Hello Michał! Shed some light on your life’s journey.
That is a great question. When I think about it, I believe I have wanted to be in IT since I was about 5 or 6. It started when I was being dropped off at my Aunt’s job when my parents were visiting my brother at the hospital. She was an accountant. At that time, companies in my neighbourhood were changing typing machines to computers. IT guys were pretty often visiting the accountants' room as they were most important for that change, and they were having most problems getting used to systems rather than paper.
It ended up that they were there almost all the time, teaching me some basics about those systems in the meantime. 🙂 I remember, like yesterday, System Novel and Windows 3.11 that's been used there. I was opening and playing Minesweeper and using some basic commands to check who is no longer using his computer - which I was taught by one of those IT guys. For me, who was a farmer boy, this job looked like a dream.
A few years later aunt bought me one of those used computers. It had Pentium 150MGHz and 32MB of RAM with almost 2GB of HDD, which was amazing then. GPU was able to use 800x600 in 16bit or even 1024x768 in 256 colors, GPU had only 640kb of memory. I've found on this HDD that guys filled with some basic programs and games (solitaire and reverse-like games) program called "Borland Turbo Pascal". I've read local documentation and wrote my first programs. I was always trying to "optimize" them. Back then, I was unaware of the cost of operation or such, so my main KPIs were how fast it ran and how many lines I could write it (lower is better). 🙂
What is your professional background?
I started my journey with real IT in High School at 16. I have been given an administrative account over the domain and permission to configure it as I feel fit. Access to the school administrators' education platform helped me learn a lot about administering medium organizations and automating processes like backup, account creation, wiping and restoring workstations remotely, etc. At University, I was working part time creating some applications for FinTech companies and shortly after became an analyst and architect of High Availability systems. I learned about different frameworks, their flaws, cons, and pros during that time. This was the point when I was introduced to Dynatrace.
How does Dynatrace fit into the picture, and what was the biggest challenge Dynatrace helped you overcome?
Loving to Optimize and fix things, Dynatrace filled the gap for me. The only thing I missed was the ability to see how everything behaves exactly. But actually - not "as documentation states". I have invested some time in getting to know Dynatrace and have been working with its tools since then almost everyday to help my customers achieve better results with tier apps. Whether it is performance, availability, less issues, or better end-user satisfaction. Due to NDAs, I can’t share details of such achievements, but there were a few 99% less resources, some 10k x throughput, etc. I am happy that many of them have been spoken about by customers themselves:
Do you work solely with Dynatrace, or do you also use other tools in your company?
The company I work for (Omnilogy) is dedicated to Observability and Security. Dynatrace is the best tool for Observability - but we address some areas outside of it, like network monitoring and scanning tools, Threat and attack simulations for security, Versio for version control, but we also create some tools of our own for monitoring. Even though all of those areas are close to my heart, the day has only 24 hours, and there is no way to extend it 😉 so my focus is mostly on Dynatrace.
Do you focus mostly on different perspectives of app performance and how to improve it using Dynatrace?
It's mostly true. I'm trying my best to help customers with their applications. Due to my developer and architect background, I help debug and even do audits of applications, including their architecture, technologies, code-level problems, removing bottlenecks and more.
I'm also taking part in designing the architecture of some solutions we're creating. For example, we created solutions for deeper MF monitoring called z-Rays that are currently being modified to be able to provide data directly to Dynatrace. We're also in the process of creating a solution for IBM I monitoring that I'm consulting as an architect and Observability specialist.
I sometimes help developers properly plan their code when creating Apps for the Dynatrace platform and also oversee our IT infrastructure to be up to date with new technologies and approaches. So even though most of the time I'm using Dynatrace, from time to time, I like to jump to those other areas just not to get rusty. 🙂
What makes Dynatrace Community important to you?
A little unfortunately for me, Dynatrace is embedding more and more AI within its platform, thus making finding solutions to the problems trivial. I have always enjoyed challenging problems so
"I browse the Community for something challenging and complex.
It's also a great platform for me to share some ideas as RFE that, based on my observations across different clients will help them to do even better."
I always try to do at least one good thing, so on working days when I'm mostly home and don't have such an opportunity, I'm trying to help at least one person on the Dynatrace Community.
Tell us something about you that most people don’t know. What is your biggest joy or passion in life?
I cannot say I have a typical hobby as I do not have one thing I totally devote my spare time to. "Perfect is the enemy of good," but I would love to make things perfect or at least as close to perfect as possible.
You can easily say that even my job is more of a hobby than a job; they’re even paying me for it. 😄
I love fixing things like toys, tools, installations, electronics, etc. I would be a carpenter if I weren't a Solution Architect or any other IT role. I've always loved the smell of wood and its versatility when properly used and threatened. I enjoy many activities, so my life is quite diverse: riding, karaoke, traveling, concerts, camping, etc.
I'm a pretty open guy, so I don't have many secrets, but I bet there are some things you might not know about me.
🔹 I successfully disassembled and assembled a diesel engine a few times when I was a teenager - I'm good with mechanics.
🔹 Can obtain tri-nitro-toluene, universally known as TNT - and might or might not have done it in the past, so better not go on my bad side 😉
🔹 I used to be a gamer and leader of a gaming community with which I still have contact 🙂 When I mean gamer, I'm talking about tens of thousands of hours total.
🔹 I might or might not have created some cracks (that went public) for popular games - just to check if I can.
🔹 I love manga and Anime – I spent countless hours watching and reading them.
🔹 Read some Japanese and Chinese mythology, which makes watching their movies and anime even more fun when you see all those references.
🔹 In my 20s, I did a Japanese test about my "maturity age" and how will I die – the result was that it either would be boredom or the explosion of a homemade nuclear bomb - both seemed pretty true at that time. 😄
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