USSM job-hunting
The last time I made a post like this, it was almost three years ago and it worked out really well, so I’m returning to the well — I quit my full-time Program Manager job to write my book in July. I finished writing the book and also cranked out 306 USSM posts (which works out to ~1.5 posts/day ). And I sold some fiction. Anyway – if you’re in IT or work someplace cool that’s hiring, read on. I’ll spare everyone else the rest of the post appearing on the front page.
Anyway, since USSM doesn’t pay, it looks like I’m headed back into the work-a-day world. So here’s the super-quick rundown, and I’m happy to answer questions via email if you’re curious about something, want a clarification or a resume to pass on, or anything.
I was a program manager at Expedia for a couple years. In other companies that don’t have that job, it’s like a super-powered functional/business analyst crossed with a project manager. It’s making things happen — all the responsibility without any formal power. It’s pretty awesome. I’ve thought about more business-side jobs, good stuff like that.
Generally speaking, in my IT career I’ve been good at:
– finding 20 solutions to any problem, from the cheap-and-immediate to the elegant
– the problem-solving aspect of program management in general
– turning out great docs
– figure out potential benefits and dangers early
– research, reading everything
– seeing patterns and putting together random pieces
I can give a nice presentation too. I’d love to something writing-heavy or that’s a little more creative than writing specs for payment systems.
What I’m after –
Eastside > Seattle (so I can bike in) but I’m willing to work that out
FT > Contract
Offices >> cubes
Dress code’s bad
More writing > less writing
I’m willing to bet small > large, but I’d listen to arguments otherwise.
I’d also love to find some place with a sense of humor — I love the Valve humor in their work (I want Portallllll!!), for example.
The last really cool thing I did at Expedia: I came up with an idea to sell carbon offsets with travel. I sold it office-to-office, did a lot of evangelizing, and finally it got out and it’s been an amazing success.
I would love a job doing stuff like that: thinking up cool stuff, making it happen. But unless a genie comes out of a magic lamp, I don’t think those jobs are available.
Anyway, if you know of anything or want to point me to cool jobs, drop me a line.
The book, in case you’re wondering, could sell 1,000,000 copies on the first day and my agent told me I still would be lucky to see any money ahead of a year, because of the way the accounting and payments are structured. Writing books isn’t going to pay the mortgage any time soon.
I understand FT > contract, but would you be open to contract-to-perm? If so I’ll send you the name of my recruiter, they’re based here in Portland but they do a ton of placements in Seattle as well. Mostly tech stuff, they’re a smaller placement company so they don’t just shovel people into Dilbert-world just to make a buck.
Are you absolutely sure that you don’t want to move to Winnipeg? Heck, it’s only March and it only snowed a little bit today. (Yes, we’re big fans of global warming up here.)
I asked him to move to Edmonton last time. He wasn’t keen.
The lovely Mrs. Zumsteg and I have family up here, and are reluctant to move to a frozen wasteland.
It is great that you worked on the carbon offset program. I just booked a trip to London and bought an offset for the trip. Super easy to use, so kudos!
If it was good enough for Hull, Hedberg, and Nilsson…