Mental Health on Chris Reddington

Tech Roundup - January 2022

Sun, 30 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Your monthly digest covering Azure, GitHub, and Azure DevOps updates — so you don’t have to keep up with it all yourself!

In this January 2022 edition, Chris returns to Cloud With Chris after a break and opens with an honest account of his mental health journey — including depression, anxiety, and the importance of asking for support. He then covers:

Cloud With Chris Updates A retrospective on 2021 content performance, the shift from weekly to monthly roundups, and upcoming changes to the channel format and content cadence.

I'm back. Let's talk.

Sun, 19 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

You will have noticed that there haven’t been any updates on Cloud With Chris for some time. I’ve also been quiet on social media. For any of my colleagues, you may have seen by my out of office messages that I’ve had time away from work. In this blog post, I want to open up about my recent challenges and have an honest discussion. Whether you’ve experienced mental health challenges before, are currently going through tough times, or haven’t experienced it and don’t quite understand (which is completely ok!) - I hope that me sharing this helps. We’re going to be talking about mental health.

V040 - Weekly Technology Vlog #40

Sun, 03 Oct 2021 09:30:00 +0000

Chris is joined by Johnny, a .NET developer and architect from Belgium, and Simon, a new Azure support engineer at Intercept, for a Sea of Thieves gaming session filled with cloud conversations. Johnny shares the story behind his upcoming Apress book on Azure Quantum and Q#, from attending a conference talk on quantum computing in 2017 to writing a developer-focused guide that demystifies the subject.

Simon discusses passing AZ-900 in his first month at his new role and outlines his certification roadmap through AZ-104, AZ-500, and AZ-700. Chris recaps a busy week of community speaking including .NET Nots, Azure Thames Valley lightning talks, and his first in-person session in 18 months at the Welsh Azure User Group on Azure Arc for applications. The episode closes with Chris openly discussing the importance of monitoring energy levels and mental health as a content creator, and previewing upcoming talks at South Coast Summit and Azure Community Conference on deploying static websites.

Getting into DevRel

Fri, 27 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

What is Developer Relations (DevRel), and how do you build a career in it? Chris is joined by Martin Woodward — Director of Developer Relations at GitHub, and the person who brought Git into Microsoft — who shares his journey from developer at banks and insurance firms, through building and selling an open source project to Microsoft, to leading developer community work at scale.

Topics covered include:

The open source contribution funnel — from passive consumer to active contributor to project co-maintainer, and how to optimise each stage
Community leadership vs DevRel — the difference between volunteering for community and being paid to do it as your job
Giving vs taking — why it is okay to contribute to open source for selfish reasons, and when it is right to walk away to avoid burnout
GitHub Actions as a community case study — how a simple, composable automation concept grew to over 9,000 marketplace actions and outpaced older CI/CD ecosystems
Building a DevRel profile — content creation, presenting at meetups and conferences, podcasting, and streaming as ways to practise and demonstrate skills
Handling feedback and trolls — assuming best intent, recognising deliberate emotional DDoS tactics, and the accountability that comes with a large community
Positioning yourself for rare DevRel roles — building your network, specialising in a domain, and creating a body of work before the opportunity arises

V032 - Talking cloud and playing Among Us with the community

Sun, 08 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Chris hosts a community Among Us gaming stream with around twelve cloud professionals including Azure SMEs, cloud solution architects, developer relations leads, and community organizers. Between rounds, the group dives into substantive tech discussions covering several topics.

The Kubernetes debate takes center stage, sparked by Ben’s viral blog post about not using Kubernetes in production. The group explores when container orchestration adds unnecessary complexity, the trade-offs of serverless alternatives, and how Kubernetes has become a career-driven technology choice rather than always the right architectural fit.

Tales from the Real World – Helping veterans transition into IT and Learn Azure

Fri, 30 Jul 2021 18:30:00 +0000

In this Tales from the Real World episode, Chris talks with Dr. Keith McNally — a Marine Corps veteran turned college professor — about the Microsoft Software and Systems Academy (MSSA), a programme that has helped hundreds of transitioning military members gain Azure cloud skills and find employment in the IT industry.

What’s covered

The programme — how Microsoft and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University partnered to address 500,000 unfilled IT jobs in the US annually, running cohorts across 13–14 military bases from Virginia to Hawaii
Who it serves — why military veterans face a unique and stressful transition cliff when leaving a highly structured environment for the civilian workforce
Project-based learning (PBL) — how cohorts build real Azure solutions (including IoT Hub projects with robots and sensors) rather than studying in the abstract
Teaching people to think — the hardest shift for many veterans: moving from following a manual to reasoning about what-if scenarios, making recommendations, and briefing management
Soft skills — resume writing, LinkedIn networking, communicating technical knowledge, presenting to senior stakeholders; skills civilians take for granted
Azure curriculum — Windows Server, Azure cloud foundations, and hands-on IoT/cloud projects that produce a tangible portfolio
Learning lessons for everyone — the classroom as a safe space to fail, the importance of being open-minded, and why transitioning careers (military background or not) requires the same mindset shift

A deeply human episode about technology, learning, community, and making career change achievable for those who’ve served.

