out my fifth year, I feel a deep sense of gratitude for the opportunities Red Hat has provided. From working on impactful projects to meeting incredible people, this journey has been nothing short of transformative.

Looking ahead, I'm excited to continue pushing the boundaries of what's possible in Kubernetes tooling for Java, nurturing the open-source community, and tackling the challenges that lie ahead. If you've followed my journey or used any of the tools I've worked on, I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback.

Here's to another year of growth, collaboration, and innovation!