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I recently got the idea to jot down everything that I have completed for the previous month, in an effort to document it for myself but also to share with you.
I Left My Job of 7 Years
This was big for me. I had been with my previous company, Ticket Evolution for 7 years and it had been my first “real” Engineering job. I was hacking away at stuff for years before that, but it wasn’t until I started at Ticket Evolution that I joined a true Engineering team. Which I am grateful for. I am a self taught developer and once I joined that awesome team, the rate at which I learned flew off the charts. Easily the best investment I’ve ever made.
Aside from the engineering growth, I got first hand exposure to a startup in an industry that I fell in love with. The event ticketing industry is very unsexy, somewhat controversial and at times felt like the wild wild west. I didn’t know any of this before my interview ( which I almost didn’t go to -another post ). It wasn’t until I met the founder and he explained to me how secondary ticketing worked, that I realized there was a entire untapped ecosystem behind the Stubhubs and Ticket Masters. I was hooked.
Fast forward 7 years, a move cross country to become remote, many highs and lows, lots of fun, getting to work with a bunch of great people and ultimately a ton of personal growth. On to the next adventure.
Side Note: For everyone out there that is looking to learn how to code, I will be the first to tell you to teach yourself. Don’t spend the time, money and commitment on a code school until you have spent a good amount of time trying it out yourself. The best way to do that is to build something that you need. You will learn very quickly if it is something that you want to do. Once you validate that, then go to a code school or if you can, get a job. Getting a job singlehandedly increased my rate of learning more than anything else I did. You will be surrounded by much smarter engineers than yourself and such a diverse array of problems.
I Started Writing
Writing more has been a goal of mine for a while and for whatever reason I am using this transition between jobs to kickstart it. It’s been a slow start, but this will be my 3rd post in about a month. As with any habit, I personally need to find the sweet spot with a cadence where it becomes second nature. Hoping to get there sooner.
Started a New Job
If you have read this far, then you know that I left my job and started a new one. My new position is at a Digital Agency called Bl3ndLabs, where I am joining as Head Of Engineering. This will be a big shift for me coming from a single product company for the last 7 years. The variability is one of the components that I am most excited about. I love the merger of technology and business, so being able to work on multiple products will be awesome. Next month I will dive deeper into my experience.
Launched IndiBot in Beta
My business partner, Mike and I have been working on side projects for the last 2 + years. In July we officially launched a new product called IndiBot. I previously wrote about the problem that it’s solving here.
