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I am looking for a new job, again! Yes, history repeats itself for me every year or so, it seems. It’s not the best situation, but I think I am doing what’s best for me. I would have stayed here for one more year, but I don’t really need the stress and besides, it would not do any good for my career, either. I would rather not move, but if I get a chance to do so, I think I should go ahead and just move.
There are a few potential opportunities. The ones that excite me the most are Google and IBM. But I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to get in there. I applied for IBM and it looked liked I might be a good fit, but I have not heard from them in roughly a week. It might be that things are moving slowly, but I would think I’d here from them by now.
How about Google? It’s actually Google that reached out to me, no the other way around. I would love to work for them, but would have to prepare a lot to get in. It’s algorithms and I have not reviewed them in quite a long time. In any case, I think I should talk to them and see what will happen.
Another exciting one, though I have to find more information, is to work at NBC Universal. It’s a startup within the company. One think I am concerned is that I don’t really want to move away from Java. I like Java and though I would not mind moving away from it for a project or two, I am still a Java developer. I have to talk to Roy about this.
One that I have a good chance of getting is an opportunity at Quest. Supposedly it is also a very good company to work for. They offer some very good benefits and probably a good work environment. I would not make more than 105K, but with benefits, I think it would come out to roughly what I make here at Markit.
On the positive side, I hope to have some choices in a few weeks. Based on that, I want to pick something better, something better than what I have now.

We got a guy from Russia start today. He was here before I got here. He had a long hair and a weird way of acting. He always seems angry or has no sense of humor. A bit weird. He seems like he’s not interested in what’s going on… We’ll see how it goes.
I am taking steps in moving to another company. I talked to a guy from Quest Diagnostics today. I had a pretty good conversation with him. They do provide great benefits and it would be a local job – it’s in Lyndhurst. It’s a big company, though, with 1500 developers, and when I finally go interview there, I have to make sure it is not a beurocratic one. I don’t want to join another Hertz.
I have to make sure that any place I go has
1) Agile work environment.2) Good tools to work with (with a chance to use the one that you like)3) Follows best practices (make sure I will not have to maintain a Java rich JSP)4) Has new projects and products to work on5) Make sure they work on cool technologies
These are some of the questions I will want to get answers to when I interview. I would love to work in Lyndhurst, but if it is not a very good place to work at, then I can find something else. I would also like a fairly big space to work at, and a quiet environment. I am hoping, though, that this might work out great!

Should I stay or should I go? If I go, it will be trouble; if I stay, it will be double!
I think I only have a few weeks here at Markit. When I look a year or two from now, what do I see? Do I see things getting better? I don’t think so. And that’s why I think I have to take action now. I have to think about myself. In any case, I sent out 2 resumes today. One for IBM and one for other Northern NJ job. I have 2 more that I would like to take care of either tonight or tomorrow. We’ll see what happens. I still have a fairly promising NBC opportunity. I have to get some more details about it, but so far, things are looking fairly promising!
How do I improve as a communicator? I just have to let it out. I should add humor to my responses. I should be bold and just talk freely. I have to do things differently! That’s the bottom line. And I have to stop saying “you know” as a filler word.
I like my current strategy to “change myself to change my wife.” I think our relationship improved as a result. She talks to me more and I am myself looking to talk to her more. We’ll see how it goes later on.

I think I am getting ready to change jobs. Again! I get tired pretty quickly, huh? I guess I do, but I don’t want to have a “job hopper” label. But in this case, I would be moving to a better, more exciting place. I hope. I have not decided anything yet, so things could still change. But I am slowly getting convinced that this is not a place for me. Actually, I got a sense that this might not be a place for me on the first day at the job. 🙁 But I could not just leave. Plus, I am getting some valuable experience.
Manager’s experience, that is. I got promoted to a manager’s position. But the product we’re working on is not a good one. We’ve been in the maintenance mode for a long time and I would prefer to work on different projects.
And that opportunity just presented itself. Roy from Ask contacted me. He works for NBC Universal and is trying to put together a team of developers to create a set of WNBC local news sites. It seems exciting. Except, that it is a start-up in a big company, controlled by GE. I have to make my decision. And it has to be a clever one.
To make sure that it is clever, I will also look for other opportunities. One surfaced yesterday and another a couple of days ago. I should at least contact them and maybe go for an interview. I need to compare and pick the best. I don’t want to be in this situation again where I am stack in a position that I don’t like.
Let the search begin.

