On October 21 and 22 2021, the second VSHN internal HackDay took place. Like the first edition, it was a hugely successful event.

The VSHN HackDay is open to all VSHNeers who are interested to break out of the daily business and work on cool and fun stuff.

We again decided that topics should be split into work groups consisting of 1-2 people. The topics were collected beforehand in our forum and VSHNeers could either join a topic or bring in their own ideas.

We agreed on having this HackDay again via Mibo which was also a lot of fun.

Impression from VSHN HackDay #2

HackDay topics

We had an awesome choice of interesting topics ranging from “A better way to deal with limits of vendor-provided cluster monitoring”, “Automatically document Commodore hierarchy content”, APPUiO.cloud self-sign-up prototype, Automate Odoo overtime and more.

The winner

The winner of HackDay #2 was “Engineering disk encryption management at large scale”.

Congrats to Simon and David for getting the most votes and winning the prize of CHF 500.00 to spend in Swibeco and of course glory and honor 🎉.

The feedback was also very positive and we are all already looking forward to our next VSHN HackDay!

Hey there! I am Dawn, the new Recruitment & Employee Experience Specialist. I’m very excited to become a VSHNeer and join the Team Antares.

I have 7 years’ experience within Recruitment and HR, both on a local and international spectrum. I will use my skills and grow more with you all here at VSHN, assisting you to build and grow the already strong teams.

My career started within the UK (I’m from Birmingham, so a real “Brummie” and I can sound like I am a Peaky Blinder when on the phone to friends – just the accent ;-)). I worked nationally to gaining a strong knowledge of people and communication skills. When I came to Switzerland in 2013, I made the decision to move into the recruitment profession, where I have the upmost passion to achieve and strive for the best every day.

I have a little Girl and Boy who keep me very entertained in my spare time. We love being outdoors as much as possible, whatever this entails – every day is an adventure. For the little time I have for myself, I love socialising, reading books, walking and doing sports.

I’m really excited to getting to know you all and working alongside you.

Dawn

Last September eight members of VSHN’s Team Pollux took the opportunity to organize a yearly team building event, and we’d like to brag about it a little. The choice of destination fell on Moirans-en-Montagne, a charming town in France, not far from the Swiss border.

Friday on the road

The trip there took us through beautiful green wooded hills. Even though another Team (thank you, Team Sirius!) took over our Operation tasks this day, some people couldn’t resist to check on our services.

Once arrived we were greeted by the caretaker, who gave us a tour of our weekend villa; a lucky find on Airbnb. It turned out to be unexpectedly maze-like, but in the end we didn’t spend too much time inside anyway. The swimming pool and pool house (complete with a fireplace!) as well as the nearby Via Ferrata would be the focus of our attention for the next two days.

But first we had to take care of our grumbling tummies. A shopping task force automatically assembled itself and headed for the local supermarket. Last-minute shopping additions were remotely added via group chat, the whole thing felt very effortless. The same was true for the evening’s BBQ preparations: one person went to find an axe to chop wood with, someone prepared a salad, others scoured the house for the least mismatched cutlery and plates. One delicious BBQ later we dipped into the pool as the night illumination came on and the full moon rose above us.

There was never a big central master plan for any of this, yet it all worked out swimmingly (hah).

A sunny Saturday

After Saturday’s brunch (French croissants are delicious!) exactly half the team split off for a climbing adventure above Lac de Vouglans.  Nobody ended up causing a rescue operation Instead the group enjoyed a spectacular view and thanks to excellent timing didn’t get (too) scorched by the sun.

The groups joined back up again at the pool, in time for late afternoon poolside drinks (and Swiss-German lessons). We were extremely lucky with the weather as the original forecast predicted a rainy Saturday. Instead we enjoyed swimming all evening in summer’s last rays of sunshine, and then prepared another extensive BBQ in the pool house.

Just like the day before, the team coordinated without many words: some cut vegetables, others chopped wood and prepared the fire, or washed dishes and set the table. It was remarkable how the agile mindset seems to have seeped into our brains so much that it’s applied automatically even to everyday chores.

