DVT

Being unexpectedly retrenched recently, I started to notice the increase of profiles set to “OpenToWork” status and posts of many finding themselves in the same situation: No Work, Urgently Looking. Giants like Oracle, AWS and other seemingly flourishing enterprises let a large number of employees go. I empathize with each person brave enough to put themselves out there. Making themselves vulnerable in a cut-throat, cold unsympathetic world where money, status and power determines who is at the top of the food-chain. This message is to encourage you. Some are in this labyrinth for many month, even a year or two now. You’ve sent out application after application competing with others and now AI. Rejection upon rejection has left you doubting yourself, your self-worth and validity. It’s time for action and reclaiming your place and relevancy in society. A few weeks ago, I felt anxious and stressed about my situation. How could this happen to me! However, I got reminded of scripture that says “don’t worry about anything; on the contrary, make your requests known to God by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving”. This started a journey of well planted messages and discovering truths God tried to get through to me on several occasions. Checking YouTube for news updates, I landed on an insert that was my newsflash from God. The session spoke about what happens when Mama Eagle starts stirring the nest. Bottom-line, I have no control and needed to rest in the One who has full control. A few thoughts. Only you know the answers. Perhaps you veered off course from your initial dream. You took the comfortable road. Take a trip down memory lane. Read references you received and, read the achievements section in your CV. Whichever fire is rekindled in you; reconnect with it. It’s never too late to turn off at the exit you should have taken. Perhaps you’re meant to start your own business or make a career move. Are the warning lights indicating that you need to take stock of where you are really at? Where have hasty decisions in favour of comfort led you? Did you compromise? The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given situation. Is this a wake-up call to point out compromises or wrong choices? We should ask ourselves: “What does life want from me?” Material things, pleasure and power eventually elude us all. Did we live our innate passion? When the final curtain call comes, will it close on regret or a life fully lived? We leave behind memories that will be remembered long after we're gone. In everything, we can turn around and get back on track. It’s never too late. Yes, sacrifices will need to be made. The human spirit always triumphs. We are resilient. You are not defined or limited by someone’s rejection of you. You were never meant to walk with chickens. You were meant to soar. Change your narative about yourself. Set boundaries and show up tomorrow. Don’t give up on the brink of your breakthrough.

“In our latest State of AI research, among about 2,000 respondents, one of the practices with the highest correlations to value was reimagining workflows end to end, not just dropping AI tools into existing workflows.” Robert Levin, McKinsey.

This is a massively personal post - so if you don't like thats stuff - feel free to give it a skip Five years ago, my life looked very different. At the end of my career in finance, I was involved in a business venture. On paper, it had all the ingredients of success. Unfortunately, a combination of poor decisions (some were mine - but not all), bad moves, and some underhanded behaviour (none being me) ultimately led to the collapse of the business. The fallout was brutal. Financially, I took a massive hit. I lost everything I had built up over years and much more and found myself in a hole deep enough that starting over felt overwhelming. But it was the only choice I had and sometimes life forces you to reinvent yourself. That experience encouraged me to make a change out of the finance industry and into software development — my real passion - a move that, at the time, probably looked irrational to many people around me, because I went from "executive-live" CA(SA) to a software intern. From the "MD" to code monkey 🙈 I was fortunate that DVT gave me an opportunity when I arguably had no business getting one. There was definitely some luck in timing. But after that came years of hard work: - Late nights. - Imposter syndrome. - Relentless focus and determination. - Planning. - Sacrifice. - Sticking to the plan even when progress felt painfully slow. And what was it all for? Today, I paid the last of my debts - Completely debt free. And honestly? I’m incredibly proud of that. Not because the journey was perfect — it absolutely wasn’t — but because rebuilding yourself from the ground up is one of the hardest things a person can do. I also think we don’t celebrate these milestones enough. People often celebrate the promotion, the new car, the big business win… But becoming financially free again after losing almost everything? That deserves a moment too. Most importantly, I want to thank the people who supported me along the way — friends, family, mentors, colleagues, and especially DVT . Without that opportunity, I genuinely don’t know where I would be today. Five years later, I’m in a career I love, building things I care about, growing again, and more fulfilled professionally than I’ve ever been. Sometimes your biggest setback forces you onto the path you were actually meant to take. Now on to financial independence 😎 *Pic is not of me or mine BUT its how I feel right now - looking at the world that sits before me - with so much to experience.

Warning: ⚠️ ‼️ After my open to work post, I had three scamming attempts. The potential recruiters wanted me to click a link in an email and in LinkedIn message. The LinkedIn message had a warning of potential harmful content. When I posted about scamming, the one deleted their profile. A Molly Linda. I had to recover my gmail account. Do not provide your CV unless it’s a legitimate recruiter. Your LinkedIn profile should be enough. If an email do not have official branding - red flag The attached were those looking to make a quick buck by getting me to go to a contact of theirs who is a professional CV writer. Make sure your security settings are high.

