I finally headed back to work this week. Over the last few months, I've often felt like I was going around in the circles and that, in fact, was quite close to the truth.

I first posted on LinkedIn that I was "Open to Work" at the start of November it's taken about six months to land a new gig. Why so long? A few things. I'm older, there's AI, and it is a tough market but at the beginning I certainly had plenty of interest both from the network and from recruiters. Fundamentally though, I believe landing a job was tough because of a couple of core reasons. Firstly, while I'm not super expensive, I like to be paid what I feel I'm worth. While I have taken lower rates in the past it usually doesn't end well if I feel undervalued so I've certainly been picky about the roles I've gone for. Secondly I was slightly confused over what I would be this time - would it be another DevOps engineer role or could I try to be an Engineering Manager again? The latter has more responsibility, commands more money, but really isn't always a natural fit. When the boss is right and when the org is right it may happen.

So what will I be doing in my new role? More of the same - working on compliance, security, vulnerability management, automation and IT infrastructure and DevOps. All the good stuff that gets overlooked in the constant debate that is software engineeering. This is where I'm certainly at my happiest and even a couple of days in I feel myself starting to relax and enjoy myself. That's a really good sign.

April was all about keeping busy while the corporate gears churned through my onboarding process - I had to be patient. As the weather was good, and I had time on my hands, I finally decided to tackle the garden. It was horribly overgrown and I'd got bored of staring at the weeds or plucking them from between the thousands of bricks. So, my brainwave was deciding to flip out and rotate all the bricks in our front and back gardens. About a hundred square metres in total and I calculated over 3 metric tonnes of bricks and sand and aggregrate lumped in by hand, via the car, to and from the hardware stores and dumped and garden. Circles within circles. I tackled five of them. It took me about about six weeks in total and probably sustained effort of about twenty or so days to get there but I'm very pleased with the results.

April was also a time for may other things. I relaunched Human Software, I also updated my blog with more of a focus on writing. I've also been plotting and started writing the next book. If you head over and follow me on goodreads you'll get some hints about the direction I'm headed from my reading list, but what I can reveal now is that it's set in the same universe as Human Software but the action takes place a few years before. It's a prequel in some ways and in others it's quite different. I'll be sharing more over the next few months. I hope to launch the beta programme for interested readers towards the end of the year.

Check out the blog below for my thoughts on the AI and datacentre debate. Here's also another good article from Matteo Wong on The Atlantic (might be paywalled/might be gifted) on how locals are suffering at the hands of these hungry thinking machines.

Until next time, have a great Sunday. It's Mother's Day here in the Netherlands so me and my kids will be making sure my wife has a relaxing and enjoyable day! I hope yours is too.

From my blog:

Why the Data Centre fight isn’t really about AI

May 9, 2026

Brian Merchant’s piece on the data centre rebellion on his Blood in the Machine substack is worth reading in full and carefully. It’s a fascinating and nuanced look at who profits from the arrival of data centres in small communities and where US lawmakers and politicians are going with policy.

Read more here: https://richardwbown.com/why-the-data-centre-fight-isnt-really-about-ai/​