Coming home: Unexpected news, a big decision, and a fresh start. Here is my personal retrospective on the year 2023.
Unexpected news ⚡️
In the beginning of 2023, I was working in the Digital Products team at CMR Surgical in Cambridge, UK. We were solving interesting problems, and I enjoyed working with the team. In late March, on very short notice, we were called into a company meeting. A new CEO informed us that the company is running out of cash, and that they intend to lay off a third of the workforce. My department was hit especially hard. Like everyone else in my team, I immediately started looking for a new job.
At the time, my wife, Rebekka, and I had been living in Cambridge for almost exactly five years. The unexpected news brought up a difficult question: Should we stay in Cambridge, the place we enjoyed so much, where we had pivoted our careers, and made many good friends? Or, should we move back to our home country, Germany? Be closer to our family, who we had spend so little time with over the last couple of years?
New opportunity 🐙
During my job search, one particular opportunity stood out to me: Octopus Energy, our energy supplier at the time and one of the largest domestic energy suppliers in the UK, was looking to expand its Software Engineering team in Berlin, Germany. When I got the offer, I was over the moon:
- I would be able to help accelerate the transition to renewable energy 💚
- I would be able to work on a huge Django code base. (Django is the web framework that I learned when I got into software development, and that I've been writing about on this blog.) 🦄
- Kraken Tech, the tech arm of the Octopus group, is a big supporter of the Open Source community, e.g. by donating to the Django Software Foundation and regularly hosting the Django meetup in their London headquarter. 🐙
- With the company expanding globally, I would be able to work with an international and diverse team. 🌍
Fare-well Cambridge 👋
We decided it was time to go home, and I accepted the offer. Rebekka is working as a web designer in a fully remote digital agency, so moving to another country for her wasn't an issue.
The moving date was set for mid-June. We booked a Luton van and driver, confident we would be able to fit in all our stuff. Well, that's what we thought.
Due to Brexit, moving between Britain and Europe had become way more difficult than it was back in 2018. Every item and box had to be weighed and declared. We started packing and I used a spread sheet to track the weight of each item. Just two days before the move, it dawned on us: We had too much stuff! Or, too be more precise, our stuff was too heavy, and we were way over the weight allowance. Frantically, we opened up the boxes we had already sealed and weighed, and began to declutter - radically! Once we realized we had no other choice, it actually became quite easy to let go. Even liberating. I remember carrying box after box, and emptying it on a blanket on the side walk, giving it away as freebies. Despite the short amount of time, we also managed to find new homes for most of our furniture.
After a lovely farewell picnic with many of our friends, we loaded what was at that point the essence of our lives on the van, and took a Ryanair from Stansted to Berlin.
Hello Berlin 🇩🇪
When searching for a flat in Berlin, a friend warned us that it could take a year or longer. The rents of the few flats on the market were eyewatering. It was an absolute miracle to us when, with the help of friends and family, we found a lovely apartment in the west of the city. It had way more space than we used to have in Cambridge, and it even had a balcony!
Having arrived in Berlin with hardly any furniture, checking kleinanzeigen.de and going to flea markets became part of our weekly routines. It turned out that - except a mattress - we didn't have to buy anything new. We found lot's of beautiful second hand pieces, and, in the process, visited many places, met new people and listened to interesting stories. Within three month, we filled the empty rooms and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Credit for most of the interior decisions goes to Rebekka and her great sense for design.
A great feat of having more space is the ability to host friends. In Cambridge, we would usually meet up in one of the local pubs. This was great fun, too, but there is something special about hosting people in your own place. We also had friends over for a Sauerkraut party, and continued our 'christmas cookie baking with friends' tradition.
Sustainability 🌱
We love traveling and exploring new places. But this year we wanted to see if we could reduce our carbon footprint by flying less, so we looked for places to visit by train.
Over the coronation weekend in May, we took the Eurostar to Paris. It was my first time there and I loved exploring the city. Instead of using the Metro, we cycled from sight to sight on Velib bikes.
Arriving in Budapest after 412 km and seven days of cycling along river Danube
In September, we did a part of the Danube Cycle Path. In seven days, we cycled 412km on the Eurovelo 6 from Vienna to Budapest. Getting from Berlin to Vienna and back from Budapest by night train worked really well and was surprisingly comfortable.
In autumn, we read the book The Fasting Fix (original title: Mit Ernährung heilen) by Andreas Michalsen. We've had a "vegetable-forward", Ottolenghi-inspired diet for a couple of years already. But the book inspired us to go even further and become vegetarian. It's going great so far and I'm not planning to go back.
Relaxation 🧘
Soon after we moved to Berlin, we found out that our flat was just 15 minutes by bike from Grunewald. It's a great place for running and walking, and there is also a lovely lake, very popular in summer.
Inspired by a neighbor, we wanted to try all-year-around wild swimming, or "Eisbaden". In the last two month, we've been doing it almost weekly. It's still a challenge every single time, but afterwards, I feel just great, like I can take on anything.
Technology and learning 📚
Earlier this year, I did a revamp of my blog. I glad that the workflow to write and publish new posts is way easier now.
I discovered RSS this year, and there is no going back! I just love being able to read quality content from trusted blogs, without all the noise and distraction of social media.
One of my favorite blogs this year has been Simon Willison's Webblog. Simon has been covering web development and data journalism for decades. More recently, he has been focussing on generative AI and LLMs. I'm a big fan and active user on many of his open source projects, such as llm (a CLI for interacting with various LLMs) and datasette (data exploration tool based on Sqlite).
Other highlights ✨
Here are a few more highlights from this year:
- best show: Hamilton in London
- best movie: Oppenheimer
- best TV series: The Bear
- best restaurant: Babka in Budapest
- best book: "The Psychology of Money" by Morgan Housel
- first time: DIY Sauerkraut
- best new podcast: Latent space, AI engineering
What's planned for 2024 🚀
I'm happy that we made the decision to move back to Germany. It's a big change, but we're glad to be closer to our parents and siblings.
Here are a three things I want to do in 2024:
- Explore Berlin: food, music and culture 🎷
- Write: At least on blog post each month 📝
- Give a talk to a technical audience 🎤
Happy new year, and thanks for reading!