Once the party heated up a little, and everyone had had their singing juice, we sang 90s songs deep into the night, played card games, and of course made use of the pool again for some night swimming.

It seems like none of us had the urge to talk about, or even touch technology very much during these days. The villa offered two TVs and we had multiple Nintendo Switches on hand but they all remained switched (haha) off. Instead we had card games, singing, swimming, and long discussions.

A lazy Sunday

Sunday meant we had to depart. At least the weather had turned drizzly and gray so it would be easier to say goodbye to our villa. Cleaning up was just as smooth and easy as everything else this weekend. Everyone swarmed and barely an hour later we were ready to go. We made a last valiant attempt to get rid of the leftover ice cream (by getting it into our stomachs) and drove off.

We’d like to thank VSHN for making this weekend possible. All of us feel that it brought the team closer together. We can’t wait to see what teambuilding activities the other VSHN teams come up with!

What we learned about organizing our own team building event:

• You don’t actually need to plan that much if you’re used to agile thinking. Picking a good location was the hardest part.
• Coaching and focused exercises are fine team building instruments. But it seems like organizing something, such as cooking, eating, singing and doing sports together, also makes for fine team glue.

Hey! My name is Robin and I joined team Sirius as a System Engineer.

Before joining VSHN, I worked as a System Specialist. I was responsible for building, maintaining and developing a Rancher based Kubernetes platform. I also held a lot of internal education sessions. It was that time I realized how much I love Kubernetes and CI / CD automation. I am confident that I can grow my knowledge even further at VSHN!

Apart from being a nerd, I also enjoy cooking, traveling and watching movies and TV shows.

I am very excited to be a part of VSHN, and I am looking forward to seeing you all!

VSHNday is an all-day event once a year, usually in late summer. It is about alignment and developing a shared understanding of what VSHN is and does. In 2021, VSHNday was held for the 7th time.

Personal and once again not remote

On Friday, September 24, 2021, VSHNeers got together again for a physical VSHNday (adhering to Corona rules with a valid Covid certificate, of course) after we had to hold VSHNday remotely in 2020 due to pandemic.

When we meet again all “in real”, of course a group photo could not be missing. 🙂

Location: Hive Zurich

The VSHNday 2021 took place at the Hive in Geroldstrasse in Zurich. Really a very cool location and perfect to get away from the daily grind in the (home) office and focus on the day in a creative environment and offline.

Schedule and Agenda VSHNday 2021

We started from 08:30 for Gipfeli & coffee and the official part started at 09:00.

Aarno Aukia gave a short intro about the history of VSHN and why the founders got together to start a company in 2014.

One of the main reasons was a shared understanding (or at that time better an idea) of values and culture of how VSHNeers would like to work together. 7 years later VSHN has reached 45 employees and the original ideas are available for everyone to see in our Open Source Employee Handbook in the chapter VSHN Values: https://handbook.vshn.ch/hb/values.html

The basic pillars of VSHN Values are Positivity, Effectivity, Integrity, Curiosity, Transparency and Accountability.

After Aarno’s presentation, VSHNeers then thought about Values and Culture, considered topics, and discussed them together in groups in an open space format.

For lunch we had a delicious pasta buffet and after a little game (draw toast) we continued with the topic VSHN product strategy.

As an introduction, Patrick Mathers gave a short intro on “Why do we need to grow at all?” including a nice illustration with Phippy. 🙂

Tobias Brunner then gave a presentation on VSHN’s product strategy, explaining our current VSHN Product Portfolio and which path we as VSHN want to take together or better continue to follow.

Afterwards, there were again Open Spaces with lively discussions on the topic of product strategy, which were very enlightening and have already brought about some new initiatives.

Conclusion and evening program

From 18:00 we stayed at the Hive for our dinner and the social part. Dinner was served by Gerold Chuchi and was super tasty!

In summary, we are overjoyed to have been able to meet physically and in person again for VSHNday 2021. It was great to see all VSHNeers in person again (or to meet them for the first time ever).

