Transitions
Before I talk about my new gig, a brief word about the old one. I spent nearly three years working for a student loan marketing company called Edvisors. In 2013, a company from Las Vegas bought them out and phased out our Boston headquarters.
The title of this article is a bit of an inside joke. Edvisors had a lot of turnover, and people came to appreciate the euphemism “Transitions”, which was the usual subject line on the emails announcing another coworker’s departure.
Edvisors was pretty political and had (insert superlative adverb) outdated technology. On the other hand, I’m very proud of what my team accomplished. We built a good frontend team from scratch, set up vastly improved processes and standards, and dragged the company kicking and screaming toward 21th century technology and design practices.
Even after a six-month soft landing at Edvisors, I still took some additional time off. In the past year or two, the frontend technology field has advanced radically, most particularly in client-side Javascript frameworks like Angular and Ember. At the same time, I started hemorrhaging money thanks to repairs and medical bills from two big bike crashes, diagnosing and removing a faulty gall bladder, big vet bills after the sudden death of my pet cat, and renovations to my condo. Between rapidly changing technologies and a shrinking nest egg, it was time to get back to work in earnest.
Once I got serious about the job hunt, it took just a month. I only sent out four resumes, and got responses from three of them. I’m immensely thankful to have so many helpful local connections and a nicely loaded resume. It was also nice to get through the always-stressful tech interview; you never know what questions (or coding exercises) you’ll be asked, and despite having lots of experience, one always wonders how one’s tech chops will measure up against other candidates.
So two weeks ago I joined a company called Buildium, which was founded by a couple old coworkers from my Sapient days. Once upon a time, they bought and started renting a couple apartments, but discovered there was no good software to help them manage their properties and renters and contractors and taxes… So they built it themselves and started selling it, and they’ve built a thriving business around it.
I’m a senior member of their growing frontend team, and I’m really excited that they are transitioning to the Angular framework, which is a tremendous opportunity for me. They also have a strong UX design practice, which is a real differentiator for a small product company.
In addition to the two founders, Buildium employs four other old friends from my Sapient days: one’s still a working designer, and the others each manage Buildium’s technology, design, and product management practices. And there’s at least one more old friend starting in January.
Even though it’s been about twelve years since we worked together, I was surprised by the things my old friends remembered about me. One of them recalled that I was the kind of person who absolutely didn’t want to climb to senior/leadership positions, and another fondly remembered the “Snackland” website I built (in ASP & ADO!) to help teams vote for what snacks they wanted to spend their collective money on.
Having kept in touch with some of those guys, I recognized the company name when a developer position at Buildium appeared in my RSS feed of job listings one day. I reached out to one of those buddies, and the rest was pretty straightforward.
This constituted the unlocking of one new achievement: the first time I’ve ever received a job offer without ever meeting anyone at the company face-to-face! Most of the vetting was done by phone, with one video chat for the tech test with a developer in California. In fact, I was the one who insisted on coming in to check out the office and meet a few people before accepting their offer! Very different experience.
As a company that prioritizes employee satisfaction, the benefits are refreshingly good: completely flexible PTO, the potential to work remotely, and of course I’m pretty happy to have decent health insurance again, after footing the bills for my recent medical issues. And they have not just one, but TWO foosball tables, which means I need to work on restoring the meisterly skills I had six years ago. Initial indications are positive, but considerable practice will be required! There’s also the opportunity to rewrite FRank, the foosball league ranking site I made so long ago, perhaps adding a mobile interface and speech recognition!
They’re located at the opposite end of Downtown Crossing from where I used to work at Optaros, so I know the area pretty well, and plan to revisit Lanta, the Thai place that formerly was Rock Sugar, my go-to lunch spot.
I’ll also enjoy a reprise of the walking commute I had down the statue-lined Comm Ave mall and through the Public Gardens and Boston Common. Or ride a whopping two stops on the Green Line… Definitely beats the hell out of the 40-minute commute down to Quincy that I had last year! Although I’ll miss having that nice, long bike commute, too. It’s not worth riding one mile to Buildium; it’d be as pointless as going out for a two-block jog!
On that note, there is a Buildium Strava cycling club, and their big company outing is to ride the 175-mile Cape Cod Getaway charity ride for MS each year. It goes from Boston to Provincetown, like the Outriders ride I do each year; while the MS ride takes a leisurely two days, Outriders does a shorter 130-mile route in just one day! Amusingly, it usually takes place one week before the MS Ride.
I also garnered an enviable second new achievement: coming in to work wearing jeans on my first day! Very cool! But my first day ended with something a lot less cool: when I went home and checked my postal mail, I received a note that my gall bladder surgery was scheduled for Thursday, only two days later! So at the end of my first workday, I had to ask on short notice for two days of PTO!
After taking Thursday and Friday for the operation, I returned to start my second week of work a week ago. I set up my development environment and finished my first code fix. Then Friday was the company holiday party…
I already posted to Facebook about the awkwardness of starting a new job right before the holiday party, which is an experience I’m always desperate to avoid (as related in this anecdote from my Sapient days). Fortunately, two weeks was sufficient to break the ice with some officemates-thank goodness for the non-threatening mixer value of foosball!-and so I survived our seasonal Mandatory Fun.
My third week began with the deeply exciting experience of PAYDAY!!! I also have transitioned into a new (semi-permanent) team, so that I can cover for another frontend dev who is moving away at the end of the week. That’ll provide some immediate challenges, but it’ll also be exciting to be able to really dig into the work.
So overall the new job is Really Good.
Here’s one final observation. Having always set money aside when I was working, I’ve had the flexibility to take some time between jobs to unwind and just enjoy life before jumping back into it. But this fall I looked back at my resume and was a little surprised when I added up the numbers; since 2002, when I left Sapient, I’ve taken almost seven of the past 13 years off!
And being honest, I have to say that it was a really good thing. I’ve enjoyed entire summers kayaking or cycling, and been free to travel or devote time to my meditation practice. Given how insanely stressful and frustrating and exhausting software development can be, I think those periods of relaxation have been a real lifesaver for me. I definitely think it’s nice to pull a year or two of one’s retirement forward, so that one can enjoy time off while one’s still (comparatively) young, strong, and healthy. And the break gives one time to decompress and reconnect to one’s enthusiasm for work (and money!) before going back to the daily grind.
Now my most recent little sabbatical is over, and it’s time to dive back into the melee. But at Buildium, I’m really excited by the company, the people, and the technology, so I’m planning on enjoying it quite a bit.