Blog It Forward- Stephen Kringas

I was tagged by Anthony Bennett in his Blog It Forward post a few weeks back.  You can find out more about the challenge here and track it here.

Like Anthony this is my first blog on SCN after being a long time reader.

I’m Stephen Kringas and I have been working as a SAP consultant in Australia for the last 7 years.

Prior to working in SAP, my passion was snowboarding. I had been snowboarding since I was 15 and would save all my money each year to head over to USA or Canada for 3 months at time and do nothing but ride. It was an incredible part of my life being able to see great places such as California, Utah, Whistler, and Japan. However that endless winter dream finished after I’d sustained too many injuries over the years, including a broken thumb,  broken wrist, 2 knee reconstructions with the final straw being a fractured vertebrae. After that one I decided it was time to settle down and get real job

I started as a graduate at SAP Australia primarily focusing on Web Dynpro Java back in 2005. I am very grateful for getting the opportunity to work in SAP because I’ve been able to work with so many great people and have travelled to Hong Kong and USA for a couple of projects.

Anthony was a great help getting my career up and running, providing both technical and consulting skills over the years and also becoming a great mate. Since my WDJ days I’ve moved into WDA and more recently mobile development (mainly with the Kony/Sky Technologies platform)

Outside of work my other passion is my family; my wife Elisha and 2 kids, Oliver (nearly 3) and Victoria (1). Its been a rollercoaster ride this whole parenting thing but watching them grow up and learn new things is such a rewarding experience.

Below is a photo of me snowboarding in Canada which I still hang onto so I can relive the “glory” days

Which 5 things do you absolutely want to achieve in life?

• See the kiddies grow up and thrive

Just looking forward to seeing the kids go through each phase of their life….might want to skip the teenage years but the rest should be good

• Take a Jet Fighter for a spin in Russia

It was always a dream to be a fighter pilot and recently I found a Russian air force base where you can fly 4^th generation jets like the MIG-29 / Sukhoi  SU-27. Truly would be a once in a lifetime experience!

http://www.flymig.com/aircraft/

• Heli-board in Alaska

Would love to go heli-boarding in Alaska just to experience ridiculously long runs with deep powder….no jumps of course.

• Complete the family home

Currently we’re designing the dream family home here in Melbourne. Its ridiculous how many things need to be decided on, get approval for, and then to manage all the stuff. Its worse than organising a wedding!

• Retire and become a “Grey Nomad”

        Grab a caravan and travel around to Australia’s beautiful destinations while mingling with all the other “Oldies”

What 2 things do you like the least about working in IT?

• Documentation

Love the design and build phase of my work but have always hated doing documentation and have a horrible habit of putting it off until the very last minute

• Meetings

I don’t dislike all meetings;its just the ones that are really inefficient and could have been covered off in half the time. I’d just much rather be at my desk coding or doing something else more productive.

What 2 things do you like the most about working in IT?

• People

Over the years I’ve been lucky to have worked with some great people, not just from a technical perspective but also on a personal level. It just makes work that much more enjoyable and rewarding working on projects with a couple of mates while getting the job done.

• Problem solving and constantly learning new things

I got into IT originally because I loved problem solving; computers just happened to be the tools that I used. The other aspect I love about IT is the constant change meaning it never gets stale and there is always something new to learn. Often I think how great it would be to take a few months off just play with all the latests and greatest stuff because it can sometimes be difficult to experiment while working on your regular stuff.

I’ll pass the Blog It Forward baton to Praneel Kumar and Pran Bhas.

The questions for Praneel and Pran are:

• Share an interesting/funny story related to a project
• If you were not in your current position, what/where would you be and why?

Cheers,

Stephen