Robb over at Sharp as a Marble is hitting the unemployment lines. If you’re in the Tampa area, and want to hire a .Net developer, I’m sure he’d be happy to send a resume. Speaking of resumes, there’s a chance I might be joining Robb in a week or so. I should get mine ready too. To some degree I’m relatively calm, because right now I’ve done all I can do to save the company. The decision as to whether to continue operating, and if so in what form, is out of my hands, and in a strange way that takes the pressure off. The past year has been a marathon to produce something of value we can partner with someone who can bring cash to the table. I am happy that we have achieved that goal. The question is whether we have something interesting enough, and with enough potential upside, to keep our tired investors at the table. We shall soon see.
Based on what I’ve seen, the market for tech people isn’t really that bad, and while my ten years of experience is primary in high-performance computing (HPC), cheminformatics and bioinformatics systems, there isn’t a whole lot that involves a computer that I haven’t done. If I have to go to the dark side and do software, I can do that. I could probably even go back to pure hardware engineering if I could convince someone I could un-rust those skills in a short amount of time. Database admin? I probably could swing it. General IT? Can do it in my sleep. Network engineer? Been a while for some aspects, but it’s not rocket science. The big thing on my mind right now is what to do next. But I’m hoping next will be continuing to do what I’m doing now, where I’m doing it now. I have my fingers crossed.
Done! Thanks for letting us know and the best of luck to you as well!
The Sith Academy has new classes starting all the time… ;)
Hey! You both could find jobs in the Dallas area.
Best wishes to both you and Robb!
Software is the dark side? Sys admins do have a high opinion of themselves.
That was tongue in cheek. I started out as an ASIC designer that went into IT for money and job security.
Two words: professional blogger.
Professional blogger = foreclosure on my house.
Though, I am humbled that you think someone would pay me to write this shit :)
Robb is going to find out the downside of his activism. Google him an it’s all about his activism and not much about him professionally. The job market is tough, just crank out the resumes and work you network of friends and former co workers.
Activism might make a person stand out, but standing out in a crowd can be a good thing, too. If I Goo… er, Binged, (google ticked me off recently), a potential hire, and up came a bunch of activism stuff I agree with, that would likely be a positive for them.
If I needed a tiebreaker, and one guy is anonymous and one guy has run a blog site about government corruption and wasteful spending, etc, I think I’d go with the guy who doesn’t like wasteful spending. Or if the guy is pro-gun rights, I’d know he probably has some common sense. etc.
David, actually it’s a bonus for me.
Current situation for me – I’ve actually had to REMOVE my resume from Monster, Dice, etc. I have so many leads that I now have to tone it down so I can keep track. The market here is hot and demand far outweighs supply.
Because of that, I’m not going to have to take the first job that pops up out of desperation. And if a potential employer is freaked out by my support of the 2nd Amendment, then it’s probably not going to be a place I want to work at. I’m 100% cool with separating business from personal and I would hope a company can do the same.
My last job was perfect. I had my own office. My wallpapers rotated through many of Oleg’s photography. I wore my pistol to work. Most everyone there were shooters too of one stripe or another. Heck, the CEO wanted me to help him get a shotgun for home defense.
I won’t find that again. I know this. And I know from my previous, previous job that my activism makes some people nervous. Oh well. I’m Robb Allen, I can’t hide that, and I don’t want to. Worst case scenario is I become a contractor making twice as much money but with spottier employment.
I don’t expect most people to be like me, but I decided long ago that I’m going to be myself online and if people can’t deal with it, then tough patooties. I recognize most people’s desire to remain anonymous insofar as not rocking the boat when it comes to things like employment opportunities, but I bought robballen.com back in ’96 or so so any anonymity I might have had disappeared then.
From a certain point of view, Sebastian may be a victim of the uncertainty resulting from PPACA…
Best of luck to both of you. Whatever happens, you’ll land on your feet
The good news is that (at least for you young ones) there is high demand for .NET developers here in Boise–but you have to move somewhere with less control laws.
The good news is that (at least for you young ones) there is high demand for .NET developers here in Boise–but you have to move somewhere with less gun control laws.
Sebastian, perhaps you could get back into custom silicon… seems to be the hot thing for the mobile device market. Of course, you’d likely have to move to California.
Whatever happened to Recovery Summer?
“Whatever happened to Recovery Summer?”
100,000,000 jobs saved or created by spending money as not to go broke.
I can empathize with Robb. I lived in Tampa and got laid off from an IT position in 2008…went 2 1/2 yrs without work…ended up having to move to the People’s Republik of New Jersey for a job. The Tampa market really sucks, but I wish him the best…try to stay in Free America if you can..
Wes, the number of bloggers who can make a living at it is vanishingly small. (Huffington, of course, has the advantage of starting out rich, and taking advantage of volunteers.)