Microsoft Most Valuable Professional

Intro

I'm Peter and this is the RoguePlanetoid Podcast where you will find insights about Microsoft or related platforms and technology, along with so much more whether you are beginner or an experienced professional or just interested in technology. Keep Current, Keep Coding!

Welcome

Welcome to episode thirty of the RoguePlanetoid Podcast about being a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional. I'm proud and honoured to be recognised as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for my expertise and influence in the community with .NET and Windows. It was back in September 2024 when I first became a Microsoft MVP including receiving a crystal base with the disc for 2024. I was then renewed as a Microsoft MVP in July 2025 where I received another disc for 2025 to 2026. You can find new or renewed Microsoft MVPs including myself along with more about the Microsoft MVP Award and how to become one at mvp.microsoft.com or check out the link in the show notes.

Personal

Turning my personal passion into a profession was something I wanted to when at middle school when my career's advisor recognised that doing something with computers would be for me as I had a great interest in them, I would just need to find the right path. I'd actually wanted to use computers more in middle school, but they just had a few as despite the 1970s having seen microcomputers boom here in the United Kingdom, by time I was there in the 1980s there was just three of the latest computers available, but there were a handful of older microcomputers. Before that in first school it was a shame that there wasn't much for me to get into computers and only a little more when in middle school, where I at least wanted to make the most of them, but there just wasn't the option often as any use of computers was seen as cheating, unless it was a computer specific activity which was rare.

This would change in high school when I would gain more experience of computers, with a dozen or so available to use as well as older computers available for the IT department, which I was able to use. There was the option for work experience in high school and had the opportunity to work for a week which was my first experience in a professional setting, including using computer aided design to create diagrams and print them on a plotter and so much more, and all of this leagues away from what was available back in school. I worked hard but again didn't have the opportunities to use computers as much as I liked in the 1990s for much the same reason as before, although did get a few more chances to use them when I could, including getting high marks on an assignment that I created on the computer.

High school gave me the qualifications to get into university where I studied a degree Computing where I could then choose Computing for Industry which focused more on programming. I was finally able to use computers for my learning where access to the world wide web made things a little easier, but exams were still hand written which I didn't like so much, even though I just had bad hand writing it was enough to hold me back from doing better, I barely write now except for greetings cards and anything that I have to sign. During this degree I had the chance to work in a professional setting again, but with a longer work placement but of course I had to make it harder for myself by doing so abroad in Germany to work for a company over there.

This work placement was my first job of any kind and was an opportunity not only to live and work in another country but to see what it would be like to work as a software developer, and unlike my work experience in school I would be paid. Over there I worked on software to improve existing functionality including adding drag-and-drop capability to the tree-view of an application. I also worked on a product website even creating a German and English version and create interactive content for their internal intranet system, and got to use some new web technologies for the time, that unfortunately didn't last much beyond that time. Working there was an interesting experience and came back with quite a bit of what I'd earned as the accommodation I had was included.

There was a downside to the work placement, as seeing and experiencing the latest and greatest in software development there meant I realised we were learning things that were out of date and even things I was familiar with there or personally was useless as we had to work with much older versions. So, I worked on building up my personal knowledge throughout university which built upon what I had learned previously, and the hope that personal knowledge would make up for the older and often out-of-date experience I had gained at university. I've spoken more about my personal journey and inspiration which helped me to become a Microsoft MVP in the first place, which you can listen to in the Microsoft MVP Award episode of the RoguePlanetoid Podcast, whereever you listen to your podcasts or check out the link in the show notes.

Professional

My professional journey started when I graduated university, when I initially got involved in the startup scene part of a small startup initiative, which although didn't have the level of support we have today it was something worth giving a go. I'd decided to focus on an idea during university which was to create common web services starting with a few basic ones that would be common to businesses but the idea was sound, as it is quite a common thing today but back then things were not ready for that but the name I came up with of Comentsys I still use to this day! I did join one of the other startups as part of the initiative, but it wasn't the right time for me there so left to find a role as a software developer, but the idea of a junior developer was very rare back in 2001, so I had to try many times to find any role I could do. I interviewed for roles many times, but most expected a few years of experience which I had, but it was always professional experience they needed so often those roles seemed to go to those with just a few years, compared to my decade or so doing it personally.

