Why I Joined CloudOps

After spending the last three years scaling up an open source network solutions startup from ground up to acquisition, I am fortunate to be starting a tremendous new opportunity with a rare sense of completion.

So, why did I decide to join my friends at CloudOps?

The short answer is simple – for the people, community and technology.

People

People are the most significant challenge and opportunity when it comes to successful technology adoption. The same can be said about the challenges and opportunities that come with choosing a fulfilling career opportunity.

I wanted an opportunity that would utilize my creativity, skills and knowledge. An opportunity that enabled my colleagues and I to be part of the decision-making, regardless of our position in the company. An opportunity that feels less like working for a company and more like working with a company… and that’s what I found!

Having known many of the folks at CloudOps for several years now, I was already familiar with their remarkable work culture, a space that encourages and celebrates the personal development of their team. This makes attracting and retaining top talent at CloudOps easier, and is key to successfully scaling up their company.

I can’t think of another company so passionate about the intersection of people and technology (aka DevOps transformation) that their team takes to the stage to illustrate the familiar and confusing moment when development throws code over the wall to ops.

From left to right: Julia Simon (as Ops), Carol Trang (as the Wall of Confusion)
and James Shubin (as Dev) at DevOps Day Montreal – October, 2018

Community

It’s nearly impossible for people to work with cloud and networking technologies without engaging in the global open source community that is driving innovation in this field.

CloudOps recognizes the importance of open source software to empower companies to control their destiny in the cloud and in their network… and so do I. For the past few years, I’ve taken a leadership position in the Linux Foundation Networking (LFN) effort and am pleased to announce that I’ll be continuing this participation as CloudOps representative to the LFN.

CloudOps also recognizes the importance of scaling up, innovating and supporting our local tech community in Canada. As part of my role, I’ll continue to engage with Canada’s Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks (CENGN) in training up the next generation of Canadian talent, while growing and leading our CloudOps’ team in Ottawa.

If you are based in Ottawa and want to build your career within an ambitious, tight-knit team that likes to work and play with the latest cloud and network technologies, please reach out – we’re always looking to hire or up-skill folks to be digital unicorns!

Technology

I’ve always been passionate about technology that is transforming and shaping tomorrow’s societies. One of the things that attracted me to CloudOps is the importance they place on open source software and DevOps as a key part of their mission and vision.

For telecoms and service providers, developing and delivering new services still remains a rigid, time-consuming and inefficient process that is heavily dependent on vendor-controlled, back-office software systems. The process typically requires manually updating these monolithic and ‘hard-coded’ software platforms—which lengthens service delivery cycles, and increases costs, while decreasing competitiveness.

As part of my role, I’ll help guide telecoms and service providers on their journey to cloud native, and through our product, CloudMC, leverage their infrastructure to deliver and monetize multi-cloud and network services. Service providers can thrive in our data-driven software economy when they deliver managed + self-service consumption of cloud and network services to market in a DevOps fashion, take advantage of utility economics and manage this offering through API-driven automation of their operations. CloudOps helps service providers have greater control over their infrastructure and operational agility, enabling them to deliver new on-demand services more quickly to meet today’s business challenges.

That is why I’m here, excited and ready to build the future with a team one could only dream of!

As VP of Products at CloudOps, Maddison is responsible for developing, implementing and managing the go-to-market strategy for the CloudOps’ Cloud Delivery line of business, including CloudMC. Maddison has a strong background in product management, sales and marketing. Prior to joining CloudOps, he scaled an open source network solutions startup from ground up to acquisition. He is active in various open source networking ecosystems, especially the Linux Foundation Networking (LFN) and Canada’s Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks (CENGN).