Thinking Outside the Big Green Box

In October I had the dubious honor of laying off my entire team (they’ve all found excellent new positions). At the time I was to have joined them in a workforce reduction, but my position was retained and instead assigned to the group of people included in the SUSE acquisition of HPE Cloud. The acquisition is now complete and I once again find myself in a position to make a change.

I joined HPE in September of 2015 because I wanted to make a difference to a team of open source developers. To do so, I stepped down from a Director role into a Senior Manager one. The team was amazing, full of people whose capabilities and brilliance humbled me daily. I have no regrets and am grateful that I had the opportunity. I did not want to see it end.

The SUSE acquisition has put me into a different role, one which isn’t the direction I wish to take my career. Furthermore, it would do so at a Senior Manager level. I didn’t mind the step down when I was supporting a team devoted to open source, but upon reflection I find I do mind it when I’m working on a product rather than a passion. Therefore I’ve chosen to leave the team which has moved over to SUSE. They’ll do great, but they’ll do it without me.

While I am moving on, it’s not without sadness. I am leaving behind several inspiring people. Jim Meyer has proved the power of empathy and compassion in leadership and in product development, supporting and encouraging each member of the team to live life to the fullest and become the best person they can be, all while advancing the Helion OpenStack product. Allison Randal has been a sympathetic listening ear, always there with advice and an overflowing love for the team and for free and open source. Samuel de Medeiros Queiroz, I may miss you most of all. Your energy, enthusiasm, and passion continually remind me of the magic of open source, bringing people together and changing lives for the better. Thank you, to these three, Danielle, and to all the Parrots (you know who you are).

What’s next? Well, that’s a very good question. Running an open source program office would be fairly ideal. I’ve been working in the open source policy and strategy space for a while and would like to do that full time rather than on the side as I have been, but I don’t wish to limit myself. I’ve been leading software engineering departments and teams for most of the past 10 years. My teams tell me I’m a superb manager and leader. I know business. I know open source. I know community. How can I combine some or all of these? Let’s find out.

If you know or hear of anything in the open source space (strategy, policy, leading a team of people who work in open source, etc), I’d really appreciate it if you could send it my way. I currently have a contract helping a company open source an internal product. I’m looking forward to that project, but it’s temporary. I’m looking for the Forever Home I’d hoped HPE would be.

Drop me a line: anonymoushash at vmbrasseur dot com.

My resume: http://www.vmbrasseur.com/resume.pdf.