I was glad to have had the income from my placement year to fall back on, but eventually I had to get a job so found a role in a call centre for a web hosting company. This wasn't the software development role I had in mind, but it did mean I could fall back on my technical experience as a developer on occasions which gave me an advantage. That experience gave me a lifelong appreciation for those who work in customer support, with the key thing to remember to make sure you're not angry when speaking to people who just want to help! Throughout looking for my first role out of university and working in customer support I kept my personal experience up to date, I was always learning but I could also build up my confidence, speaking to dozens of people every day certainly helped! I got pretty good at helping people, was even told I didn't have enough time between calls, I was getting pretty efficient, but it was nice to slow down a bit, but eventually it was time for that to end, and I started looking for a programming role again.

This time I was determined to find one, I'd saved up enough to hopefully last long enough to find a role, and I looked and looked just as before, but unfortunately still found the same issues with the need for experience even though I had even more personal experience now some professional experience was a plus but it wasn't quite in the right area. It was getting to the point where I was considered taking any role after searching for one for a while, when I spotted a part-time role as a software developer, to take on a classic ASP based website that allowed people to buy and sell second hand books. It didn't have a hard requirement for professional experience and knew enough to consider giving it a go, so I did. I got an interview and turned out my personal experience was a real plus, as modernising the website was something they wanted to do, and I could do that as I had been learning and using .NET personally for a few years and was a perfect fit for them so got the job! I would add the odd feature or fix problems with the existing website, but we had a grand plan to rebuild the whole website in a year, which I did to the latest and greatest at the time!

Rebuilding the website for the online second-hand bookstore was amazing, everything had to be done from scratch, to have such a challenge and be the only developer was incredible, but we delivered the new website, even braving the snow just before launch to make sure it was ready to go! The relaunched website enabled more features, it even got a refreshed look a couple of times while I was there and we even ran a competition where people could contribute to a book with a dedicated website, which afterwards was repurposed into a customer forum which transformed the website into an even more thriving online community, the website was reasonably successful but it came to an end when the postage pricing made the website no longer viable, however it never made a loss the entire time and was proud to have worked on the website and still feels good to think about it to this day!

When that second-hand online bookstore ended it wasn't a case of looking for another job as many months previous, I had presented about a personal project using Windows Phone, and had been approached to develop something for them and started working the rest of the week for them. I had developed the online second-hand bookstore so well by the last few months it didn't need me as much until that ended and that new role took over completely. That role had started as a Windows Phone developer but as that platform started to end as a priority, my web experience came in handy again so became a web developer again, using ASP.NET and from that point to this day I've been creating web-based solutions using .NET professionally.

This new role was developing content for screens in venues as well as interactive experiences. For the on-screen content we had a problem where people just created their own designs which were less than ideal, and we had our talented designers who could create something better but didn't have the time do that for everyone individually. That's where my idea to combine my personal knowledge of Windows desktop technology using Windows Presentation Foundation with web technology from ASP.NET, to create a content platform where customers could pick from templates designed by our designers and fill in what they need, upload any logos for their venue and more. This helped deliver a professional experience and all built on a crazy idea to combine two technologies from .NET together, although this kind of templating experience is commonplace now, back in the late 2010s it wasn't. It was also great to work alongside other developers that helped me learn new skills and show them a few of the things I had learned. I was also able to afford to take an opportunity to travel to Microsoft Build 2012 in Seattle with the money I'd saved up to pay of my student loan but did that instead, although I did pay that off eventually!

I continued to work on the content platform when my boss came in and had an idea about doing something similar with video, so we took this idea and worked on a video-based version powered by Adobe After Effects, allowing venues to have broadcast quality video, again designed professionally that they could show. It was a great extension of the work I had done and great to work together to create something that was quite innovative at the time. During my time there we tried so many different things and it was interesting and exciting to see how far we could push our technology and learned a lot from the other developers there, but management and other changes made me decide to start to look for another role.

I finally had the years of professional experience I needed, along with double that in personal experience so it was a hopefully a little easier to find something this time around. After finding another role I was told the development team was being consolidated abroad and my position was no longer required, I was thankful to have that new role to fall back on that I had just secured and wouldn't have to spend any time looking for a new job. I'm still proud of the work I had done during my time there so it was a shame to read a few months ago that the company had folded, there was so much potential for what we were trying to do there but also a lot of challenges, but also great to see that a few from there founded their own businesses that ended up being very successful and do think fondly of my time there.

This new role was for a company that worked with a variety of sector specific clients and was a new challenge with large databases and different kinds of web-based products to deal with, but also a little of my Windows development experience came in handy too as they had products using Windows Forms which I had done. It was great to see that my personal experience had value but also to build on the professional experience I had gained. There were again developers who were so generous with their time to help me learn, this started me wanting progress my career as a developer, especially having built up even more experience and seeing someone come into a more senior role who had less experience than I did, but there were plenty of interesting things to work on there and always enjoyed the work. However, I was interested in progressing my career as a software developer, and it felt like this would not be the place to do it, so started to look around again and found a role that needed the skills I had, I applied, got an interview and got the role.

