Joaquim Rocha
Published on

Big Changes Again

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    Name
    Joaquim Rocha
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  • Principal Software Engineering Manager at Microsoft

My life has seen some big changes this year with getting a new job, moving to Berlin, etc. Well, the changes haven’t stopped yet.

Before I applied to Red Hat, at the beginning of the year, I had applied to a position at CERN (if you don’t know what CERN is, look it up, but part of the reason you’re addicted to the internet is because of it). CERN has two periods throughout the year where it accepts applications, I knew it wasn’t easy to be accepted and I had to move on with my life so I was happily living in Berlin and working for Red Hat. Turns out I was accepted and I had a decision to make.

On one hand, I was very happy to finally be living in Berlin, Helena was enrolled in an intensive German course (and doing great), we were living in the nice neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg and of course, I don’t need to tell you how great Red Hat is if you consider yourself a Free Software developer. On the other hand, I knew this opportunity with CERN would be hard to get again. So in the end I took the tough decision of leaving Red Hat and I have been working at CERN since last week. I am working on a project out of my comfort zone (and yes, it’s Free Software), but that’s part of the challenge.

I changed a unique company for a unique research center and I changed one of the cheapest, coolest cities in Europe for one of the most expensive in the world.

Regarding work and GNOME in particular, I will keep involved in it, even though my projects have been neglected with all the moving: I hope to finish the port of OCRFeeder to GI and to give some love to Skeltrack once I have time (and conditions: no internet at home yet…).

Even Bigger Changes

Oh, yeah, there’s something else I would like to share. I am in the first steps of what will surely be the biggest project I will ever develop: Helena and I are expecting a baby! We just found out one week before moving out of Berlin. It surely doesn’t make all the moving easier but we can’t describe how happy we are with these news! It’s curious that we had to live in the “babyboom neighborhood” of Berlin to get a baby ourselves… there must be something in the water! 🙂

And that is all for now, let’s see what the next months bring!