Year in Review, 2019
Tags: me, yearinreview
Published: 2020-01-05 07:55:16

---
title: Year in Review, 2019
published: true
date: 2019-12-31 00:00:31 UTC
tags: Me,Year in Review
canonical_url: https://theburningmonk.com/2019/12/year-in-review-2019/
---

As the curtain draws on 2019, here’s my year in numbers:

- 70 blog posts
- 1,500,000 views across all my posts
- 1,300 new subscribers to my newsletter
- 2,200 new students to my video courses
- 31 conference talks in 17 cities
- 6 podcast appearances
- 4 webinars
- 4 chalk talks @ re:invent
- 10 apps published to the Serverless Application Repository
- 1830 contributions to 17 OSS projects
- helped 23 clients in 11 cities

## New career, new country

The biggest changes for me this year is that I left full-time employment behind and started a new career as an independent. I have been very fortunate to have worked with many smart people as an independent consultant thus far. My clientele includes both stealth-mode startups and large enterprises, and spans across many industries and geolocations. It’s been a blast, and I have learnt so much in the process.

If you are looking for help with your serverless project, please [**check out my**  **consulting services**](https://theburningmonk.com/hire-me/) and get in touch.

I would also like to thank my friends at [Lumigo](https://lumigo.io/), whom I’m also working with as a Developer Advocate. They have empowered me to help the serverless community in so many ways. Together we have published tons of content, but also many tools and open source projects such as the [lumigo-cli](https://github.com/lumigo-io/lumigo-CLI) and SAR apps to help you manage your AWS environment – [lambda-janitor](https://serverlessrepo.aws.amazon.com/applications/arn:aws:serverlessrepo:us-east-1:374852340823:applications~lambda-janitor), [async-custom-metrics](https://serverlessrepo.aws.amazon.com/applications/arn:aws:serverlessrepo:us-east-1:374852340823:applications~async-custom-metrics), [auto-subscribe-log-group-to-arn](https://serverlessrepo.aws.amazon.com/applications/arn:aws:serverlessrepo:us-east-1:374852340823:applications~auto-subscribe-log-group-to-arn) and many more.

Click **[here](https://theburningmonk.com/open-source/)** to see all my open source projects.

On a more personal front, I have also relocated to Amsterdam! It’s a lovely city and very easy to commute everywhere (especially if you get a bike). I still travel to London on a regular basis for work, and thankfully the Schiphol airport is one of the best and most efficient airports in the world! Happy to share some of my experience with life in Amsterdam if any of you are considering moving here. It’s a great place to live.

## New video course

I published a new video course this year – **[Complete guide to AWS Step Functions](https://theburningmonk.thinkific.com/courses/complete-guide-to-aws-step-functions)**. If you want to learn about orchestrating workflows using serverless technologies then check it out. I have recently updated the course to include all the latest features from re:invent 2019 and the course is on half-price sale.

![](https://theburningmonk.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/img_5e0167ee450b0.png)

p.s. big thanks to the one and only _Jeff Barr_ for giving it a shout out!

{% twitter 1210956983051800577 %}

## Goodbye ads and hello Patreon

As for this blog, I have been able to do away with ads thanks to my Patreon supporters:

_Andre Silva, Boseok In, Dome Jantaphat, Ebru Cucen, Hrafnkell Palsson, Joe Kearney, Jon Barber, Jonathan Kosgei, Luis Gutierrez, Marko @ Serverless Life, Sal DiStefano, Shawn MacIntyre, Will Saunders, Yinan Xue_

If you have enjoyed my posts over the years, I would really appreciate your support. In return, all my patrons would get free access to my Step Functions course (above). And higher tier supporters can also get access to my private Slack channel and monthly 1-2-1 mentoring sessions.

### See you in 2020

I’m speaking at a few events around Europe in January and February, hope to see you there!

- Jan 9th – [AWS user group meetup in Amsterdam](https://www.meetup.com/aws-ams/events/267133094/) (only 7 spots left!)
- Jan 24th – [ServerlessDays Belfast](https://belfast.serverlessdays.io/)
- Jan 31st – [AWS Community Day Nordics](https://awscommunitynordics.org/communityday/)
- Feb 5th – [EventSourcing 2020](https://dddeurope.com/2020/eventsourcing/) (part of DDD Europe)
- Feb 13th – [ServerlessDays Cardiff](https://cardiff.serverlessdays.io/)
- Feb 19th – [Frontend Developer Love](https://frontenddeveloperlove.com/)
- Feb 21st – [ServerlessDays Rome](https://rome.serverlessdays.io/) where I will deliver the opening keynote

That’s it from me. Wish you all a happy new year and a successful 2020!

Liked this article? Support me on Patreon and get direct help from me via a private Slack channel or 1-2-1 mentoring.

[![](https://theburningmonk.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Screenshot-2019-10-19-at-11.44.09.png)](https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=905909)

 ![](https://theburningmonk.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/img_5dab0c477fc72.png)

Hi, my name is **Yan Cui**. I’m an **[AWS Serverless Hero](https://aws.amazon.com/developer/community/heroes/yan-cui/)** and the author of [**Production-Ready Serverless**](https://bit.ly/production-ready-serverless). I specialise in rapidly transitioning teams to serverless and building production-ready services on AWS.

Are you struggling with serverless or need guidance on best practices? Do you want someone to review your architecture and help you avoid costly mistakes down the line? Whatever the case, I’m here to help.

You can contact me via [Email](mailto:theburningmonk.com), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/theburningmonk) and [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/theburningmonk/).

[See my consulting services.](https://theburningmonk.com/hire-me)

The post [Year in Review, 2019](https://theburningmonk.com/2019/12/year-in-review-2019/) appeared first on [theburningmonk.com](https://theburningmonk.com).

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