Very exciting discussions emerged in the Open Spaces and some of the ideas are already being implemented or are being discussed further in detail.

We thank all VSHNeers for their participation and constructive discussions and the organizers for a successful VSHNday!

Hi, I’m the new Agile and Systemic Coach at VSHN.

I coach the teams with the larger VSHN ecosystem in mind. Scrum, Kanban, and Sociocracy 3.0 are in my toolkit along with Kaizen from classical music and traditional Chen Tai Chi.

How exactly do I work with the teams? It depends.

The way that I work is different from many coaches. I am very hands-on, go straight to what the team needs within their context, and we figure out fitting practices from there. I don’t insist that the teams use certain frameworks or practices. Instead I customize Agile, S3, etc, to fit the team and the organisation.

The cool thing is, ultimately it is not about what I know or understand, but the collective intelligence and passion of the teams that leads to their growth. They are the experts with all of the insight and skills necessary to get where they want to go. I just help them see how to get there.

In the past few years, I enabled training and reteaming of engineering teams, coached teams to high performance, coached the development of an initiative prioritisation process and roadmap development, brought Business and IT departments into a closer collaborative relationship, and coached a team to develop a new mobile app from scratch. It’s been an amazing journey of learning, and I’m excited to take my next steps together with VSHN!

Hello! I am Andrew and I have joined team Antares as the Technical IT Lead. I moved to Switzerland with my wife in July 2020 (yes, right in the middle of a pandemic!) to follow her dream of living here. We’ve both fallen in love with the country and intend to live our whole lives here. Our next goal is to buy a plot of land on which to build our home, so we don’t have to pay rent forever.

Before coming to VSHN, I was working as an ICT Support Consultant for Vifor Pharma in Glattbrugg. It was my first experience in an enterprise-scale organisation and I gained a lot of valuable knowledge. My role was on-site support for the head office in Glattbrugg, supporting around 400 people who worked there. It was fast-paced at times, receiving huge deliveries of 80 laptops and having to get them set up and ready for users, I really had to streamline all processes, especially the onboarding.

Previous to that, I was living and working in the UK, mostly for small start-up sized companies (~50 employees or so) and was the only IT person working in those organisations. This has given me good specific experience for the role I am now doing at VSHN. My goal at VSHN is to enable everyone to work to the best of their abilities and not be held back by technology, but be empowered by it. If you need help with anything, please don’t hesitate to ask me.

I studied Computer Games Technology at the University of Abertay in Dundee (Scotland). I enjoyed learning how computer games and software work, but realised that coding is not something that fills me with passion, so chose to follow a career in IT instead. Recently, my interests have broadened to the outside: hiking, biking, paddle-boarding, snowboarding – Switzerland is just perfect for all these.

In VSHN we have adopted various mechanisms for helping people and the organization to grow at the same time, for one follows the other in a virtuous circle. For organizational change, we use Sociocracy 3.0. For personal growth, one of the tools we use are one-on-ones, but not the usual one-on-ones you see in the corporate world. This article explains how we do them, and why.

About Reflection

Reflection is the process of thinking about what has happened in the past so we can have a better future. It is most important in the case of negative outcomes; can help you understand why bad things happened. This is particularly relevant when past events caused unhappiness.

To continuously improve and learn, smart people figured out a simple workflow: starting from concrete experiences, one performs observations. From those observations, one can conceptualize, reflect, and learn; from those lessons, we can experiment. Those experiments lead to new concrete experiences, from which this cycle can start all over again.

This simple mechanism helps change events, actions, attitudes, so that in the next iteration, we can have different outcomes, and eventually remove unhappiness. A simple method to learn iteratively.

Reflection is thinking about what worked and what didn’t, in order to learn and improve, through introspection: “Why do I feel unhappy?” “Do I feel threatened?”

To borrow an expression from the Agile world, reflection is like a personal retrospective. It is tantamount to be open and true with oneself, and most importantly, to allow yourself to slow down because these processes take time.

The reasons for reflections are always the same: asking oneself “why?”, and figuring out reasons.

