Introduction
Hi all, I am Jithin Raju, and I live in Bangalore. I joined ShapeBlue in March as a Cloud Architect and appreciate everything in this new opportunity. I also enjoy being part of the larger Apache CloudStack community and have loved to contribute since I joined ShapeBlue.
Before joining ShapeBlue, I worked with Citrix and Persistent Systems in many roles in support. I was involved in the commercial forks of Apache CloudStack, such as Citrix Cloudplatform and Rovius CloudPlatform. Citrix XenServer and CloudPortal Business Manager are the other products which I used to provide support for. I lead the support & services team for Rovius CloudPlatform at Persistent Systems before joining ShapeBlue.
I am always fascinated by technology, computers, Linux, opensource, and computer networks. I developed a particular interest in virtualization during my college years, when I was trying multiple Operating Systems and many Linux distributions on my computer. Later, I started exploring Cloud Computing too.
Away from the desk, I spend my time with my two little boys. I usually make failed attempts when cooking new recipes.
Work (Life) at ShapeBlue
At ShapeBlue, I work with like-minded and passionate people who have been contributing to the Apache CloudStack project for many years. I find many things at ShapeBlue attractive, such as how the company is an employee-owned one, which is an ethical capitalism I haven’t come across before in my career. I would borrow the name “small MNC” because the employees are from different parts of the world with multiple cultures, but all align on a common goal. Being a remote-first company has its advantages for the employees. We work as a single team, and the culture is very collaborative, where everybody is always helping each other on Slack.
The company has an open culture. The leadership listens to your feedback and acts without any delays. You only find this in some organizations. Here there are no restrictions to the areas where you can get involved. You are empowered and taking initiative is highly appreciated. The SBcon23 was a great event. The event was filled with work, a lot of great talks, and it was a lot of fun. SBcon is the annual event where we all make sure to collaborate and socialise, thus filling the gap of not being at a physical office. It doesn’t stop there, working at ShapeBlue offers an outstanding work-life balance, even offering unlimited holidays. The Friday staff call is the most enjoyable (and funny) time of the week, seeing everybody play Drawasaurus.
What I Do at ShapeBlue
So far, I am involved in designing CloudStack deployment for customers, writing documentation, and providing support. Everyone at ShapeBlue is encouraged to submit their new or improved ideas for the Apache CloudStack project. I have spent time thinking about new features based on the challenges I have seen customers face with the product and I submitted a few improvements that could address some of those. I am planning to contribute more to this area. In the community, I help users via the mailing lists and Github. This help comes in the form of some answers, suggestions, reporting a bug, validating a PR, fixing CloudStack documentation or even adding a few more words there.
Jithin is a Cloud Architect by profession. He has helped organisations around the globe use commercial distributions of Apache CloudStack in the past 10 years. These organisations include private, public, and government cloud service providers. Outside his work, he likes to spend time with his family.