40 - Failed lawyer stumbles into tech - Agile from the trenches

Fri, 25 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Chris is joined by long-time friend Erin Davies — an Agile Coach who accidentally stumbled into tech after applying for what she thought was a buying and merchandising role at John Lewis. In this candid, wide-ranging conversation they cover:

Erin’s unconventional journey — from studying law and sociology at Warwick, to a student union sabbatical role, to landing an IT grad scheme at John Lewis without realising it was IT
Agile in the real world — what Agile coaching actually looks like on the ground, the gap between theory and practice, and why the people side of Agile is often harder than the process
Women in tech — honest anecdotes about being talked over at conferences, having a housemate insist she didn’t work in IT, and the subtle ways assumptions still shape experiences in the industry
Imposter syndrome — and how non-traditional backgrounds can become a genuine advantage
Content creation & podcasting — why Chris encourages everyone to just start, the lessons learned from 15+ months of Cloud With Chris, and Erin’s plans for her own podcast

An episode that’s as entertaining as it is insightful — grab a drink and enjoy.

Hybrid Cloud Update and Life as a Cloud Advocate

Thu, 10 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Chris Reddington is joined by Sarah Lean (Techielass), Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft, for a wide-ranging session covering two distinct topics.

Azure Arc & Hybrid Cloud

The first half focuses on Azure Arc — Microsoft’s solution for extending Azure management capabilities beyond the public cloud. Sarah explains how Azure Arc acts as a unified management plane for on-premises servers, Kubernetes clusters, data services, and (more recently) application services, regardless of whether they live in your own datacentre, AWS, or Google Cloud. Key capabilities discussed include:

37 - Your Career and Your Mental Health

Fri, 04 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Mental health and career development are more closely intertwined than people often appreciate. In this episode, Chris is joined by Glenn Small (Analytics Manager at AWS and long-time colleague from Microsoft) for an open and honest conversation about the pressures that working life places on mental wellbeing.

Both Chris and Glenn share personal stories. Glenn describes how unchecked work stress early in his career spiralled into severe anxiety, paranoia, and ultimately a breakdown — and how reaching out for support from trusted people and professional help was the turning point that allowed him to recover and build lasting resilience. Chris reflects on his own experiences, including a particularly difficult period during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns when social isolation compounded the everyday pressures of a demanding role.

V020 - Weekly Technology Vlog #20

Sun, 16 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to Weekly Vlog #20 — a celebration episode! Chris hits his 2021 goal of 500 YouTube subscribers way ahead of schedule (now at 506), then recaps one of the most content-rich weeks on the channel to date before diving into a bumper set of Azure and GitHub updates.

Cloud with Chris — A Record Week of Content

Azure Pipelines as Code: A detailed blog post and companion Cloud Drop walking through YAML pipeline best practices — branch policies, test stage separation, and the tangible benefits of treating CI/CD configuration as versioned code.
Azure in a Nutshell (devriel.io): A live session covering core Azure concepts aligned to the AZ-900 fundamentals syllabus.
Event-Driven Architecture with Azure Event Grid: A blog post and Cloud Drop exploring how to chain Azure Event Grid, Blob Storage, Storage Queues, and Azure Functions to build a reliable, event-driven file processing workflow — including a discussion on the difference between messages and events.
Cloud Lunch and Learn Marathon: Three pre-recorded sessions: Requirements, Design Patterns & Cloud Architecture Oh My, GitHub Actions for Static Sites, and Hugo + Azure Storage + Azure CDN for a cheap and performant site.
Mental Health Live Stream with Andrew Nathan and Will Owen: A candid, non-clinical conversation sharing personal experiences to encourage open dialogue around mental health in the tech community.
Cloud Drop with Jamie McGuire: Social Opinion — a SaaS platform for social media analytics and tweet scheduling — and Jamie’s journey from data science research into building a production service.

