New Job – OpticsPlanet
After a year of contract work, I returned to full-time employment in May. I really enjoyed contract work, it allowed me to focus more on the technical side, spending a vast majority of my time coding and catching up with the latest technologies. That is something I had not done in years – most of my time previously was spent in meetings, working with coworkers, managing, dealing with clients, etc. I also enjoyed the enoromous flexibility in my schedule to take as much vacation as I needed – I love to travel, as you probably know if you’ve read this blog. And my third favorite aspect was working from home, which allowed me to exercise any time of day, to take long lunches as needed, and to work in concentrated bursts for days followed by taking it easy. Despite all that, I really missed working with people, so I made the decision to go back to the full-time world.
After 4 months of OpticsPlanet (OP) I can safely say I’m siked to work here. At first I wasn’t sure if I should take this job, mainly because it was in Northbrook. I’m a city boy, and wasn’t excited to commute to the Chicago suburbs. However, after interviewing around I realized OP had alot going for it. The company itself is uniquely positioned to keep growing fast as it has done the last few years. The software department works on all kinds of projects, dealing with vendors, internal tools, warehouse and order systems, and of course, the websites (my area of expertise). OP is still small enough to adept quickly, using the latest tools and technologies, plus they have lots of perks like flexibility work hours.
My job was initially supposed to be a mix of managing a team and being a developer (php and javascript), but management took all my time. I’ve actually been surprised on how much I’ve enjoyed this new challenge, I attribute my enjoyment to the people I work with. It’s a place where the better idea wins, which is huge for me – many places don’t want change (even for the better). However, there’s not always time to do everything the right way, and there is constant pressure to for the team to perform better, but that’s not unusual. In fact, we are starting to adapt more agile principles and I will be doing more of an agile coach role soon, which will be a new challenge.
Looking forward to growing my career, with the team, department and company. Cheers!