This role was a mid-level position working with large websites using .NET so perfect for my experience and there were other developers at my level and above along with those with less experience, so it was a great opportunity to learn more as well as pass on my skills to others. I took full advantage of this opportunity to pass on skills by mentoring other team members, helping people onboard and even kickstarted furthering their careers by sharing workshops I had created with them. It was amazing to help others on their journey just as I had been helped on mine along with continuing to learn myself both professionally and personally.

I was promoted to senior developer there which was a great testament to the growth in my career up to that point and really appreciated that recognition. I worked on many different projects even deploying many projects live myself, working with external stakeholders and even alongside the company owner to demonstrate functionality. However, my time there would end after being there for a few years but am glad I got the chance to help many of the people there, and leave as a senior developer, and it is great to see how those I helped have progressed since then too, there's probably a few things I would learn from them now.

I found another role after this with a small agency, which also offered the opportunity to learn new technologies, but at the heart was .NET where I applied my skills the most. There was a major piece of work there which involved building and designing a Windows desktop application that would convert information to be used for configuration, it was a fantastic experience designing and building this application with some unique challenges, but was the culmination of my professional and my personal experience, even taking cues from some examples I'd written to share with others that ended up being useful. I'm proud of that software I helped create and even mentioned it during a talk which is something I rarely do!

Although I enjoyed working on the .NET and Windows desktop work, the other technologies wasn't something that I wanted to do, so I decided to look for another role where I could focus on that more. I found a role which turned out to be very similar to role before the agency, so my experience was starting to become more relevant in my career as a software developer progressed. They were using a more modern tech stack which I really enjoyed and worked well together in a small team. It was also chance to help others with a learning at work initiative where I put together a workshop for everyone to do which was fun. It was a great opportunity to work there but there were many changes that meant it was time to move on to my next role which would be a company in the mixed and virtual reality space.

Although I'd not be working on mixed or virtual reality applications but instead the companion web application, it was really interesting, and it was the first time I explicitly took on a role where I would be mentoring other developers. I had been sharing what I know often in an unofficial capacity in previous roles, but here that would be encouraged. I was impressed with the knowledge and skills of those who I was mentoring, but saw how I could introduce different ways of working and thinking along with how to better work with AI solutions, which were becoming more useful and common, with the aim to understand those contributions to have a better overall understanding of how everything fits together along with these AI contributions.

It was great to be in a role where I could combine all my experience and inspire the other developers, however due to circumstances they had to let some developers go and since I was one of the last in, I would be one of the first out. However, I left there on great terms and really enjoyed my time there and hope that the small impact I had lasts for a long time. No matter how long you are in a position you can have an impact and again it has been great to start a new role as a senior software engineer, where I can pull from my vast array of experience and apply that to the role, as well as continuing to learn and look forward to seeing what I can do there, but with amazing developers to work alongside with potential for being joined by many more in the future, I'm looking forward to seeing what's next!

Conclusion

Being a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional which recognises my contributions to the community is incredible and although this has been for my personal work, my professional work has been a place where I have applied the things I have learned in my personal time, as well as add to those skills and overcome challenges, change directions or try new things. It was of course was a wide-reaching statement to say back in school that I would do something with computers, but that's exactly what I turned out to do. There were also opportunities to turn around the out-of-date knowledge in university by learning the latest and greatest technology, which included following .NET from the very start so when I found a role that needed that skill, I had that experience I could pull from.

The idea of sharing has been at the core of my professional career along with my personal journey, whether that be to share what I had learned just like people had shared with me, or work together towards a common goal, or help empower others to further their career and add to their skills. I'm pleased that sharing has either been implicitly or explicitly part of my career, and of course you do encounter those times, places or people that prefer not to share what they know with others, but the way to overcome this is to strive to do better, share what you know and inspire others. I have helped people to take small steps, to then make larger ones that have shaped or transformed their careers. To be just one small part of someone else's journey is fantastic, and it feels good to think to them and hopefully others too, and hope that I have been one of their most valuable professionals.

Outro

Thanks for listening to the RoguePlanetoid Podcast where each episode you will find insights about Microsoft or related platforms and technology, along with so much more wherever you listen to your podcasts or at rogueplanetoid.com/podcasts for the RoguePlanetoid Podcast whether you are a beginner or an experienced professional or just interested in technology. Keep Current, Keep Coding!