Year in Review - 2025

In my 2024 year review, I wrote the following:

The days were indeed long but looking back the year went by in a flash. Above everything, one of the most important things that I learnt this year was about setting boundaries, saying no to things and people and how you don't need to take shit from anyone.

I hope and pray that 2025 flies by as fast as 2024 if not faster.

Looking back 2025 went by in a flash. There were more challenges but proportionately more growth. At the end of the year, I'm grateful for everything happening the way it happened and all the lessons it taught me. If I had a chance to go back, I wouldn't change a thing. At the end of 2025, I'm a better wiser person who knows better what I want, how to set boundaries and also a better engineer.

This year I...

• Traveled outside of India again! I got to travel to London, Japan (again!), Malaysia and Taiwan.
• Gave around 7 talks at conferences and gave 2 talks at DigitalOcean's monthly demo hour (more on this later). I also learnt enough Japanese to give a lightning talk in Japanese at KubeCon Japan!
• Contributed more to Kuberentes! Took a KEP to GA and started working on another one
• Moved out and started living on my own
• Switched teams to join the DigitalOcean Kubernetes team to align with my upstream work
• Learnt the hard way about setting boundaries and expectations in both work and personal life

Looking back on 2025

These were the goals I had set for 2025 in my year review from last year:

• Contribute more code to Kubernetes. I'm looking at you CEL.
  • I did contribute more. I drove the sleep action feature to GA, started working on a new feature for adding container stop signals and also got a few bug fixes around static pods etc. I'm happy with whatever I was able to contribute and I'm honestly feeling that I'm in the best place now to contribute more given that I'm working with Go on a daily basis and working with core Kubernetes stuff in the DOKS team
• Learn how to say no better.
  • I had a lot of instances this year where I should've said no earlier than I actually did. And a lot of instances where I did say no right away too. I should still get comfortable with saying no and not feel hesitant. Making a plan for every month and quarter and sticking to it would help me prioritize my time better and identify what all I can say no to instantly
• Prioritize health and fitness and workout regularly.
  • I did go to the gym and started walking/running more this year. But I still haven't nailed the consistency. This is one of my top priorities to change starting 2026
• Read more books.
  • I did read a bunch of books, I even got a library membership in Hyderabad, but my reading has been sporadic whenever I get pulled around thanks to work.
• Write more, maybe keep a journal.
  • I wrote more this year. Including this one, I've written and published around 12 posts last year in this website (I wrote this post during the Christmas break). This is compared to the 5 I wrote in 2024 and the single post I had written in 2023. I did more journalling that what I've done in the past years. I journalled only when I was feeling very overwhelmed with a lot going on in life. Journalling helped me take things off my mind
• Get back into music. I had bought myself a MIDI controller at the end of last year. I'm really interested in music production and want to set myself a goal of producing at least one lofi track by the end of this year
  • I didn't do anything at all here. Even when I was aware that I had set this goal to myself and that I'm running out of time (around November). I want to think and execute what I can do to make it easier for me to pursue a hobby
• Make meaningful relationships and nurture existing ones.
  • I met a lot of new folks this year and made new friends and had good times with existing friends, both in open source and in office and otherwise while traveling. One thing I can be conscious of for next year is to help more people and generally be nice and be happy for folks more
• Get myself a circle of folks who I look up to and can learn from.
  • It took me the entire year, but I did it! The DOKS team is one of the best teams I can be part of at DO right now given where I'm and what I want to make of my career. I'm really really stoked as I'm looking forward to working with the engineers here and learning everything I can from them starting next year! It took me a year of working at DO to get to this stage but now that I'm here I'm planning to take full advantage of it. Also not to mention connections from open source like Lucas and Ajay with whom I'm working more closely now.

Looking forward to 2026

• Continue contributing to Kubernetes. I want to explore more leadership positions in the community this year
• Get my US visa
• Building consistency in the habits I want to build
• Use less social media
• Get better at my craft
• Be more financially responsible and save money
• Write and publish more
• Put myself out there more
  • Blogs, newsletter, YouTube?
• Set clear expectations and say no better
• Help someone every chance you get, make more people happy

If you've read till this point, that's pretty much how my year has been. Since I like to write a lot, I obviously wrote a longer version of everything that happened in 2025 and what I learnt from these experiences. You can skip the rest of the blog if you'd like.

For the first three months of the year I was still in the high of getting a new job at DigitalOcean. I took some time to get used to the scale at which they operated. Coming from a single Kubernetes cluster in BigBinary to seeing tens of clusters ranging over several regions and clusters to manage these clusters and all of this having multiple instances for different environments was truly mind blowing.

