FAQs
Without being too presumptuous, these are answers to questions that I have anticipated you might ask. If you have more, contact me.

Questions

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Answers

It says here that you are a CEO, does a CEO need hiring?!

Yeah, that's a bit confusing. I do freelance business under NeatoIdea, LLC which is a one-person S-Corp. I gave myself the title, CEO, though there aren't many executive decisions to be made. In the end, I'm a web developer for hire.

Why are you currently looking for a job?

I've just completed a 10+ month telecommuting contract with Google where I did meaningful work with talented people. It was a Ruby on Rails contract where we were building RESTful web services and clients that consume them. All good things must come to an end, so I'm once again looking for work.

The downturn in the economy has really made it challenging to find good contracts, so I'm now considering short-term contracts and potentially full-time employment. I hope to continue to develop cool web applications using Ruby on Rails, but have a variety of skills to fall back on if that cannot be accomplished.

Are you willing to relocate?

At present, I live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and am not interested in moving. That is, unless you have an opportunity in Kauai and a rate of pay consistent with their standard of living. :)

How do you feel about traveling?

I have travelled in the past when I worked as a consultant and didn't find that I enjoyed the lifestyle from a family or fitness perspective. Its my strong preference to work locally, so I am only willing to travel about 10% of the time. In recent years, this has meant traveling to Finland once or twice a year or to a technical conference.

Several years ago, you worked very briefly for a few companies. Are you a job hopper?

Glad you asked. Actually, no. I would say its more bad luck than anything. I had extended stays at my first two jobs: EDS 8.5 years and Ernst & Young 4.5 years. Then I decided to be adventurous and try out an industry job.

I joined FirstPLUS right at its financial peak; following a well-respected partner from E&Y. Two short months later, something changed in the investment world and FirstPLUS found itself unable to sell its mortgages to investors. As a result, the business plan was dealt a terminal blow. The fact is, some of this was probably going on prior to my arrival, but there is no way I could have known.

ObjectSpace had a similar story. I joined them shortly before the bubble burst in the stock market. Like many companies, they were banking on an IPO to provide them the needed money to grow their business. Unfortunately, they were already spending tons of money on marketing in anticipation of going public. When the bubble burst, they were no longer able to go public and were now hopelessly in debt. This was my second round of bad luck, but not my last.

After ObjectSpace went belly up, I joined a tiny startup called Vocada. So tiny was Vocada that it really had no product or business plan. All Vocada knew was that they wanted to build something. My former boss from ObjectSpace joined Vocada, so I decided to take the risk along with him and see if we could build something great from the ground up. Unfortunately, the product never crystallized and the Angel investors decided to minimize their investments going forward. For what its worth, it was a great time while it lasted.

And finally, I had a brief stint at The Mind Electric shortly after Vocada. Unlike the other cases, this one was not bad luck. While there was a clear product vision, I was not passionate about it and after a few months I parted with the company. Curiously, this is the sort of opportunity that really appeals to me now — a small to medium-sized company building a product. Timing is everything.