| About My Work | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
Our "components" are being developed using Java, so I gradually became an expert in the architecture behind this computing platform. As more and more teams in the division rushed to adopt it in varying ways, somebody needed to keep track of who was using it, how it was being used, whether it would interfere with anybody else's work, whether it work on all the operating systems and languages we support, and so on. My product management work was becoming less important as the visions were still fairly distant in the future, and as larger parts of the organization began to pay attention to the overall issue. So over the period of several months, I went from offering occasional advice and input about the use of Java to being the primary "shepherd" for herding in all the teams that wanted to use it in various ways, ranging from conservative to wildly exotic.
And so it was this way that by the summer of 1999, I was re-titled an Architect and moved into the Technology Integration group, where I remain today. Still in the same division under development, now my role (rather, my team's role) is to track technologies — Java and others — being used by the 100+ product teams and ensure consistency and smooth operation among them. We make sure everybody uses the same versions, that it's available for everyone to use and test with, that it supports our widespread business requirements, and so on. When teams want to take on a new technology, our team reviews their needs and the technology in question, and determine whether or not it's a good fit. If not, we work with the team either to make it fit, or find a suitable alternative.
In a sense, we are the Home Depot for our division: if someone is building a product, they come to us to get the tools they need. If they aren't sure, we'll guide them to the right aisle, and show 'em precisely what they need.
After a year-long leave of absence from 2001-2002, I returned to this same group, although with different specialty areas: now instead of focusing on Java, I primarily handle configuration of our products (the software that automates the necessary adjustments when you want to change the way the product is deployed or behaves) and lifecycle managment (which is the overall cycle of installing, setup, ongoing management, patching, cloning, and upgrading).
See, that wasn't so bad, now, was it?