I had also signed up a few of my KEPs for v1.33. PodLifeCycleSleepActionAllowZero was graduating to beta, a new KEP ContainerStopSignals introduced in alpha and there was the CEL for additionalPrinterColumns KEP that I was working on with Priyanka. There was a period in February this year where I felt like maybe I bit off more than I can chew and that I had much more on my plate than I can handle. There was a specific week where I had stuff from work, two KEPs to submit PRs for the enhancements freeze on a Friday and a Go meetup the very next day that I had promised Humble that I'd speak at. It was overwhelming, but at the same time it was exhilarating. Working on the PRs for container stop signals and receiving reviews for my KEP from folks like Jordan Liggitt, Tim Hockin and Peter Hunt was really exciting. This was the first time I was making a change to the Kubernetes API as well. After the hectic week was done I felt that I've pushed my limit of what is possible further than what I thought it was. This is a recurring theme that I felt repeating more this year. Once I push myself a bit too far, the next time I have to do it it doesn't feel as hard. Something I want to do in 2026 is to push my limits further to see what is possible.

In the first quarter, I had also submitted a few talks for the KubeCon EU maintainer summit and for Cloud Native Rejekts and they had got selected. I was also busy with the visa application and travel planning for KubeCon EU again. This feels like a routine now in the first quarter of every year. I traveled to London in the end of March and got to attend KubeCon EU, now with a different world view and priorities compared to my last time in Paris. I met more folks I had worked with and had meaningful discussions about contributing to Kubernetes. I also got to spend my birthday by myself in London. This is the first time I'm away on my birthday let alone in a different country. I went to Abbey Road Studios and 221B Baker Street. Feeling extremely grateful.

Once I was back, I obviously wanted to contribute more to Kubernetes. A lot of my energy was also spent in decision making and planning how I'd work from DigitalOcean's new office in Hyderabad. In May I decided to get Invisalign.

In June I went to Japan for speaking at the first KubeCon Japan. After the conference, I took leave for a couple of days and took time to relax and explore, a good break in between everything that was happening around me at the time. I stayed in Kawaguchiko for a day and bicycled around the town. It was amazing. Spending time in Japan was good for practicing my Japanese. Speaking to locals is hands down the best way to learn.

Once I was back from Japan, I went back to Hyderabad briefly. I hadn't moved in properly because firstly I was traveling to Taiwan again in two weeks time for KCD Taipei and secondly I didn't really have a place to stay. While I was there in Hyderabad staying at a hotel, I visited the new apartment that I'll be moving into along with my new roommate.

After this I travelled to Taiwan. I was giving a talk at KCD Taipei. Taipei reminded me of Hong Kong a lot. It was really humid and hotter than in Kodanad though. Traveling to Taipei almost ten days after I came back from Japan was similar to how FOSSASIA in Vietnam was timed after I came back from KubeCon EU last year. Back then I was too overwhelmed and overstimulated to travel again, but this year I was able to do it. Setting new limits again. Taiwan was nice, I ended up staying a few days more than I had planned to because my flight back got cancelled thanks to Typhoon Danas. I learnt a lot about traveling internationally and all the things I could've done better. I had an idea of writing all of my learnings into a blog, I'll add it to my queue of blogs for next year. After the initial confusion at the airport, it wasn't too bad though. I got to spend a day in the suburbs of Taipei, far from the city and experience life there. I wished it didn't rain so much so I could've talked to the locals more.

While all of June and July was happening, I was also in talks to switch teams at work to join the DigitalOcean Kubernetes team. After a bit of back and forth I was able to get a green signal and had my interviews scheduled (yes, I had to go through the whole process again). When I had first joiend DO, I remember talking to my mom who had asked me if I could move to the Kubernetes team given that I was active in Kubernetes upstream. I had told her that that might be too farfetched and might not be possible given where I was. I'm glad that the exponential growth surprise factor proved me wrong!

I moved into my new apartment in July after I was back from Taiwan. I had my interviews for the DOKS team starting the day I moved in. I'd finish my interviews and go shopping for furniture afterwards. I set up my new place all the while preparing for interviews and getting used to living by myself. This was another week where I felt like I was really pushing my boundaries.

The good thing about doing hard things is that it redefines what "hard" means to you.

After I got my new offer letter, I chilled out and focussed on finishing my tasks in the storage team while also doing the onboarding for the new team in my own time. I settled in well to living by myself in Hyderabad and I should say I became more responsible when I'm living on my own. I started going for walks and cooked more and enjoyed it.

In August I had caught a very bad viral fever and was down for almost a week and took another week to fully recover after that. Haven't been this sick since I had caught Covid in 2022.

By the end of October I was done with my storage team work and moved to DOKS full time.

If you read all this, thank you. Reach out to me if you're someone I know, let's catch up sometime.