Career History

My Career History

• High school in England. Equally good at all subjects - got a high GPA (we don't use GPA so it's difficult to compare, but I did well). I specialized the last two years in physics, mathematics and German.
• Since I was equally good at all my subjects, I decided to try to pursue my longtime goal of becoming a "scientist". I'd always been fascinated by astronomy and space, but I was scared of studying straight astronomy because I thought it would be difficult to get a job in it (there was a recession in England at the time). So I chose a combined major of physics & astronomy. Three year degree, University of London.
• I'd always planned on doing a PhD, but I didn't find studying physics & astronomy as fascinating as I expected, and decided (for reasons too complicated to explain) that I should study something more likely to benefit other people. So I started to do a PhD in Energy Management & Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, in 1986 (age 21). I kind of pulled this out of a hat - I had no real interest in it - I just thought it was the right thing to do, and didn't know what else to study. Lame, I know!
• During the first couple of years, I started to develop strong interests in writing, acting and other art-forms. I'd always had artistic leanings, but had never (and still haven't) found an art-form I felt either sufficiently motivated by, or good enough at. Nonetheless, the writing, and also dealing with coming out as a gay man, were such distractions from my PhD (the subject of which I wasn't interested in anyway), that I quit the program and graduated with a Masters. Got the best grades in the graduating class.
• Throughout the last few years of schooling, I'd realized that I really enjoyed computer programming. During the last few months of my Masters, I attracted the attention of a professor who ran a small research workshop in public policy. He was looking for a strong programmer to help pull together data, and assist with testing research hypotheses. So he offered me a part-time job while I was studying for my finals, and I switched to full-time after graduation.
• I worked there for five years, becoming an expert in ***** programming, and getting a lot of experience with data-analysis and research methodology. I did some management of small teams of student programmers, and became, over time, one of the senior members of the workshop. But I knew that without a PhD, I could only progress so far in academia, and I dallied a couple of times with starting up another PhD program. I lacked the motivation, and, more importantly, I still couldn't truly figure out what I was interested in, beyond my enjoyment of programming.
• I wasn't earning much either, and, once I got my green-card, I decided to follow another dream and move to San Francisco in 1993, and look for a job as a ****** programmer for a company. I found a job at a software company in Berkeley as a kind of "****** guru". My job was to build and maintain software tools for use inside the company to process the tons of data we used to build models of the world's financial markets.
• I really enjoyed the job, and gathered a lot of experience. Over time, I gained a lot of job satisfaction both from the actual work (solving problems, creating systems) and from the respect I was accorded from my colleagues. I became a manager of a small group of programmers, but continued to do a lot of programming myself, being reluctant to give that up. I enjoyed the people-management to some extent.
• Throughout my time at this company, I struggled with the issue of what my career direction should be. I was very good technically, and enjoyed the work, but there was a limit to how much money I could make if I remained as a programmer. That was what led me to agree to move more towards management, and (later) to project management. Yet I was also scared that in doing this I'd lose my technical skills.
• After about four years, we were reorganized, and I ended up with a new boss. The big change was that he was a big believer in using industry-standard software development methodology - a practice that was almost entirely new both to this company and to me. I learned a lot, and my boss pushed me a lot. I eventually became a project-manager of an extremely complex, high-visibility data-warehousing project.
• For about 9 months, I was working 10-12 hour days, due to the complexity and responsibility of the project. I enjoyed it: it combined many things I enjoyed: organization (of people and projects), solving problems, team leadership, receiving respect from the team, technical challenge.
• But by the end of the project (which was successful), I was burnt out, and realized that that kind of workaholic lifestyle was not for me. I felt like I'd accidentally sacrificed my social life to achieve success in the project. So I cut back my workload markedly, and went back to normal work hours. By this time, I'd also finally ended up at a salary that was very competitive for my position and experience.
• At this time, most of us started to work on Y2K-related projects, and it was dramatically less interesting and challenging for me. I also realized that if I was to continue in software development, I needed to learn even more of the software development methodology that my boss had introduced to me. I needed a "second-opinion", and decided that I'd best get that by finding a new, bigger company that had a more established software development methodology. This would round out my training and experience and make me more valuable and marketable.
• I found out that ******, the company that makes the software in which I was an expert, was hiring software consultants for its San Francisco satellite office. I applied, and was accepted, being offered the salary I requested. I've been here for a year now, and I feel that I've reached my first goal: establishing a solid grounding in software development methodology.
• I've had some success in the projects I've worked on. But there have been long weeks, at times, where we had no projects in the San Francisco office, and during those times, I've felt very unfulfilled. We're supposed to use those times to learn more software (since ****** makes a LOT of software, and we consultants are supposed to be able to do anything for our customers) - but I haven't felt strongly motivated to do so since I'm not working in a creative, challenging atmosphere. I have no real, consistent team to work with.
• Moreover, I'm starting to realize that I'm no longer a young thing - do I want to remain a small cog in a large machine? And I hate the sales process with which I have to cooperate - I'm frequently in meetings with low-level managers in brand-name companies, and I'm wondering "What the hell am I doing here?" Most of the people in my office are sales-people, and I don't relate to them.