Azure Highlights

Azure Static Web Apps is now GA: The headline announcement of the week. Features include globally distributed CDN, built-in CI/CD workflows from GitHub, serverless API integration via Azure Functions, custom domains with free SSL certificates, OAuth authentication providers, role-based routing, and a VS Code extension for local development.
Azure Health Bot: Extended to additional regions and languages for pandemic response symptom checking.
Azure IoT Central GA: API improvements, dashboard updates, IoT Edge enhancements, and device connectivity events.
Azure API Management GA: New certificate validation policy, VS Code extension support for self-hosted gateway debugging, Dapr and validation policy support, and availability zone configuration in the portal.

GitHub Highlights

Security Keys for SSH Git Operations: Hardware security keys (e.g. YubiKey) can now authenticate SSH-based git operations on GitHub, extending the platform’s strong authentication story.
Video Uploads on GitHub: Attach MP4 or GIF videos directly to issues, pull requests, and comments from both desktop and mobile — a practical quality-of-life improvement for bug reproduction and open source collaboration.

A livestream on Mental Health - Mental Health Awareness Week

Thu, 13 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Mental health affects us all, yet stigma and misunderstanding remain barriers to open conversation. In this candid livestream recorded during Mental Health Awareness Week, Chris Reddington is joined by Andrew Nathan (Microsoft FastTrack for Azure) and Will Owen (formerly Microsoft, now Maersk) to share their personal mental health journeys.

Topics discussed in this stream include:

Personal experiences with depression, anxiety, and burnout in demanding tech roles
The impact of COVID-19 isolation on mental wellbeing and personal identity
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and medication as paths to recovery
The pressure of relocating internationally and proving your value at work
How overloading on work as a coping mechanism can become its own trap
Why removing the stigma around mental health still matters in the tech community

None of the participants are healthcare professionals. This is a peer-to-peer conversation intended to normalise mental health discussions in tech. If you are struggling, please reach out to a qualified professional.

25 - A conversation on Mental Health

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Mental health is a topic that carries real stigma, yet touches almost everyone at some point. In this episode, Chris Reddington sits down with Andrew Nathan — a former Australian Special Forces soldier — for an honest, unscripted conversation about their personal mental health journeys.

Andrew shares the impact of losing multiple friends to suicide, the devastating diagnosis at 35 that shattered his identity as an athlete and soldier, and how he found the courage to speak publicly about his experiences. Chris reflects on the challenges of living alone during the UK’s COVID-19 lockdown, the toll of isolation, and the months he stepped back from recording to focus on his own wellbeing.

V006 - Weekly Technology Vlog #6 (Recap, Coming Up and NEWS!)

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This episode goes live for the first time, capturing a more spontaneous format that Chris considers making permanent. He reflects on two significant releases from the prior week: the Cloud Gaming Notes debut with Lee Williams exploring game server hosting trends and Azure’s role in the gaming industry, and the mental health episode with Andrew Nathan — an honest, personal conversation about their own experiences that proved one of the most challenging but meaningful episodes to produce.

V005 - Weekly Technology Vlog #5 (My Setup, Architecture Patterns, Mental Health and NEWS)

Mon, 01 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This episode marks two significant milestones arriving later in the week: the debut of Cloud Gaming Notes, a monthly series exploring how cloud technology intersects with the gaming industry (launching with Lee Williams on game server hosting trends and Minecraft), and a candid mental health conversation with advocate Andrew Nathan — the first time Chris has spoken publicly about his own mental health experiences.

From Azure Updates, Azure Cloud Services Extended Support arrives in public preview with a new ARM-based deployment model, offering a migration path for classic Cloud Services workloads. Azure AD Premium customers will receive a 99.99% uptime SLA from April 1, reinforcing the critical importance of cloud identity as a security boundary. Resource instance rules for Azure Storage enter public preview, enabling managed-identity-based access restrictions for resources that cannot be isolated through virtual network service endpoints. The Azure Architecture Center’s January digest includes updated guidance on performance efficiency and scalability monitoring within the Well-Architected Framework, key and secret management best practices, and AKS day-two operational considerations for cluster upgrades. Peter de Tender’s Azure DevOps blog post explains service connections and service principals in the context of Azure DevOps pipelines. On the GitHub engineering side, two posts cover the canary-stage deployment process for github.com and the JavaScript optimisations — including lazy loading and CPU usage reduction — behind the fast GitHub homepage.

4 - Hackathons

Sun, 12 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Hackathons are a powerful accelerator for learning, innovation, and community building — but what does it actually take to participate in, organize, or mentor at one? In this episode, Chris is joined by Maria Vrabie, an experienced hackathon participant, organizer, and mentor with a background at Microsoft.

They explore the full spectrum of hackathon formats — from university weekend events and charity hack days to corporate open hacks run with enterprise customers. Maria shares candid stories from both sides of the organizer table, including the chaos of catering for hundreds of tired developers on a Sunday morning!