I'm going to be working on OpenFaaS full-time

by Alex Ellis

Update: I am still comitted to finding a way to work on OpenFaaS full-time, but the below is no longer accurate. See my LinkedIn profile for more.

I'm excited to announce that I'm going to be working full-time on OpenFaaS.

Over the past 12-months I've worked tirelessly on creating and growing OpenFaaS while also working full time at my day job at ADP. This arrangement has been working out well - allowing me to see the project grow and become successful. With that level of success people naturally started to challenge me and ask how I could sustain it.

And I started to think about how I could quit my "day job" and focus on OpenFaaS as a profession. My wife and family were very supportive of that idea and we looked into the obvious (and less obvious) options - like creating a company, joining a start-up, taking funding or starting out as a consultant. Most of these options focused on monetising the project in some way and in the end I decided to find a role that would mean I could focus on OpenFaaS as an Open Source project and making it as successful as possible.

And after many conversations, I decided that the Open Source Technology Center (OSTC) at VMware would be the best place for me to do that. This option makes sense because I will get to retain control of the project and the brand while collaborating alongside other Open Source leaders with expertise in the containers and virtualization field.

I'm going to be giving my time over to building OpenFaaS, leading our group of contributors and to supporting the growing community who have got behind our slogan: Serverless Functions Made Simple. I'm also looking forward to being part of the senior leadership team in VMware's OSTC and being even more active in the container and Cloud Native communities.

Pictured: Hallway track on OpenFaaS at Dockercon EU

I think this is going to be the right move for me and for the project. I want to thank my new colleagues for the warm welcome.

Follow me on Twitter @alexellisuk for more.

Visit the OpenFaaS website