An Honest Assessment of Myself (From AI, Not Me!)

Attention

Most people avoid criticism. I did the opposite.

I asked AI to give me an unfiltered assessment of myself—no ego, no politics, no spin.

The verdict?
Brutally honest. Occasionally funny. Sometimes uncomfortable. And annoyingly accurate.

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Interest

Here’s a sample of what AI had to say about me:
➡️ “You’re a strategist, not a coder.”
➡️ “Your work is invisible until it fails.”
➡️ “You balance cost, speed, scalability, and security daily (and it’s as fun as it sounds).”

At first, I laughed. Then I winced. Then I realized: these reflections weren’t just true about me—they captured the reality of Enterprise Architecture itself.

Take a few examples from my own work:

• Strategic Thinking > Firefighting
  At my organization, I’ve focused on long-term positioning instead of chasing today’s quick fixes.

  One example: When evaluating cloud solutions, I resisted the temptation to optimize for immediate convenience. Instead, I pushed for designs that avoided vendor lock-in — using standards and portable integration patterns so we wouldn’t be boxed in later. That foresight preserved flexibility and negotiating power.

  Another: Rather than cranking out one-off reports to satisfy immediate demands, I governed and steered a global data strategy. By aligning models, pipelines, and governance, we built a foundation leaders can trust. It took more effort upfront, but it prevented the chaos of conflicting numbers and gave us enterprise-wide insights.

• Governance Without Bureaucracy
  Governance doesn’t have to mean red tape. When we set up the global architecture governance forum and introduced RACI models, it wasn’t about adding hurdles—it was about speeding up decision-making and giving teams clarity.

• Truth Over Comfort
  During our legacy-to-modernization discussions, I had to say the unpopular thing: leaving old platforms “as-is” might save time now, but it would cripple us in the future. That wasn’t the message people wanted—but avoiding millions in wasted investment was worth the discomfort.

• Long-Term Value > Short-Term Wins
  I’ve pushed for embedding AI-first practices into our daily workflows—from ServiceNow ticket generation to AI-powered FinOps analysis. It felt disruptive at first, but now AI is part of how we operate, saving time and boosting accuracy.

• Translation, Not Jargon
  Architecture diagrams and frameworks mean little if they stay abstract. My role has been to make them real.

  When we scaled our Kubernetes clusters globally, I didn’t tell leadership about “node classes, Ceph OSD tuning, or container orchestration.” Instead, I explained it as:

  • “This design keeps shipments moving even if a data center goes down.”
  • “This approach avoids millions in future cloud overspend.”
  • “This is how we make sure AI workloads don’t collapse when volume spikes.”

  That translation mattered. Engineers saw the technical depth, but executives saw customer impact, cost control, and resilience. That’s how EA avoids being “ivory tower” — by making architecture outcomes tangible.

Brutal Reflection (Straight from the AI)

Here’s the part that stung a little—but rang true:

• “You’re a strategist, not a coder.”
  Fair. My value isn’t in patching microservices; it’s in ensuring we don’t build the wrong thing to begin with.
• “Your work is invisible until it fails.”
  Exactly. Few people think about the hundreds of nodes, thousands of containers, terabytes of storage in our clusters—until something goes down. Then everyone remembers.
• “You balance cost, speed, scalability, and security daily.”
  Dead on. It’s a constant tension: FinOps pushing for efficiency, business demanding speed, tech needing scalability, and security reminding us of guardrails. Some days it’s a high-wire act—but it’s also what keeps us resilient.
• “You’re operations minded.”
  True—but that doesn’t mean I work in operations. My role isn’t to run systems day-to-day. It’s to design so operations can succeed: stable platforms, clean handoffs, and scale that doesn’t collapse under pressure. Operations runs the train; I make sure the tracks don’t crumble a year from now.

Desire

Why does this matter? Because Enterprise Architecture isn’t about me—it’s about protecting and enabling the whole organization.

• It prevents tomorrow’s crises before they start.
• It helps teams avoid reinventing the wheel (and duct-taping it badly).
• It gives leaders confidence that technology isn’t just aligned with strategy—it’s driving it.

But architecture doesn’t work in isolation. It only works because of the engineers, analysts, operators, and leaders who bring it to life. My role is to make sure their work scales, lasts, and connects to the bigger picture.

And that’s exactly what AI reminded me: sometimes the hardest truths about yourself are also the clearest truths about your role.

Action

So here’s my challenge to you:

If you asked AI to describe your values at work—what would it say? Would you agree with it? Would you want to read it?

A Little Humor Helps