Hello Thodoros! Shed some light on your life’s journey.
Growing up in the 90s, being one of the few students in school with a PC at home (Windows 3.1 and yes, I know how to play Minesweeper 😝) was a strong indication that maybe this could be my future. Being 39 years old, I am still charmed by black and white screens or blue text editors in DOS.
I studied Electrical and Computer Engineering, and during my University years, I was focused on Industrial Automation and Control Systems. Control, though, comes first with observation, and Observability started making some sense as a choice when I joined my company 9 years ago. I live in Athens, Greece, and work most of the time in my Company's offices. I am one of the few in the IT industry to hate working from home. So, you can imagine how happy I was during the COVID pandemic.
I also spend a lot of my time with music (mostly listening but I try to stretch my drums from time to time), going to the theatre or cinema, and also travelling (especially road trips). And most importantly, supporting my favorite football club in any given chance, ☘️Panathinaikos☘️ from Athens.
What is your professional background?
After a limited tenure in an Energy Company as an Electrical Engineer, I joined PERFORMANCE TECHNOLOGIES S.A. in 2016 and the Observability team. My assignment was to participate in projects with the main scope to deploy Infrastructure Monitoring and Service Discovery/Mapping solutions. I was given the opportunity to work with multiple industries (Banking, Telecommunications, Oil and Gas, Airlines), and each one of them has its own challenges and considerations.
The best thing about observability is that you are not cornered in a specific part of the IT ecosystem. On the contrary, you see the evolution of the technology stack as a whole. Regardless, it is the cloud transformation or transitioning from traditional virtualization to microservices, since everything is monitored nowadays, the observability engineer becomes arguably the man in the loop.
How does Dynatrace fit into the picture, and what was the biggest challenge Dynatrace helped you overcome?
It was at the beginning of 2022 when I joined the Dynatrace-dedicated team in my company, which has been a Dynatrace Partner since 2018. I had witnessed the evolution of Dynatrace and the impact on our customers, but never got the chance to work with it. Then, a decision was made to form a team with a focus on Dynatrace-centric solutions.
The first 6 months, I was trying to gain experience and knowledge with all Dynatrace features, following my assignments at the same time. After that, the first certification came, and a little after that, I was eventually a Dynatrace certified professional. Needless to say, all this came along with real experience on the Dynatrace projects where my colleagues and I were participating.
The outstanding impact of Dynatrace in most cases is the business outcome. It can be the KPIs or Apdex scores or even the Business Events feature, but the most thrilling part is how easy you can relate technical or performance data to Business insights. It’s thrilling when you see it with your own eyes.
What makes Dynatrace Community important to you?
Well, it took me some time to start engaging frequently with the Dynatrace Community, but the truth is that it is a very important knowledge exchange base. It started as a fun challenge with George, one of my colleagues, by counting how many badges each of us possesses. Soon, it became clear that interaction with the Community has a lot of merit.
Realizing that most issues you come up with are not unique and someone else has most probably faced them already, makes the Community an essential tool for every practitioner.
A separate page for Dynatrace Managed is also an important move. It prevents inaccurate replies and issues classification since the two deployments share some important differences. Attending Dynatrace Innovate in Amsterdam six months ago, while discussing this with other partners and customers, it was made clear that Managed is still in the play. A lot of discussion was held on the next steps of all deployments, some still being on Managed.
"The documentation page may be the source of truth, but Community is a survival guide."
In addition, blog articles and featured posts by Dynatrace dedicated professionals add value to the Community and make it a powerful tool for everyday tasks. Since Dynatrace is constantly evolving and transforming to address new needs and trends, the Community helps everyone stay up to date.
Tell us something about you that most people don’t know. What is your biggest joy or passion in life?
To start with, I cannot get enough vacation periods, especially during summer. Greece is a country worth exploring, so every time you travel, your scenery immediately changes. And everywhere I go, I take a lot of pictures. I mean, a LOT of pictures.
Other than that, I love concerts, and music lives (especially ROCK and METAL genres), and I try to go to as many as I can. Of course, watching sports, mostly football, is also a part of my weekly routine.
I love simulation games, especially Flight Simulator. When given the chance, I spend time with my two nieces. We play mostly chess and other board games, see movies together, and play video games from the PlayStation 1 era (yes, they still rock!). 🎮
🔹 Spend one month in Cuba, visit Dracula's castle in Romania, and travel with the trans-Siberian train all the way through Asia.
🔹 Learn to speak Italian fluently
🔹 Become a licensed skipper
🔹 Obtain a KUBERNETES certification (fun fact: KUBERNETES is the Greek word for skipper)
What achievement are you most proud of?
If I had to choose, I'd say that my university degree was certainly a milestone. Apart from that, I consider achievement each time I deliver something through my work that has a strong positive impact, as it offers a great sense of completion. Solving problems is something that really excites me, professionally or not.
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