A week ago last Friday (April 15th), an old coworker called me up, and left a message asking me to call him back, and then on Monday (18th) he rung me again, turns out a new company he works for is looking for someone to run their IT department and he thought it was right up my alley. Now I’ve got a possible long term trip planned to Australia next year and I told him I didn’t think I’d be a good candidate, but he said that it was so far off that anything could happen between then and now. We only talked for a few minutes and he gave me a quick rundown but I had to go, so I told him I’d call him back. The next day I was rung up by one of the recruiters of the company and he wanted to know what I was currently doing and if I had a resume I could send him. I haven’t touched my resume in over 5 years and it was due for a makeover but he needed something really soon. I threw it togeather in one (really long) night, and then sent it to him.
I got another call and they wanted me to visit and see the company, I wasn’t sure when that was possible, but I did have traffic court coming up on Tuesday (April 26th) for a speeding ticket, and I thought I might be able to drop by for lunch before heading back to my work, he really wasn’t sure about the time frames available. I decided to remove any wildcards and ask for the whole day of, I had a midterm that I needed to study for that night anyway, and also I thought I could get some chores in too.
When Tuesday rolled around, I headed into Berkeley and found that they were only a few blocks away from Drunken Boat (great restaurant). After parking, I headed in, went to lunch then came back to 3.5 hours of meeting different people from different departments and ending up with the CTO and CEO. (I’m so glad I took the day off). As far as I could tell, everyone liked me, the only unknown was when the CEO was asking about what type of network ideas I had. Networking is one of my weaker points, I’ve had a lot more hands on with Servers, Telecom, and Desktops, so I wasn’t able to give him a clean answer from the network providers to our doorstep but I knew everything from there down to the desktops.
Afterwards, I finished up with the recruiter and then headed home. I really enjoyed meeting everyone, and I was glad for the chance to see what they were doing. I was also happy that I had a chance to update my resume and experience multiple interviews. Previously all the jobs I had gotten were single interviews or 2 on 1 interviews, not 6 separate interviews in one go.
(Next day)
Yesterday, late in the afternoon, I got a call from the recruiter, and he asked if I wanted the bad news or the good news. I, liking to end on good notes, asked for the bad first.
They want me to start on May 9th (just under 2 weeks), the good news was that they were able to get me in the pay range I was interested in. (WOOT!). They needed to send me the official offer letter and then have me fax it back. I got it that night when I got home.
Today I get to send in my acceptance letter and then talk to my existing team to let them know I’m leaving. (something I’m not looking forward to). I’ve been with OpenTV for two years now and we’ve gone through a lot. I know that my manager is really depending on Rob, Dan and myself right now, but this is an opportunity that does not wander by very often. I just hope I can set everything up so that they have no problems covering my duties until someone else is hired.
Wish me luck…. (actually I’ll post this after I’ve faxed in my acceptance letter and notified my team)