It’s been far too long since I last had anything that I deemed “useful” to say. I find myself opting to not write anything whatsoever if I feel its something that doesn’t provide some perceived value. 2013 was full of those moments. I’ve never been one of those “confident” techies who can just spout off amongst a group of my peers. I’d rather sit back, listen and learn something, but on the back side of that is — “what if I really am not as good or as smart as I think I am?” (or insert other “I blame my childhood experience” related item here).

In the coming year and hope to be more vocal than I have been in the past. Part of that will be breaking out of my introvert’s shell (something that seems to only exist in my professional life — ask most who know me, I don’t think “introvert” is the word they’d use to describe me). I hope to use this blog as a tool to help me do so.

With that said, 2013 brought with it a job change in mid-May. I left my previous employer of 10-years after much deliberation. It was like leaving family, but I had gone as far as I think I was going to go with the company and the opportunities for growth that existed didn’t really get me excited so it was time. The only thing that would have gotten me to stay was being offered a full on R&D position where I get to learn new technologies and present/report back — maybe even fly a few projects off of. However, I couldn’t in good conscience have asked for such a thing. Having a family and real-world responsibilities meant I couldn’t “just leave” so I began my first active search in a decade.

As luck would have it, I was approached by a former co-worker who had left to start his own consulting firm a few years back. It couldn’t have been timed more perfectly and I am now a full-time Certified Salesforce Developer at Radial Web. Its definitely a different world. Since the majority of the projects I deal with are internal and not “customer facing” deliverables, I don’t feel as much pressure as I did previously and for the first time in 10 years — I enjoyed a Holiday Season without a single work-related issue to attend to.

As far as the “work” itself goes what *really* attracted me to this job wasn’t the coding aspect…it was the opportunity to grow business/leadership skills. I’d always been the “personable” programmer, but rarely did it leave the “programmer” part at the keyboard. This opportunity provides me with the chance of helping grow a team, an opportunity to hopefully lead — not just supervise other coders –but truly lead a thought process and culture within a company. I keep telling people that I don’t want to be the 65-year old programmer. That gives me approximately 26 years to leave that behind… :)

:wq!