My Ideal Job

Location:

I prefer to live in Spokane. Failing that, I have a strong preference for the West. I would entertain the possibility of moving to Greater Portland or Greater Seattle with vastly greater enthusiasm than the notion of moving to some Great Eastern Metropolis or California or the Damp South. New Hampshire or the Dry Southwest would rank somewhere in the middle.

Some travel to pretty much anywhere for a few weeks at a time is OK. I'd love a chance to visit South America and South Africa and Saudi Arabia and India.

Role

Ideally, I'd like to work in a smallish office managing 10-20 or so developers on a series of moderately large long-term projects designing and developing commercial software for resale, maybe embedded, but not shrink-wrapped. Next best would be managing and participating in a consulting team environment, designing and developing solutions for specific customer business problems. Or an in-house IT group in the right kind of company.

I have the background and intelligence to drive the vision from a perspective of solving the customer's business problems. I have the technical experience and knowledge to understand the technology to any depth necessary.

I have the skills and sense to explain and apply the vision to real customer needs and a real business plan. I can show customers why it solves their problems and help developers understand why customers want it this way. I can lead some people and persuade others. I can make things happen and hit deadlines.

Type of Work

I manage software developers. I have very extensive experience in solutions for the banking industry. I also have a couple of years of intensive experience in the network infrastructure market for switch/routers, which dovetails pretty well with various previous experience in networked application software. Mostly I know (and like) software better than anything else, though I'm quite comfortable working with a hardware/software product. I've learned some things about developing real-time embedded systems with custom-designed boards and high-end ASICs. I prefer infrastructure and tools and "enabling technologies" to end-user mass-market applications.

I have a lot of business sense and real-world experience managing teams applying technology to various business requirements. I've developed code and managed developers in environments using Unix, Windows, and a mix. I've developed code myself in assembly language, C, Perl, PHP, Visual Basic .NET, ASP .NET, SQL, assorted shells and scripting environments. I've managed groups using all those as well as C++, for embedded systems (wire-speed routers) through middleware and network administration, to UI-intensive business and accounting systems. My personal hobby is running e-mail systems and social websites. Through doing this for the past 15+ years with systems processing >5 million e-mails per month, I've gained considerable knowledge of and experience with e-mail system configuration, tuning and deployment, and I've done some independent consulting in that space for commercial businesses.

Company

I prefer an established company to a startup.

A division, if not a company, that understands the technology-driven world. A management team with an understanding of the crushing need to move FAST to deliver real production solutions to market on time. Management that also understands the corresponding inescapable fact that FAST decisions cannot be made through multi-level multi-continent incremental executive review. A company with a careful balance of being driven by starry-eyed technological visionaries and being kept grounded by hard-hearted accountants and market analysts who actually know something about the market and aren't afraid to produce real numbers they can bet their jobs on.

A culture of delegation and autonomy. Hiring smart people and getting the hell out of the way so they can do what they're good at. At ALL levels. A big company needs to have partly-autonomous divisions that implement this, while providing the leverage and product breadth that a major company can offer to customers as a competitive advantage.

Group

I am experienced and comfortable with tele-working and with extensive travel. I have experience as a manager in large multi-national corporations where the authorization of concept and project come from Belgium, the "customer" is located in Florida, some of the development team is in Canada and some in California and some in Spokane. I have managed teams remotely, including working with outsourced development projects in Europe and India.

People quickly come to trust me, because I behave in a trustworthy manner. I don't blow smoke or tell lies - but I am optimistic, and have a way of helping people see the positive rather than the negative side. I lead by example and demonstrate a strong work ethic, usually being the first to arrive at the office in the morning and often the last one to leave at night. When the engineers have to stay until 2am working on a critical problem, I stay with them and buy pizza or donuts or tofu, as appropriate. I keep calm and help others deal with bad news. I make jokes and have fun at work. I help people celebrate the joy of working hard to bring about a big success.