Benefits of Reflection

There are quite a few benefits to reflection, actually, but we’re going to focus on the following four.

First of all, reflection brings us to a better prioritization of things in our life. Very often, in the turmoil of daily events, we don’t have much time for taking decisions. A reflection process helps us bring to light our priorities, which in turn, helps us make better decisions, even in situations of stress.

Second, and directly related to the previous benefit, reflection helps with setting goals. These are long-term objectives for our lives, and thanks to the clarity brought by reflection, we can set short-term objectives that are fully aligned with those long-term goals.

Third, and simultaneously with the other two, it allows to fight procrastination and anxiety. We have all faced the temptation of leaving change for tomorrow, but reflection makes our goals clearer so that we can finally realize that today is the perfect day to start our process of change.

Last but not least, self-reflection helps to recognize and overcome obstacles. In life, obstacles are everywhere, and take different shapes; a reflection process allows us to recognize those that we already know, and prepares us to face the new ones that will come.

Formats of Reflection

Reflection can take lots of different shapes. The usual team retrospectives we have in agile teams are a group form of reflection. Coffee breaks, chit-chats next to the water fountain, and beers after work are also simple, yet extremely effective forms of group reflection.

In a more personal way, thinking about work while showering or biking, or keeping a diary, are things that can greatly help your reflection processes. You can keep a physical diary, or a digital one. In the latter case, applications such as Day One or jrnl, or even the plain text editor bundled with your operating system can help you get your thoughts in order.

In a professional setting, one-on-ones are one of the most common types of reflection sessions.

Each of these reflection options can have regular schedules; some are confidential, some aren’t. Some have a clear agenda, some are prepared, while some are more spontaneous.

	Regularly scheduled	Confidential	Clear agenda	Active reflection	Prepared	Work time
Retrospective
Coffee
Beers
Shower
Writing diary
One-on-one

One-on-ones, as shown in the table above, have many desirable characteristics.

About One-on-Ones at VSHN

In VSHN we have a specific format for one-on-ones, and we have documented it in our Handbook. They require personal preparation, in a dedicated time slot, as well as a second time slot to discuss those thoughts with somebody else, usually somebody from your team, who might help you by asking the right questions.

One-on-ones in VSHN do not work exactly the same way as in other companies. Our format is admittedly less obvious at first, but the whole point of one-on-one meetings is for everyone to get help to solve their problems.

In the corporate world, one-on-ones are akin to “two-people retrospectives” between a manager and an employee. In VSHN, we do not have those ranks, so it’s a discussion between peers to solve problems for each party.

There is, however, a very important point to understand: the role of the second person is not to solve the problems of the first. It is rather to listen, listen, and listen more, and if possible to ask questions that might trigger a self-reflection process in the first person.

Another responsibility of the second person is to create accountability, keeping up on the progress of the first, so that change actually happens.

One-on-ones work in a peer-to-peer way; both parties are equal. The first person is the reflecting person, and the second person invests 10 minutes to coach the first. After that, the roles reverse.

Outcomes

This is an important point to understand: one-on-ones in VSHN are not a place to talk about other people behind their backs. We can, however, discuss how what another person said makes somebody feel. In those cases, the follow-up of such discussion might involve going through the conflict resolution process.

Another possible outcome from a one-on-one might be a new VSHN Improvement Proposal, triggering a whole new change in the structure (or behavior) of some part of the company.

For more complex problems, not solvable with a series of one-on-ones, every VSHNeer can get specific help through a personal coach. By their external nature, coaches are not biased by the engineering point of view (that is, “trying to solve your problems”) or VSHN-specific ideas (“that’s how we designed this”), so that you find answers “outside of the box”, whichever this box might be.

How to do One-on-Ones?

VSHNeers are free to choose who to do one-on-ones with. Some VSHNeers have a bit more experience in this matter, and they can gladly help others to get started.

As stated previously, we suggest doing them with people from outside your own team; this brings a different, more global perspective; a view from the outside.

