This is going to be a confessional kind of post. I want to take a chance by revealing some really deep and vulnerable things about me, so that people know exactly who they are getting when they work with me.

I took this summer and autumn off of my full-time work to go freelance and work consulting-style. Like The Leap Year Project, I felt it was time for experiential education. And boy, did I ever get experience, and learn several lessons. As somebody once told me when they cleaned me out at a poker table “A lesson is what you get- when you don’t get what you want”

I thought I could go to freelancing, or more recently, to teaching, to escape what I felt like was an industry pulling me into corners I didn’t want to be in. Pair all the time ? I want to go faster than that ! Unit tests for everything ? Maybe for part of the app, but let me write the algorithm already ! I had the mentality of a ‘producer’, and produce I did. Not by writing tons of code, but by writing the right code. By listening to the business. But unknowingly dismissing the input of my fellow engineers. I got bonuses. But what was I missing ? Camraderie. Inviting people in to be my brothers and sisters in aspiring to climb peaks made of pure logic.

Nothing makes you feel more alone as an engineer than solo consulting. No hourly rate can compensate you well enough. I’ve found I’m lucky if I get 2 solid solo-producing hours in a day among all the other more connecting oriented things that need to get done. Those hours can be stretched much further in team environments. I’d be willing to do without solo-hours altogether in favor for a blended teaching/learning/doing vibe that I’ve seen coworkers have, yet have been too focused on individual success to embrace. That’s my skeleton, on display now. But the truth is I’m moving past it.

So, do call and check my references. I have some very good references to sing my praises of my productivity and smarts, also some close friends from my last years of work. But I put off a few others, to whom I have been, unknowingly, a dick of an engineer. My apologies if you count yourself among them, but believe it or not you will inspire me to be the teammate I could have been going forward.

Thanks for sticking this out with me, see you around !

— PS In response to my previous post about leaving development to go to teaching: I see now that the same opportunities exist within a development job, I just missed them more often than not. Yes, I would still consider a full-time instructional opportunity (building my coding chops in my spare time), but I see now that I need the camraderie of working engineers more than I first thought. I had a really good time teaching a NodeJS class at the Startup Institute today, though, and will continue to put together presentations and assignments because I feel it’s a great way to get on the same page with others, and I enjoy it.