Interesting day today.  Another one, actually! I had made my decision that I want to move out of Connex. I am managing it now, but we’re stuck with a ton of shit. Shit that I don’t want to touch. The Jboss release situation made it worse, much worse. It actually prompted my action.
I talked to my manager Tim today and I told him that I would like to transition to a new position. I asked him to move me to a new position. He said that he might have something for me, but he’s not quite sure when it will happen. I gave him a March 1st deadline. We’ll see what’s going to happen before that. I have several options.
First is a startup gig at NBC. I talked to Roy about it. It sounds exciting. I don’t know much more. I should make a trip to NY next week.
Second is Google. I got an inquiry from them. I should prepare and try again. It’s possible for me to get it. I should at least try again.
Third is NY Life. This is a place where my previous manager is working. I have good contact with him and when I meet with him, I can ask about any open positions they might have.
In any case, my time on the Connex product is counted.

I think I had a change of heart. The more I’m discovering the Connex infrastructure, the more I want out. Things are failing left and right. When I take a look at it, I see a nightmare: things are so complicated. Even though I could make changes, I don’t see the reason why I would want to jump in.
More and more, I would like to move to another group. It would be great to lead another project, but I don’t know whether I’ll get a chance. In either case, I think I should start my job search. I cannot continue sitting here and I cannot start to smell a rat. That’s not me
I am just not thrilled with the server infrastructure, with the way things are built, etc. It is built for one-time use and not to be maintained. Really.
Why did I come to Markit? Did I learn anything?
I came because I had a chance to be under 2 really smart guys. They are both gone. I am stuck running this 10-year old pieces of un-maintanable code. That’s not acceptable to me. Especially to me, where I want to be a craftsman.  I got myself into this deep shit. Not good.
But I learned a few things in here. I know that for my new place, I really want to make sure that the environment is the way I like it. I want to have a good seating arrangement (quiet conditions); flexible hours is also good. One way to accomplish this is to get a job offer, and then inquire about the job environment, and possible visit the workplace.
The major thing I learned is Unix scripting, systems setup, and some JMS/EJB topics. Not much, I have to say, but enough for a year’s of work.

Is it going to get any easier on Connex? It’s hard to say, but I don’t forsee things improving a great deal in the near future. We are being overwhelmed with different components, failures, and tough situations. It’s not an easy environment!
I am starting to have “I better leave” thoughts. This might not be the place for me. I like some things here, especially that as a manager, I get to set my own agenda. I get to motivate others. I get to do whatever I want, essentially. But is that enough?
Do we have any green-pasture project in sight? I don’t think so. Things look gloomy. And that’s the mode I’m in now.

I almost quit today. I have had a really tough day. Probably the toughest day here at Markit. Yesterday, I released a new version of our application. Today, I got waken up at 5:40 AM because there were issues with the app. How do you live with that? So I reverted back to our old servers, but the application still had issues. When I came into the office, I hear that some Citi users are having authentication issues: some users logged in as other users. I had to restart the whole cluster! At that point, I had to talk to my manager. I told him, basically, that I would like to move out of Connex. I told him that I would like to transition, slowly, to other group here at Markit. He talked me out of it at least for some time. In a way, I am happy that I had this talk. There is work that we need to do here, but at least he’s aware of what’s going on.
It’s interesting, but I am getting some interest from other guys that I worked with. Sam said that he can hook me up with a position. I got an inquiry from Google. I also got contacted by Roy from Ask. There is a lot of demand for a developer. I think I might have to explore my options in the near future. We’ll see how it goes. But I need to start preparing.

I had a fairly rough day today. Things are somewhat hectic. I released JBoss over the weekend and we’ve had some failures today. People are complaining… We don’t have too much data coming from them. How do you release this Connex Server application at all? Not sure, to tell you the truth. It’s definitely not easy. In fact, it is proving to be an extremely hard task. Is it doable? I think so. But I hope we really get it going.
I had a fairly good weekend with my family. I am following a different strategy: change myself to change my wife. I think that a change of strategy is needed. I cannot just expect her to change. I cannot expect her to be what I want her to be. I need to be that change. I need to show her how to do it.

It does not get easy here at Markit. Things have been tough from the day I got here. Things are failing left and right. I have been to a lot of places, but this is the most complex, the most overcomplicated set of projects I have been around. It’s just too complex to manage, in my opinion. So why am I still here? Because I asked for this position! I asked to be a manager because I wanted to try it. It’s not that I am really getting something that I did not ask for. I expected it to be tough. I think it’s going to be tough for several months, if not years. I am not sure if I’m going to stay for this time, but I will give it a shot. I will try to stay for at least 6 to 12 more months. After that, I will evaluate my position here.
I got an interesting reply from Google. They were impressed with my resume. They wanted to talk to talk to me. I am going to tell them to contact me in a half a year or so. It’s interesting, though, that they got in touch with me. At least a happy note for the moment! 😉