Conclusion

It is extremely important for us at VSHN to make it clear that it is OK to stop and think. Particularly in technical environments where things change at a frantic pace, feeling able to slow down allows everyone to take the time to reflect, evolve, and hopefully, to feel better overall. One-on-ones are one of the mechanisms that we have set up for this to happen.

Hi! I am Raphael and I joined team Sirius as a System Engineer.

Before joining VSHN, I worked as an Embedded Linux Developer. As an Embedded Developer, it was very important for me to have a good infrastructure to work with. That is why I was doing more and more DevOps tasks and got in love with doing so. I am very excited to extend and deepen my knowledge in many areas at VSHN now.

Originally I studied physics at the ETH Zurich, which involved some software development. I combined the two fields by working as an Embedded Linux Developer. In parallel, I studied computer science at the ZHAW to have a solid foundation in software development too. I love solving challenges and to learn something new every day.

If I am not sitting in front of a computer, I am spending time with my family, or I am working in the garden.

I am looking forward to seeing you all.
Raphael

Hello! I’m Łukasz and I’m from Upper Silesia in Poland. I’m working at VSHN as System Engineer solving various problems related to Linux Servers. After work, I’m programming in Go and React. When I find some free time I watch football, MMA, or boxing as well as training various sports on my own. When I settle down a little in Switzerland I plan to buy a good bike and try some mountain biking.

Hello there!

My name is Sören and I joined VSHN as a Service Manager.

My career started out as a programmer, but quite quickly turned into an egg-laying jack-of-all-trades, which means that I developed more in the organizational direction.

In my last job i worked as a Technical Lead. Beside handling the daily business, I was also responsible for Disposition and administrative tasks. On top of that, I participated in a few interdepartmental projects (rollouts, evaluation projects, etc.) as Project Coordinator/Manager. Remember… “egg-laying jack-of-all-trades”.

I have always been interested in the grand scale of digitization. This ranges from classic media to innovation and economic influences. So I have turned my hobby into my job, more or less.

When I’m not deep diving in to digital space, I love to spend time in nature, traveling (if by chance there is no pandemic) or with my family and friends.

I am looking forward to the new challenge at VSHN and the contrast to previous professional experiences, coupled with constantly changing technology and its economic impact.

Hi, I’m Fabian and I’m joining the Tarazed team as a Systems Engineer.

I recently finished my Master in Computer Science at ETH. Alongside my studies I had the opportunity to work as both a developer and a system administrator for various student associations. I gained practical insights in a broad range of topics and technologies. From managing kubernetes clusters and developing operators, to building the network of one of the largest LAN-parties in Switzerland.

I got fascinated with both building and operating systems, which is why I got into DevOps. I’m looking forward to learning new things, solving complex problems, and build cool things!

Hi all,

My name is Virag aka Viri and I am very excited to become a part of the Sol Team and VSHN family as an Inside Sales.

I have worked in the finance sector for some time and then made a switch into the IT world in 2013. Since then, I have worked in a Data Centre and therefore had the opportunity to get to know the IT world from a different perspective. The big world of IT, technology and everything related to it have always fascinated me and so it didn’t come from nowhere that I applied to work for VSHN.

I look forward to meet all the new employees, all the new customers, facing new challenges and also being able to pass on the best possible solutions and services.

Outside of the office, I fully dedicate myself to my family, friends and my dog. As I love challenges, how could it be any different, of course I adopted a Jack Russell Terrier. Yes, it could have been so easy, but only half as fun. So, when I’m not out chasing after my dog, I like to go to the gym and completely exhaust myself or go out into nature to clear my head.

See you at the office.

Viri

Hello,

my name is Michael and I’m going to work as Linux Engineer with the
Polaris team.

I have been following the idea of open source software since the late
1990s, and I’m particularly fond of Linux and the BSD derivatives. Most
recently I worked at Meteoswiss, where my main focus was on system
management, automation and collaboration in various scientific
projects.

I became aware of VSHN through a very friendly advertisement. The
conversations, which were also very pleasant, convinced me to become a
VSHNeer and I was very happy that VSHN made me an offer, which I
couldn’t refuse 🙂

When I’m not working on Linux and BSD systems or fascinating
applications, I deal with bicycle restorations and do my laps with
them. I also enjoy cooking or brewing beer.

