2025 was wild. I wrapped up 2024 with OpenSauced getting acquired by the Linux Foundation, which meant I was job hunting in late fall/early winter. My network came through for me and I landed at Pomerium in January.
From App Dev to Infra and Security
January 13th marked my first day at Pomerium as a Developer Advocate. I'd had DevRel tendencies since my days at dev.to, but this was my first official title as a DevRel. They always say you're doing the thing before you're doing the thing and I think that's spot on. People over the past five years have always assumed I was DevRel until I let them know that I was actually full-time on engineering.
Anyway, I went from being an app dev to working at Pomerium, a company whose main product is an identity-aware proxy (IAP). Completely out of my wheelhouse, but I was up for the challenge.
I'd talked to some people who said getting into security was a solid move right now, and they were right. I think the main thing that had me a bit nervous was, what if no one wants to hear a talk from me since this was new territory for me.
Hello MCP
Then in May, everything shifted. I had heard about the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and then I saw Angie Jones mention on LinkedIn that she was speaking at the inaugural MCP Dev Summit in San Francisco. I brought it up internally, saying we should probably attend and I even submitted a talk as the CFP was still open. That conversation kicked off everything that came after.
I think my CEO had also brought up MCPs and then all of a sudden we were securing MCPs as well. For a TLDR: an IAP operates at layer seven in the network stack, commonly known as the application layer, and for the most part that is HTTP, where remote MCP servers live. There were too many talks they wanted to do so they spilt over onto The Context (the MCP Dev Summit's online stream) which is where I gave my talk.
I also suggested we attend the AI World Fair, so we ended up grabbing a booth there and met all kinds of people interested in AI including MCP. I also got to attend a couple workshops including one from the WorkOS people (Nick and Zack), where we dove into Mastra.
And of course it was great to see old co-workers and friends.
Conference Circuit
2025 was my biggest year for talks. I gave somewhere between 15 and 20 talks across different conferences. BlackHat USA was cool as I'd never been to Vegas before. I was a little stressed before my talk as the venue was massive and I was having trouble finding the location for my talk, but in the end, I made it. Maybe a bit sweaty lol.
I also got to meet a friend of mine, Carmen, irl finally!
I had multiple appearances at SREday, wrapping it up at the Microsoft Reactor campus where I think I gave my best version of that talk.
My main talk evolved throughout the year: "Agentic Access: OAuth Gets You In, Zero Trust Keeps You Safe." Different versions for different audiences, but the core message stayed consistent.
One talk that I was a little nervous for was on Zero Trust and Kubernetes (K8s). I'm still very new to K8s, so I wasn't sure I was going to be able to pull it off. I got my demo working at the last minute which definitely helped with stress levels. At the beginning of my talk, I asked if there were any K8s experts in the room to which I think two thirds of the audience raised their hands.
The talk ended up going really well and I asked some of the audience if I explained the concepts well and they said I did, so I felt really good about that. This was at All Things Open and I got roped into co-hosting the Whiskey Web and Whatnot podcast for a couple episodes as well as being a guest myself. Thanks Robbie for having me!
There's no point going through the whole list of talks, but my last in-person talk was the MCP Dev Summit in London which was really cool. Part of my demo didn't work but I think I recovered gracefully. You be the judge.
Again it was great hanging with some awesome people.
People always say this, but it's 100% true. Getting to meet people in person at all these conferences is the real motivation. Obviously there's speaking obligations, but it's a cheat code to hang with friends as well as people you may have never had the chance to chat with irl.
Community Recognition
In early June, I became a GitHub Star. The community nominates people for this, and honestly, I didn't realize how few there were. As of writing this, there are only 88 stars on the planet. Pretty cool.
One of the best perks? GitHub flew me out to GitHub Universe in October. I got to hang with other stars including people I'd known for years but never met in person, like Santosh Yadav and Corbin Crutchley. We grabbed dinner together and it was great finally meeting them face to face.
I also became a Microsoft MVP, which was really cool. It definitely feels great to be recognized.
Writing and Building
I published 42 articles in 2025. December alone was 19 articles as I did the Advent of AI 2025 challenge, documenting my daily experiences with Goose.
Here's some of the stuff I built:
- dev.to MCP server
- Pimp My Ride MCP server
- Pomerium's MCP app demo which is essentially an MCP client and it's not really a demo anymore since we use it internally.
- TypeScript MCP template to help others spin up their own MCP servers faster
- ChatGPT apps template
Guest Spots and Streaming
I was a guest on some podcasts this year, including the freeCodeCamp podcast where I talked about turning open source into a job.
I also was on CodeTV's Web Dev Challenge with my partner in crime Shashi Lo!
It was another great year of live streaming at nickyt.live. I'm honestly always surprised how I land quality guests.
I also started the Pomerium live stream! This interview with Den (an old co-worker) was one of my favourites.
I also continued doing the 2 Full 2 Stack live stream on the Certified Fresh Events YouTube channel. Brian Rinaldi (@remotesynth) had invited me to do the live stream there a couple years ago, and it was always a blast. Sponsors dried up though, and I think it became less and less fun for Brian as the sponsorships disappeared. It was the right decision, but still sad to see it end.
My Newsletter
My newsletter One Tip a Week had a great year. I started with 122 subscribers at the beginning of the year and ended with 343. Pretty solid steady growth. June was huge, adding 100 new subscribers (shoutout to Cassidy Williams for the boost). Engagement stayed solid: 53.3% open rate, 9.2% click-through rate.
The key was keeping it simple. One tip per week, building up a backlog so there's no weekly pressure. The backlog of issues was key as it doesn't feel like a chore (like my old newsletter did).
Community Growth
I don't usually monitor follower counts, but they've all been on the rise including hitting 125K followers on dev.to in early December which I think is pretty cool.
Looking Back
2025 was about finding my footing in a completely new domain which I think I did really well. The learning curve was steep and I'm still learning, but it's been a lot of fun. And I gotta say it felt really good being recognized by the community.
Looking Ahead to 2026
Heading into 2026, it's definitely more AI, security, conference talks and good times.
If you want to stay in touch, all my socials are on nickyt.online
Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash
Top comments (2)
It was lovely reading your year in review. It was very motivational! I also recognized a few people from your photos!!!
You are doing great work, and you are an amazing person. Keep shining!!
Thanks for the kind words Elef and happy holidays!