Farewell Betfair

After 3 years & over 100,000 deployed VMs it’s time to move on. Amongst all the project work and cool tech I had the fortune to use I got to make some really good friends and probably the odd enemy but hey that’s life…
I’d like to think I’ve embraced the 5 Betfair values (Will to Win, Pace, Respect, Smart & Disciplined). Certainly working at pace in an agile environment you learn to roll with the punches and start to expect the unexpected! Almost every 2 weeks we were set automation challenges that had never been done before, those late nights with the guys writing code and testing it to death made us firm friends with a level of respect and trust that can only be earned through cold pizza & Nerf guns. Even after most of the team left we’re still in constant contact swapping war stories and keeping tabs on each others’ families.
We wouldn’t have succeeded in delivering what we did without the incredible support of Ronan, Scott, Brendan & the management in VMware GSS in Cork. The number of P1 & P2 tickets they reacted to was absurd and yet helped us deliver solutions at a ridiculous pace. The vCAC, VCO, AppD & NSX teams also deserve a solid pat on the back for helping us deliver what we did.
So farewell Betfair… I wish you all the best with the imminent merger with Paddy Power. With the inrush of two pretty amazing IT teams it’s going to be an awesome talent pool!
What’s next? Well that deserves another blog post in a couple of days time…