Another week gone…

Chuqui 3.0: Reality sets in…:

And on the new job front: one interview this week, which I thought went pretty well (I’m a bit rusty….); intriguing opportunity, so we’ll see how it goes. had a couple of other folks want to talk, but they were all at OSCON (and I wasn’t! whine), so it was hard to get things started.

End of another week, start of the next.

One big thing that happened was I sat down with my management and we talked over my leaving and the transition of what I do (and know) to the rest of the team and the new teams being brought in to help shoulder the load and move things forward. We both agreed that my original term date made things tight, and they had a couple of special projects they really wanted me involved in, and so with a little persuasion, I agreed to extend my time @ Apple a bit longer. The current term date is now 9/15, but I expect to be able to take a week (maybe 2) of vacation during that time, and come back for a special project the week of 9/11 that I can’t say anything about now…. This actually is a change that wins for everyone, because the teams and I have more time to make sure the landing is soft and everything transfers cleanly, and I don’t have to eat vacation and savings and etc looking for a job, so it wasn’t TOO hard to convince me. And we all agree that the work schedule I’m keeping is working, so my stress levels are happy, too (well, not today; woke up to a bunch of pre-WWDC stuff I’m trying to untangle, but we’ll get there). Hey, how often can you go public that you’re looking for a job, and your director thinks he got a great bargain out of the arrangement? (heh).

I gotta say everyone’s been very positive and professional and pro-active, and it’s made it easy to want to help make this transition a success. I’m a little surprised at how quiet things have been from elsewhere @ Apple about possible positions (I know my current group wants me to get over all this and come home, but I just don’t think that’s in my best interest, or even, frankly, the project. I’ve been very impressed with how the architect who’s taking over has been taking a fresh look at things and coming up with new ideas and options; never underestimate the potential advantage of having a fresh set of eyes look at things). I continue to wander the halls of Apple with a signboard saying “will work for food”, but so far, it’s been quiet. I have to admit, part of me is ready to join the real world, anyway, so I’m not really pushing it too hard, either. But there’s been a lot of “don’t know what we’ll do without you”, but very little “so let me convince you to stay”, other than out of my current group… but while I appreciate what my management’s doing, I still think it’s best to follow the course already set….). there are definitely areas I’d enjoy working (Aperture, say, and I’ve always said I wanted to be a product manager/evangelist some day…)

In any event, I had a second interview this week (also through a direct contact by a friend who works there; folks, if there’s one thing you need to realize about the industry, it’s that contacts and networking matters; The more you let your company stuff you in a cave, the more they load you with extra work so you stop spending time with friends and getting out and meeting people, the harder it’ll be for you to find that Next Job. And don’t think companies aren’t more than happy to encourage you to cloister yourself and “go monk” for them; just don’t expect them to pay you extra to do it.

A second thing I’m realizing: if you don’t keep working on updating and improving your skill set, you’re dead. I’ve always been serious about figuring out the next stuff and getting my hands in it, and despite that, I feel a bit behind the 8-ball on some stuff. I’m working to pick it up again. This is another place where companies can really screw you over if you aren’t careful; if they aren’t willing to help you develop your career, make sure you do it yourself — if you can’t justify to them going to conferences, and can’t afford the time or money to go on your own, then commit to putting time into studying things on your own. Buy books on things and study them; or sit down and spend time with places like Yahoo Developer Network. A few samples can make a big difference.

This is especially true in the web space, where things are moving very fast. If you’re in the web space at all — you need to have a portfolio, just like a graphic designer or a tech writer might; and that portfolio should show off your ability to do page building and web techniques. I don’t (that’s going to change), and I feel like it’s a big missing piece; saying you can deal with javascript and/or ajax and/or css is one thing, having pages you’ve built they can look at is a huge advantage. All the stuff I have easily visible is so 2000, and I think that hurts. If you do this over time; when you decide it’s time, you can have it, or you can stop to build it. I’d rather have it.

And it’s important to remember: the stuff you do for your current employer may not be usable as a portfolio. And increasingly on the web space, it’s about good code and usability and interactivity (both javascript and ajax), so screen dumps of stuff inside someone else’s firewall aren’t that useful, and may violate your company IP rules to boot. So build yourself stuff you’re proud of that people can poke at, even if they’re a set of one page samples.

