About Me

Hi, I'm Matthew Gonzalez Nieves. I'm 25, based in Rotterdam, and I've been in IT for just over five years.

I started on the servicedesk and worked my way up to Cloud IT Consultant. Every step gave me new things to figure out, and so far I haven't run out.

These days I work mostly with Microsoft Azure, Intune, Microsoft 365, macOS, iOS and Windows. I can find my way around Android and Linux too, but only inside Azure or Intune. I don't use either one privately, so once I step outside the management portals I'm basically a tourist.

The longer-term goal I'm working toward is Microsoft MVP. For me that's mostly a reason to keep sharing what I pick up. Most of what ends up on this site comes out of hobby projects in Azure: stuff I build for myself, get stuck on, and eventually get working. When something's interesting enough I want to blog about it or record a video, and publish the source code so anyone can run it themselves.

I'm a fan of open source in general, and I lean on it where I can. A local LLM instead of a hosted one. Self-hosting apps I'd otherwise pay someone else to run. A lot of that comes down to privacy: if my data can live on my own hardware, it usually will.

To keep pushing myself, I'm starting a Bachelor's in Business IT & Management soon. Hopefully it sharpens what I already know and nudges me into areas I haven't spent enough time on yet.

Outside of work, the gym eats a decent chunk of my week. I train about three times a week and mostly do powerlifting. When I'm not lifting, I game a lot. Single-player mostly, on PC and PlayStation, and yes, I'm one of those people who chases the platinum. I also sim race now and then, watch football whenever Feyenoord plays, grab a beer on a terrace with friends, and do city trips with my partner.

So that's the rough picture: work, study, side projects, gym, games, football, the occasional city trip. If any of that sounds like your kind of thing, or there's a topic you want to dig into, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.