I like building software, moving dirt around in my garden, and walking around town with my dog. I place users at the center of my designs. I've worked across roles in the data space. Started my tech career as an analyst and lately find myself doing platform engineering.
I take problems and break them down into a series of working iterations, ideally with the users providing feedback on actual systems I've deployed into production. Sometimes my users are autonomous systems themselves. It's not real if it hasn't shipped.
I learn new tools needed to deliver the product. If I already know a tool, and it's a good fit, and I can deliver in a short amount of time, then I'll do that. I avoid vendors and managed services if it's something an engineer could build in a day. AI is a part of my workflow. I use AI in my plans, to track my architecture, and in the implementation. I place guardrails and gates around AI in my workflow. I truly believe the future is here and it is not equally distributed.