Now, having said all that… the second interview had some plusses and minuses. I thought I did pretty well on the technical and general market strategy of the company, but I also sat down with their VP of marketing for a while, and that may have been one of the worst interviews I’ve had in my life — we got off into customer targets and web designs and the such, and while I’d looked into the company and what it was doing well enough, I didn’t know the overall market well enough for my tastes, and I felt many of many answers were either too simplistic or plain old wrong. really not happy with that one, and it was a lack of research into the space the company lived in, as opposed to the work the company was doing. Goes to show you never can do too much research, and you never know what they may be interested in knowing. Now, for the position I was talking to them about, that might not be fatal, but I don’t think I gave the impression I wanted to.

Have one phone interview going next week, and two others pending being scheduled. Other stuff seems to be bubbling, also. When I sat down and started thinking thinking about this, I made a list of companies that I wanted to target (“I want to work for YOU!”), and it’s nice that a number of those are responding with some interest.

(What are those companies? While I’m being discrete on who I’m talking to, I don’t mind saying that the companies on my original “A” list were Flickr, Yahoo, O’Reilly and Associates, Netflix, and Six Apart; they all were doing interesting things, seemed to have a positive work culture, and used technologies that my skill set seemed compatible with.. I realize, typing this, that one other company I’ve been keeping an eye on for a while should have been on that list: Socialtext. and I’ll remedy that later today…. None of these, if you read my blog, are probably huge surprises. )

There are other companies I’d put on that “A” list, but they’re java shops and I’m just digging in, so for programming oriented things, I’m not a good candidate (yet). And I have a list of companies I’m not pursuing right now, either, but it’s short. One is Adobe, both because of the way they treated Laurie before she left and the noise I keep hearing about how well the Macromedia merger is going from the people we know there (the phrase that pays: door to door). The other is Google; that might warrant it’s own blog post at some point, but for now, I’ll just say that I’ve talked to enough folks who are working there or who’ve interviewed there to feel that it’s culture just isn’t one I’m compatible with. and I’ll leave it there). One company I had on that list, Sun, I’ve decided to pull off, and I”ll talk about THAT when I have a chance, too, but there are some signs that maybe the worst of the pain is over and they aren’t going to be the next SGI…. more later.

What am I applying for? that’s been an interesting question I’m still figuring out, beyond “looks interesting. I think I’m qualified” — but it’s included everything from really serious PHP/Perl Geek type positions to MySQL/DBA positions to operations type work to engineering manager, and occasionally off into product manager, and a few resumes into marketing-oriented positions where I think my background is particularly strong. I’ve had some people ask me if I was interested in professional services, which I’m honestly just starting to think through. It might be an interesting shift in focus. I might have to start wearing Dockers more often…

I’m trying to stay south-bay local right now, with Caltrain and city-based jobs for the right situation; some of that is preference, some of that is the logistics of life. had some feelers from other places (portland, for one. I expect if we do take a trip, I might wander up and talk to them a bit further). The only real reason we’re hesitating on relocation is that we’re just finishing up landscaping (and trying to push the internal remodelling forward) on the house, and I’ll be damned if I don’t get to live and ENJOY what we’ve done here. I don’t want to be someone who moves as soon as it’s finished to start on the next house (but I will, for the right offer).

Work has been a combination of trying to push key projects forward to points where I can disconnect from them; finished up one key special project (I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill myself); afternoons have generally been in a room with the teams lecturing on the project. the 30,000 foot view took about 7 hours, and we’re now going through in more detail about all of the functionality (and what I see as warts, things to improve, areas I’ve flagged for future features and improvements, etc…) — as well as getting all of that in the bug database. I dunno about you, but four hours of lecture a day is draining, not leaving a lot of energy for blogging or stuff, so the imaging reality blog got put on hold, as did the stuff I’m doing after that. Hopefully, this week will be a bit easier, since I think we’ll be mostly done with the long lecture sessions towards the end of the week.

So, things are moving, in generally positive ways. It’s nice to know I can attract an interview, and nobody’s outright rejected me yet (and I haven’t rejected anyone, either). The stress is down a bunch, the weight is down a bit, and it looks like we’ve got a good chance at a soft landing for the project, which was something I was really hoping to achieve.

of course, I haven’t touched the camera in about two weeks, and I think I’m going to get the hell away from the computer for a bit and remedy that…. back later.

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