Spyridon Maniotis is the author of DevOps in the Financial Services Industry; we got the chance to sit down and find out more about his experience of writing with Packt.
Q: What are your specialist tech areas?
Spyridon: All around DevOps
Q: How did you become an author for Packt? Tell us about your journey. What was your motivation for writing this book?
Spyridon: It was my aspiration for years to attempt authoring a book. After several years in the financial services industry and having worked across several institutions and DevOps adoptions, I thought it was the right time. Deep insight me I felt that I had things to write about based on my professional experiences and through that help others. I was also driven by the moto “Verba volant, scripta manent”. If you don’t write things down, they will be eventually forgotten.
Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?
Spyridon: I did not do thorough research as such. I had read throughout my career all the major DevOps books and identified a gap. I could not find a single book speaking about holistic DevOps operating models and especially for financial services institutions. So basically, I wrote the book that I was looking for in the market, but I could not find.
Q: Did you face any challenges during the writing process? How did you overcome them?
Spyridon: I did not, and I am super honest. It was one of the most enjoyable periods of my life. Me facing a white paper and having a brain full of unstructured ideas which had to fill the paper in and make sense, was an amazing experience. If I may put one challenge is that I was trying to make sure that the book can be profession, industry, position and seniority agnostic. I was asking myself questions like; “will that make sense to a non-technical person?”, “will an engineer, understand the corporate strategy section”, “can this framework be adopted to other industries”.
Q: What’s your take on the technologies discussed in the book? Where do you see these technologies heading in the future?
Spyridon: Not really applicable in my case
Q: Why should readers choose this book over others already on the market? How would you differentiate your book from its competition?
Spyridon: The book is unique in three aspects in my opinion. Firstly, it is very rich on proven frameworks which are a collection of real practices across financial services institutions. Secondly it does present a complete DevOps operating model design and adoption; proper 360 degrees. Thirdly, it balances between being industry specific (financial services) and agnostic (can be applied in any industry)
Q: What are the key takeaways you want readers to come away with from the book?
Spyridon: Firstly, to understand how broad and deep one can go on enterprise DevOps adoptions. Secondly to realize that technology is just one of the many enablers on DevOps adoptions. Thirdly that enterprise, means enterprise involvement across several parts of their organizations. In addition, they can use several of the book’s frameworks in their organizations. Last but not least to realize the high level of complexity in an enterprise DevOps adoption.
Q. Do you have a blog that readers can follow?
Spyridon: Not really.
Q. What advice would you give to readers learning tech? Do you have any top tips?
Spyridon: Specialize to the best possible extend, while being agnostic from a capability enablement perspective.
Q. What are your favorite tech journals? How do you keep yourself up to date on tech?
Spyridon: I read several blogs and i will refrain from advertisement. I obviously also keep up to date through my daily work.
Q. Can you share any blogs, websites and forums to help readers gain a holistic view of the tech they are learning?
Spyridon: Not really
Q. How would you describe your author’s journey with Packt? Would you recommend Packt to aspiring authors?
Spyridon: I would definitely do. I have personally developed as an author during the process and that was due to the editorial feedback I was receiving. I am not a much better author than I used to be when the journey started, while I was gradually improving chapter by chapter.
Q. Do you belong to any tech community groups?
Spyridon: Not any particular
Q. How did you organize, plan, and prioritize your work and write the book?
Spyridon: Let me be honest. While authoring the book and especially the core three months my life was work, book, gym and only. I did not have time for other activities. Also, because thoughts around the book occupied my brain, which was a positive thing. I was constantly thinking how I can make the book better. From a practical perspective, I was writing every day before starting work so i had fresh brain and then weekends and vacation were going full on to the book. I had fun, so i don’t regret “book locking my life” for some time. What helped me a lot to put structure, was the very solid outline of the book that I made early days. I put a lot of thought on it and it became my compass for the journey.
Q. What is that one writing tip that you found most crucial and would like to share with aspiring authors?
Spyridon: Do not write very long sentences. I was doing a lot at the beginning, and I think it is visible in chapters 1 and 2. Then I became much better on putting a “full stop” on my very lengthy thoughts.
Q. Would you like to share your social handles? If so, please share.
You can find Spyridon’s book on Amazon by following this link: Please click here