Work-related Motivations

• Problem-Solving
• Organization
• Process-Improvement
• Writing
• Doing a good job and being respected for it
• Working with people I know and like
• Working in a creative, artistic, or more academic environment
• Perception (in others) of lack of progress.
• Expectation that I'd "do something with my life". This is a big one. I find myself looking at myself in this job and thinking "it's small".
• Creativity - I have a big personal website, and I've enjoyed doing the writing, graphic-layout, photography, organization.
• Want to at least maintain my income level
• I'm not truly "self-motivated" or "driven" - I can work very hard, and extremely proficiently/creatively if there's a clear goal.
• My ideal would be to make enough money to retire VERY early
• I enjoy my free-time very much - don't want a job where I'm working crazy hours, unless the actual work is a lot of fun.

Jobs I've Considered (however briefly)

• Switching to project-manager position at my current company.
  • Pros
    • Would make me more employable outside of software industry since project-manager is a soft skill.
  • Cons
    • Hate working in a sales-related job, and most PMs have to participate in the sales process.
    • Still not a glamorous job
• Getting a job as a project-manager at a start-up
  • Pros
    • Potential for a lot of money - enough to retire early.
    • Working with exciting, creative people
  • Cons
    • Long hours
    • Risk of not making much money
• Independent contractor
  • Pros
    • Freedom
    • Can take more time to travel
  • Cons
    • Have to continually sell myself
    • No career growth
    • Loneliness
    • Still not a glamorous job
• Start a consulting company with friend(s)
  • Pros
    • Good income potential
    • Can eventually move away from the technical side into full-time management
    • Can make good use of my organizational/team-leadership skills.
    • Good career growth potential
  • Cons
    • Still not a glamorous job.
    • Risk
    • Have to sell myself
• Build up my website, get sponsorship, grow customer-base - travel-photo-journal.
  • Pros
    • Independent
    • Lots of travel
    • Fun/creative
    • Potential to meet lots of interesting/creative people
    • Could lead to growth in other directions
  • Cons
    • Unknown income potential
    • Have to sell myself
• Journalism
  • Pros
    • Make use of my writing
    • Travel-writing?
    • Travel, anyway.
    • Science/technology journalism?
  • · Cons
    • Difficult to make a name for yourself.
    • Uncertain income potential
    • Not sure I can cope with a job where I'm away from home so much.
    • Still not a glamorous job - too many journalists are hacks
• Movie production
  • Pros
    • I'm good at organizing
    • It's kind of like project management
    • Work with creative people
    • Good income potential
    • Glamorous
  • Cons
    • I'd have to go back to school first.
    • Am I maybe a bit old to get started on this?
    • Very competitive
    • Don't think I'm hardnosed enough
• State Department/Diplomatic Corps
  • Pros
    • Interested in politics/policy
    • Travel/living abroad
    • Could be exciting
    • Could be working with interesting people
  • Cons
    • I have no relevant experience
    • Uncertain income
    • Could be working with career "hacks"
    • Don't think I'd pass the security checks
• Publishing
  • Pros
    • Work with creative/artistic people
    • Good income potential
  • Cons
    • I have no relevant experience
    • Tricky to get into interesting area of publishing