This was originally posted at https://lnkd.in/p/gVsriqGZ

Unfortunately it happened. After seven years, I was a part of yesterday’s layoffs at Elastic.

I’ve had it happen before and it’s never good or the right time or any of that. In some ways I’m glad it happened in the middle of leading a meeting with my team, because I got to say goodbye. What started as weekly sync turned into losing access to what I was sharing, then discovering live that it was the end for me. Luckily, losing Zoom access doesn’t interrupt ongoing meetings, so my team invited others to the room and turned it into an almost two hour chat. It was better to cry with them.

The team really made my time there, which made ending the meeting so hard. I think I made positive impacts on the team and the systems as we built it all up over the years, but what made letting go so hard was all of the positive impacts they made on me. I’ve always carried myself as a leader—whether or not I had the title—and each person on that team helped me become the designer, developer, and leader that the team needed. We did it together.

I’m going to start writing and looking and trying to figure out what’s next. I was a principal engineer (staff at most places) and had the role of tech lead for the last two years. I built Elastic’s support for the GCP Marketplace as my first task when I started, then designed and built all sorts of related systems that transformed how the company handled billing, and built up the teams and people that made it all happen. I’ll share more in the next while about what I know and what makes me a good part of a team.

If you know anyone looking for someone like me, I appreciate any help or pointers you can give.