Happy New Year! So much has changed for me over the past few months, I’m really not sure where to start.
Last year I wrote a series of blog posts about landing a new job as a programmer. I covered setting up your LinkedIn and Github profiles, updating your resume, writing portfolio code, etc. I even interviewed a few friends about their experiences. I had plans to turn this into a book. (I still think this will happen.) This series of posts should have made it obvious to anyone what was on my mind.
I’ve never really been a fan of online advertising (is anyone really?), but around the beginning of last year I had grown completely disillusioned with it. I read so many articles and listened to so many podcasts about just how bad things were getting. As a result of this, I was honestly doing a terrible job at work. I kept telling myself that it was just a job. The people were great, the pay was good. But in the end, I just couldn’t do it.
I signed up for a couple of the tech job matching services and things basically exploded. I interviewed with around 25 different companies. I started with a single idea: I want to work on a product that people pay for with money, not attention or engagement. As I talked to more companies, another idea started to seem possible: I want to work full-time remote. Those two requests narrowed the field and in the end I accepted a position as a Software Engineer at Braintree.
The new job is great. I’m back to writing code every day. I’m part of a smart, helpful team. I’m learning new things all the time. I pair program every day. I’m doing more backend / infrastructure work than ever before. In addition to Ruby, I’m also writing Java (and actually enjoying it) and working with things like Docker, Puppet, and Kubernetes. And the best part is, my commute has gone from around 2 hours per day round trip to however long it takes me to walk from the bedroom to the office.