Ended a chapter... and starting a new one?

A long time without writing any stuff, I know...

But here you have me, again, writing a few lines from the top of my head.

And this time to let you know about some personal updates.

I joined 2i2c on April 2021 after experiencing successful and enriching chapters in company-like and university-like environments. 2i2c is a non-for-profit organization with the mission to make research and education more impactful, accessible, and delightful by developing, operating, and supporting infrastructure for interactive computing. I started as an OSIE (Open Source Infrastructure Engineer) and eventually became an Engineering Manager for the Engineering team.

During all these years at 2i2c, I had the opportunity to build super impactful stuff, side-by-side, with AWESOME people. And I really appreciate and enjoyed that opportunity. But some months ago, and after a lot of thinking, I realized I needed some real break/resting time to re-align myself, think about the future, and potentially explore new worlds. And without a clear cut that would have been impossible, so I decided to leave 2i2c by the end of August.

It was emotionally demanding not only because of all the great connections I have with the 2i2c team members, some of them even older than the organization itself, but also because I believe in the impactfulness of (and I care about) 2i2c's mission. But after the initial impact, a nice holiday on the beach, a lot of time with my family and a lot of time with myself (and out of the daily "voragine"), I am now feeling invigorated and excited about the idea of new challenges lying ahead.

This is actually the first time in years I do not have something lined up before departing from the organization I was part of. That was a conscientious decision so I could explore different ideas, concepts, and potential new paths before choosing what the new chapter was gonna be about.

I am still exploring the broad space (although I do think that exploration phase is sunsetting), so if you have some interesting ideas/problems/challenges (there is a lot of new and exciting stuff being built out there!) and you believe my knowledge and expertise can help you to push forward those ones, you can reach me at damianavila AT gmail DOT com (or you can also drop me a DM on X or Telegram or LinkedIn).

Thanks for the precious time you spent reading my words!

PS: My current short term plan is to keep pushing on some personal projects I am actively working on (in addition to finishing the exploration phase) but I am open to start doing super interesting things if the right opportunity arises ;-)