A New Chapter: Joining SUSE as Technical Advocacy Lead

There are moments in your career where the path forward becomes surprisingly clear. After years of building, shipping, and advocating in the open source and cloud native ecosystem, I find myself at one of those moments. 

Today I'm excited to share that I've joined SUSE as Technical Advocacy Lead — and I couldn't be more energized about what lies ahead.

Let me back up a bit, because getting here is a story worth telling.

The Chronosphere Chapter Closes

Most of you who follow this blog know that for the past few years I've been doing what I love most: building technical advocacy teams, creating hands-on content, and helping developers navigate the world of observability. My time at Chronosphere was a whirlwind of Fluent Bit, Perses, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, and more conference stages than I can count. We built something genuinely good there — a team that cared deeply about community, about making the hard stuff accessible, and about doing the work rather than just talking about it.

Then came the acquisition by Palo Alto Networks (PANW), and with it the kind of organizational pivot that signals a company's priorities are shifting. PANW is a security company first, and that changes everything about how a technical advocacy function fits into the picture. There was nothing wrong with the outcome — acquisitions are part of the tech landscape — but for me it meant it was time to start looking at what came next.

That's a different kind of crossroads than most people talk about. It's not about being unhappy or burned out. It's about knowing what kind of work you do best, where you add real value, and having the self-awareness to admit when the environment no longer fits. I've been fortunate enough in this career to know the difference.

Taking the Break (And Actually Taking It)

Before jumping into anything new, I made a deliberate choice to step back for three months to look for something new I really wanted to do. I want to be honest about this: I did not treat that break the way a lot of people treat them. I stopped measuring my days by travel (last year I was on the road for +140 days), conference submissions, workshops, and article output. I worked on the open source project Fluent Bit. I played a lot of golf. I went back to some of the things that remind me why I got into this world in the first place while researching possible new adventures.

When you've been running at full speed for years — speaking, publishing, socializing, building hands-on workshops, evangelizing across communities — you can lose track of what fuels you versus what drains you. That break gave me the reset I didn't know I needed. I came back genuinely curious again. Hungry for the right reasons.

Three months sounds like a long time when you're a person who typically has six blog posts scheduled in advance. Trust me, it went fast, and I'd recommend it to anyone navigating a transition.

Why SUSE?

When I started looking at what was next, I had a simple filter: I wanted to be somewhere with deep open source roots, genuine community investment, and a team I already trusted. SUSE checked all three boxes in a way that made the decision feel less like a job search and more like coming home.

The open source credentials speak for themselves. SUSE has been at the center of the Linux and enterprise open source world for decades. This is not a company that added an open source strategy as an afterthought or a marketing play. It runs all the way through the culture. And for someone who has spent the better part of their career operating at the intersection of community and technology, that matters more than most people realize.

But honestly? What tipped the scales was the people.

When I started having conversations with the team, I kept running into old friends. People I'd shared stages with, collaborated on projects with, and grabbed beers with at KubeCon hallway tracks over the years. The open source world is small in the best possible way — you get to know who is real and who is performing, who does the work and who just talks about it. The people at SUSE who I already knew were always the ones doing the work. That is not a coincidence; it says something about the culture that attracts and keeps them.

It felt less like a job interview and more like a reunion of friends hanging out in a pub.

The Role: Technical Advocacy Lead

The title is Technical Advocacy Lead, and I'll tell you what that means to me in practice.

I'll be working with a team of very senior technology advocates — people who have deep expertise, strong opinions about how things should be done, and the kind of track record that means they don't need to be told what good looks like. My job, something I'm always trying to insist on, is player-coaching. I always try to be more of a guide while remaining hands-on in the open source technologies that we all know and love. There is always so much to do and learn, new technology arriving on the scene as old ones depart. What's not to love about learning and sharing with others?

I've led advocacy teams before, and what I've learned is that the most important thing you can do for a team of strong individual contributors is get out of their way — strategically. Guiding the direction, building the frameworks for their production, and removing the friction. Let the experts be experts and share that with the world.

What does the work look like in practice? The four pillars I've lived by for years still apply: speaking, publishing, socializing, and hands-on content generation. If you've been reading this blog, you know that's exactly how I operate. Conference talks that go deep on real technical problems. Blog series that walk you through the details rather than hand-waving past them. Workshops where you actually get your hands dirty. Community conversations that happen at hallway tracks and meetup tables as much as on stage.

That framework doesn't change. The technology stack and the problems we're solving alongside the community will evolve, and I'm looking forward to getting deep on them all.

What's Coming on This Blog

One thing that won't change: this blog. I've been writing here for nearly two decades — no ads, no clickbait, no ulterior motive beyond sharing what I'm learning and working on with anyone who finds it useful. That continues.

You can expect content to start reflecting the world I'm operating in at SUSE. That means Linux, open source infrastructure, cloud native ecosystems, AI, and whatever technical problems are worth working through in public. The Mastering Fluent Bit series isn't going anywhere either — that work belongs to the community and I'll keep contributing to it.

Ready to Go

Three months of rest. A role that fits. A team I'm genuinely excited to work with. A company built on values I share. I've been doing this long enough to recognize when the conditions are right. The conditions are right.

If you're heading to an event in the coming months and want to connect, find me on the usual channels. And if you're working on something interesting in the open source or cloud native space and want to collaborate, reach out — that's always been how the best work gets started.

Here's to the next chapter. Let's build something worth talking about.