Category Archives: JobHunt

I’m looking for work in the Atlanta area. Got a job for a cross-functional web/network/database geek?

New Job

By Dougal | Published: November 29, 2004

Received in my email this morning:

Dougal,

Please find attached the formal offer. Sign a copy and bring it with you
on Dec 6th, but for now just indicate your acceptance via email and I’ll
start the paperwork rolling. Let me know if you have any questions.

I’ll be a Senior Software Engineer for a small-but-growing tech company that survived the dot-com bust. From what I know so far, my primary responsibility will be to refactor a largish web application written in perl. And, of course, “any other duties as deemed appropriate and necessary by management.”

Like most of my other employment in the past, the job lead came to me via my personal network. [...]

Also posted in Personal, Work | Tagged , | 11 Comments

Thankful

By Dougal | Published: November 25, 2004

I managed to get a little computer time today after all (everybody else is watching movies and/or in Turkey Coma).

I could write paragraphs and paragraphs about all the little things I’m thankful for. But really, there are only a few things that really matter. In particular there are two rather big things worth mentioning here now.

The first one is a new job. I’ve really enjoyed the contract work that I’ve been doing since moving to the Atlanta area. It’s been a good mix of system administration and web application development, which are two of my favorite things. [...]

Also posted in Family, Personal | Tagged | 11 Comments

Decisions, decisions…

By Dougal | Published: November 5, 2004

After much deliberation, I decided to decline that job offer from Emory University. The lure of a permanent job, with lower out-of-pocket tax and health insurance expenses was pretty strong. But their salary budget and our monthly bills budget just weren’t quite aligned at this time. The salary they were offering was in a sort of “grey zone” for our household budget. We probably could have gotten by, but only barely, and only with the help of extra part-time income that Susan and I would add to it with side projects and such. [...]

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It’s raining, it’s pouring…

By Dougal | Published: November 4, 2004

No, I’m not talking about the weather, though it is a wet day here.

Instead, I’m referring to work opportunities. I find myself in the rare, enviable position of having several different full-time and contract job possibilities. I had given up on hearing back from Emory University, since it had been several weeks since my last communication with them. But last week, I received a phone call from them saying that they were ready to make an offer. I met with them earlier this week to negotiate salary. I’m still debating whether to accept the offer or not, since it’s lower than I had hoped for, and is in the borderline area for being able to pay all our monthly bills.

On top of that, I’ve had two fellow web developers — Brent Ashley and fellow WordPress developer Alex King — send some contract work references my way (thanks, guys!). [...]

Also posted in Personal, Work | Tagged | 2 Comments

Photomatt @ CNET

By Dougal | Published: October 28, 2004

WordPress Ãœbermensch Matt Mullenweg has accepted a job at CNET Networks. Getting a job with a big-time tech media company would be cool enough on its own. But part of Matt’s paid duties will be to continue working on WordPress. I had the honor of being one of Matt’s references while he was in talks with CNET, so I got to talk to one of the folks there for a while about Matt, his work, and about WordPress in general. I definitely came away with the impression that CNET groks the value of open source projects that are actively maintained.

Matt has now taken another step in his quest for world domination. [...]

Also posted in WordPress, Work | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Job Interview 2: Return of the Interview

By Dougal | Published: October 1, 2004

Remember that telephone interview I had, and how I was hoping to get a call back for a second interview? I had just about given up hope of hearing back from them. But I had voicemail earlier today letting me know that they would like to meet with me for a second interview. Woot!

It’s scheduled for the middle of next week. They’ve asked me to provide all sorts of examples of my work (flowcharts, object diagrams, server-side and client-side programming examples, etc.), so I’m going to be pretty busy getting my materials together over the next few days. [...]

Also posted in Personal, Work | Tagged | 1 Comment

Job Interview

By Dougal | Published: September 27, 2004

I just had a phone interview for a job position at a local university. The position is “Senior Applications Developer/Analyst”. I was a bit concerned that my experience with some of the technologies listed in the job description is limited. However, I have a lot of coding experience in a variety of different languages and platforms, and I can pick up new technologies very quickly.

They broke the interview into sections. The first few questions were oriented towards project management in general. How would I go about starting a project, what kind of documents would I use, what are the benefits of using a source control system, etc. [...]

Also posted in Personal, Work | 4 Comments

Brain dump

By Dougal | Published: June 10, 2004

It’s been over two weeks since my last update. I’m sure that it’s been terribly distressing to the three people who actually read this site. My only excuse is that I’ve been insanely busy, because a lot of things have been going on. Here’s a quick brain dump, which may or may not be in chronological order:

  • My wife and kids have already relocated to Georgia, but I’m still in Alabama, finishing out my employment here. I’m temporarily living with my brother-in-law. He lives too far from the main part of town to get broadband, so I haven’t been online much in the evenings. [...]
Also posted in Personal, Work | Tagged , , | 8 Comments