From: David Masover Date: 2009-10-02T03:49:04+09:00 Subject: Re: Exceptional Rails Developer On Wednesday 30 September 2009 11:30:25 pm Mason Kelsey wrote: > As a retired programmer, > not looking for a job, I bow to your experience (no sarcasm intended). Still... > The biggest problem with taking a new job > anywhere, not just VC-startups is that you might have to move to a strange > place and that can make any programmer feel pretty insecure and > intimidated. To me, that's half the fun. If I'd been able to get a job in time, before I made this snap decision to go back to school (seriously, I'd been thinking about it, but finally registered at just slightly after the start of the semester)... Iowa is wet and rainy right now, and I have a half hour commute to class, so no, I don't mind moving at all. But the rest of these are valid concerns: > What if the VC-startup fails? And are you working by > yourself? I wasn't working by myself at all -- it was an amazing team that I was proud to be a part of. But the startup did fail. The funding disappeared just a few months after the rest of the economy imploded, and by now, the website has fallen off the face of the planet. > Working for a VC-startup has all of the risk of contracting > with none of the benefits. Except it does have a few benefits: The biggest reasons I have trouble contracting, especially on my own... I like independence, in theory, but I do work better with a team. This is especially true because while I like to think I'm decent at code and prose, I'm horrible at graphic design and marketing. While I think I interview well, I'm not good at getting myself interviews. That's bad enough trying to get the first job. Independent contracting would mean doing that on an ongoing basis. And just for fun... > On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 9:51 PM, Josh Cheek wrote: > > I seccond Zundra's sentiment. > > If ever you find yourself in a supervisory position, looking to hire > > developers -- I will work for cost of living (plus insurance). No, don't listen to me. Listen to this guy I'm replying to. I doubt I'll find myself in a supervisory position, either -- that's a whole other skill set I don't have. But I do have an idea for a web browser, so if people are that eager to work with me, I'll throw something up on Github and get started... (Why another browser? Because neither Chromium nor uzbl are what I want.) > > And I sympathize with your school experience, thats where I'm at now. I > > must > > have found 30 ways to generate fibonacci numbers. I'm actually enjoying it immensely, though I'm looking forward to more challenging classes. I seem to remember hearing that eventually there'll be OS design and compiler design... So yes, stay in school.