Akuity: Next Chapter In My Argo Journey

If the search optimization algorithm suggested you this blog then you are probably passionate about the Argo project and looking for a new release description and some other project update. This is indeed an update, it’s still related to Argo but this time it’s also my personal update.

Who Am I?

My name is Alexander Matyushentsev, but I prefer to go just by Alex. I’ve been working on pretty much all Argo projects since day one and still enjoy doing so. This journey started six years ago in 2016. I’ve accepted a job offer from an early startup Applatix and joined an awesome team. Together we were trying to revolutionize the developer experience and dramatically improve productivity by leveraging containerization. We had a ton of fun, made a bunch of mistakes of course but also built some cool stuff. The outcome of multiple tries and experiments was Argo Workflows. An open-source project that today helps hundreds of organizations to orchestrate resource-consuming operations on top of Kubernetes and powers an endless number of ETL and machine learning pipelines.

The team achievements and Kubernetes experience didn’t go unnoticed and in 2018 Applitix has joined Intuit. In case you don’t know Intuit is a US-based fintech company that provides renown products such as TurboTax and Quickbooks and serves more than 100 million customers around the world. Our mission was to help Intuit adopt Kubernetes and harness the power of the public cloud. I and my colleague Jesse Suen have focused on delivering awesome developer experiences. As a result of this effort, two additional projects joined the Argo family: Argo CD — a continuous deployment tool that follows GitOps methodology, and Argo Rollouts — advanced deployment controller that enables progressive delivery in Kubernetes.

So What Is Happening Right Now?

So far this article looks like an intro to a farewell letter, doesn’t it? It’s partially true. It has been four years since I’ve joined Intuit. It has been a wonderful journey and I cannot express how grateful I am to my teammates and everyone with whom I’ve had the pleasure to work with. It’s time for my next journey and I’m saying bye to Intuit however, I’m refusing to say bye to Argo.

I’m happy to announce that I’m joining Akuity — the company founded by Argo creators Jesse Suen and Hong Wang. Akuity is 100% committed to keeping Argo thriving and making it the best Kubernetes tool ever. The Argo project remains my passion and is a big part of my life. I believe that joining Jesse and Hong is an incredible opportunity for me to focus on the Argo project and contribute all my time to make it better.

I hope that this change is good news for Argo as well. The original Argo team is together again! We no longer need to schedule zoom meetings and can have a brainstorming session on the spot. This will definitely help to move quicker and improve the quality of all projects under the Argo umbrella.

Stay tuned! We all are extremely excited about Argo’s future and working hard to surprise you and go beyond your expectations!