I look forward to the upcoming challenges and cooperation.

Michael

Hello everyone, my name is Adrian and I’m thrilled to join team Sirius as a System Engineer!

I’m originally an Environmental Engineer and I worked in research at ETH Zürich before joining VSHN. My research focus was on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA, Ökobilanz in german). I’ve worked on a wide variety of topics, ranging from numerical computing in LCA, data science with geodata, to satellite image analysis and developing GUI tools for other researchers. As a self-taught linux sys admin, I was in charge of the whole server infrastructure at my research group.

I’ve always had a very keen interest in Linux, automation and Open Source. I’m very excited to be a part of VSHN, where I can expand my knowledge in these areas and learn more about DevOps, containers, Kubernetes and its ecosystem.

When I’m not sitting in front of a monitor, I like to cook (and eat!) and spend my time outdoors. I love to hike, ride my bike and sleep outdoors in my hammock.

Looking forward to meeting you all, hopefully also in the office in the near future,
Adrian

Hello, my name is Costin and I like Linux!

In the last 10 years or so I’ve been in various Linux engineering roles, from sysadmining to SREing and a couple in between, but the big reveal is they all require roughly the same set of skills. Since 2015 I was more involved in academia, first while working for CERN and then for EPFL.

Recently I joined VSHN as I find it to be a new breed of IT company, very modern and focused. It managed to shed old adages of the trade while still remaining competitive and performant. For me personally it’s also a window into best „container“ practices, making it a huge learning resource. My role here is that of System Engineer. There is a complicated definition for it for sure, but I find it’s best to explain in simple terms: when a computer is broken, I try to fix it. Most of the times I end up turning it off and on again.

Besides all things Linux, I also enjoy playing video games and reading comic books. When I’m not hunched in front of a computer I go out for bike rides and hikes. In terms of actual projects, I’m always working on various bits and pieces based on spur-of-the-moment inspiration, so it’s close to impossible to predict such things.

Looking forward to working and knowing you all,
Costin

The lecture of Jacob Kaplan-Moss’ blog post, “Designing Engineering Organizations” triggered quite a few interesting conversations internally, and I would like to expose in a few lines our opinion about the subjects discussed therein. (If you haven’t read this article, please do, we’ll wait for you here.)

In a nutshell, and basing his reasoning on top of Conway’s Law, Jacob (former director of security at Heroku, and creator of the Django web framework) explains in detail a very simple definition for effective teams:

Summary: the most effective teams are stable, multi-disciplinary, aligned to product delivery.

Fifty years after Melvin Conway coined it, Conway’s Law is being “rediscovered” once again by teams all over the world. The rise of DevOps and in particular microservice architectures have been (in some cases, painful) demonstrations of its reality and its applicability.

In a world of fear, uncertainty and doubt, where software is eating the world, where every company is a software company, where all industries face the pressure of disruption, Conway’s Law got propulsed from an obscure computer science concept, to a cornerstone idea at the very root of modern business success.

The rules of business have changed. To succeed, we must reverse engineer Conway’s Law: we need to organize ourselves so that we can maximize the quality of our output, with constant, data-driven re-evaluation loops.

In VSHN we are undergoing such a major mutation, taking us towards that goal, albeit in a micro level: from technology-oriented to product-oriented teams. The objective is to stabilize our delivery cycles, and to align them to requirements through the interface of a single designed service or product manager.

This internal transformation is already showing positive results, and aligns our practices with what we believe is the best way to work with our customers.

In his article, Jacob also exposes the interrelationships required internally for such organizations to become more effective:

Larger organizations often end up needing a mix: a set of platform teams that build and maintain underlying infrastructure, shared libraries, and tooling; and a set of product teams that directly work on the product.

This is quite literally one of our core beliefs: we want to become the ideal platform team, to help our customers build and maintain the required underlying infrastructure, libraries and tooling for our customers to reach their own business goals.