CSV Specialist | Marburg, Germany | 3 to 4 Months | On-site For a regulated project in Marburg, Germany, we are looking for an experienced CSV Specialist for a 3 to 4 month on-site assignment. Requirements: • Strong CSV experience in pharma, biotech, medtech or healthcare • Solid knowledge of GxP, GAMP 5, FDA 21 CFR Part 11 and EU Annex 11 • Experience with ERP, LIMS, QMS or MES systems • Fluent English, German is an advantage Start: Immediate availability preferred Interested? Send your profile via direct message. #CSV #Validation #PharmaJobs #Biotech #Marburg #ContractOpportunity

I’ve noticed many posts of people who got retrenched, lost their jobs, are without a job for a long time or facing job losses due to various reasons. It sounds cliched to say “you will find a job”. Don’t lose heart. Sometimes you have to do more than just think outside the box, you need to step out of it. Look at your secondary skills that laid dormant for a long time. What talent do you have that is mainly a hobby? Be open to opportunities you weren’t previously open to. It may look like a detour or outside of your comfort zone, but it leads you to your next goal. Desperate times, call for intentional change of direction. It’s difficult to get up everyday and face the world. Another rejection or no feedback on job applications. If life throws you a curveball, change your batting strategy. You are not obsolete. You are not invisible. You have a lot to offer. Don’t give up on the brink of your breakthrough.

My ‘open to work’ notification barely turned on, 3 “potential” recruiters reached out with opportunities. Google warning: ‼️ LinkedIn scammers are increasingly using ATS (Applicant Tracking System) compliance as a "hook" to manipulate job seekers into paying for fraudulent resume services. They often impersonate recruiters and leverage professional acronyms like CPRW (Certified Professional Resume Writer) to build false authority. I got: - a fake watered down job spec (copied and pasted from another listing and changed (one I happened to see via a legit recruiter)) - No application site to go to - Vague details - Urgency to have the CPRW sort my profile out before the client can interview me. Considering the person just told me the client won’t see me. 💁♀️🤦♀️ They threw the hook of my profile having issues. So I asked what it was. Then the real reason came out that if I do not have my profile fixed, the client cannot see me as a result of filters on ATS (Applicant Tracking System). I need a CPRW (Certified Professional Resume Writer). It’s urgent so I must have it done for the first round of the interview process to go forward. Last time I looked a legitimate recruiter will post a proper ad with a legitimate link to an application site and then reach out without asking for the aforementioned if a candidate fits the description. No one could prove their 3rd party CPRW can be checked via the Professional Association of Resume Writers and Career Coaches (PARWCC). So I asked how a recruiter like them saw my profile. That after barely 5 minutes of being open. Then the tone changed. Unfortunately, some job seekers fall prey to these predators. They take people’s money, leave them with a poorly watered down AI profile and no job or opportunity. This behaviour causes job seekers to question recruiters. This goes back to my earlier post of job platforms vetting recruiters with a tick mark as being verified. How do these scammers get away with this. Time to name them. It’s time that someone does what #scammerpayback #nanobaiter #TekkitRealm and #Kitboga do. Let’s not start with dating scammers using LinkedIn. #Pierogi #ATS #CPRW #TalentAcquisition #Hiring #RecruitmentScams

Did anyone in the region of Eastern Cape, South Africa feel a tremor after a 5.7 magnitude earthquake at a depth of 10km struck around lunchtime today?

"AI tech debt = future cost from present shortcuts" I watch a lot of content from IBM, and one of their recent pieces on AI technical debt stuck with me. They start with the usual idea of technical debt in software - shortcuts, trade-offs, things you "fix later." Nothing new there. But the shift into AI is where it gets interesting. In traditional systems, you can usually isolate problems. A bug lives somewhere; you track it down, you fix it. It's messy, but it's contained. With AI, that containment starts to fall apart. They reference the idea of "Change Anything, Change Everything", originally from early research at Google led by D. Sculley, and it captures the problem better than most definitions. A small tweak to a prompt, a model version, a dataset… and suddenly downstream outputs shift in ways that are hard to predict, harder to trace, and sometimes invisible until they've already been acted on. That's where the debt builds. Quietly. The practical advice in the video is actually very simple: don't hardcode prompts, evaluate everything, version your models properly, and treat testing as non-negotiable rather than something you'll "get to later." None of this is complicated on its own. It just requires discipline early, when the pressure is usually to move fast. The uncomfortable bit is that these problems rarely show up where they start. They show up later, in decisions, dashboards, automated workflows, far enough downstream that they look like something else entirely. And by then, they're expensive. Worth paying attention to if you're building anything even vaguely AI-shaped. Video: What is AI Technical Debt? Key Risks for Machine Learning Projects ( https://lnkd.in/dHvifPne )