What's Next
It's been three weeks since I joined the realm of the unemployed. Fortunately, I didn't stay unemployed for long. In fact, after writing the aforementioned post, I received 5 offers the next day. Of the opportunities I received, the most interesting ones were those from companies interested in hiring the whole team. Not only that, but LinkedIn hired me back as a contractor through the end of the year. The goal of the LinkedIn contract: finish up projects that my team had started in the previous months.
At the end of the first week after the LinkedIn layoffs, we all had individual opportunities, but we also had two team opportunities. The following week (last week), I flew to NYC to meet with one potential client while the other potential client flew to Denver to meet with the rest of the team. After flying to NYC, I traveled to Mountain View to do some on-site work at LinkedIn. At the end of the week, it seemed like most of the remaining tasks at LinkedIn could be done by someone else. I told them I thought it was best that I move onto other things, while staying available for support questions. On the way to the airport, I spoke with both our team opportunities. Following those conversations, I was very pumped about both projects and confident about pending offers. You can imagine my disappointment when my flight was delayed for 5 hours.
After a fun weekend with Abbie, Jack and friends, I woke up Monday morning without a job and it felt great. However, things changed quickly. Monday morning many opportunities landed in my inbox: a 3-day gig this week (helping write open-source training), a 1-week gig in December (evaluating how well Tapestry 5, Wicket and Struts 2 integrate with Dojo/Comet for a client in Europe), a 1-week training gig in Europe next year and a 3-month gig for the whole team. I accepted all these opportunities and am very happy I'll get to work with Jimbo, Country and Scotty again next year. The 3-month gig should be a lot of fun. We're helping build a SOFEA-based architecture that leverages appropriate client technologies (to be determined) to build a kick-ass web application. I look forward to talking about the technologies we use and things we learn along the way.
So the good news is I've entered The Golden Period. The Golden Period is when you don't have a job, but you do have a start date. Unemployment is absolutely blissful during this time. The Golden Period exists a couple times for me over the next 6 weeks.
I'll be traveling to Costa Rica tomorrow for a best friend's wedding. I'm leaving both my laptop and my iPhone at home. Next week, I'll be loving life with my parents in Costa Rica and Panama. The following week, I'll be working on AppFuse all week and hope to make great progress on developing 2.1. Then I have the 1-week Web Framework Analysis gig, followed by 2 weeks of vacation in Oregon. My Golden Period begins this afternoon (for 3 weeks) and happens again over Christmas (for 2 weeks).
Yeah, life is good. Damn good. 
Posted by Patrick Lightbody on November 26, 2008 at 10:36 PM MST #
it's time to try Smartclient ;-)
Posted by Claudio Bosticco on November 26, 2008 at 10:44 PM MST #
Posted by Solomon Duskis on November 26, 2008 at 11:07 PM MST #
Posted by Matthew McCullough on November 26, 2008 at 11:43 PM MST #
quote: <1-week gig in December (evaluating how well Tapestry 5, Wicket and Struts 2 integrate with Dojo/Comet for a client in Europe)>
I worked a while on the three framework and my point is Tapestry 5 using Restlet and Dojo are really well integrated. A lot of work has been done on Tapestry 5 and I think Tapestry 5 will be the framework for 2009.
Congrats Matt.
Posted by Jérôme Mirc on November 27, 2008 at 12:53 AM MST #
Hi Matt,
Good to hear that everything is good for the good people :-) While many people currently scared because of raising unemployment you seems to be pretty okay. But, in my understanding, every professional should be okay - and confident with his abilities.
Are you playing with Java gigs recently or Rails too? Interested in hearing your opinion on RoR today. Personally, I liked the goals RoR accomplished till date, and being from long Java background I can see how RoR can be beneficial. We actually use RoR and Java (mostly in way RoR for frontend and critical things in Java/Spring for backend). Actually, I am feeling that I would be happy to do Java/Hibernate/Spring/Maven code only, if I'd get the same level of productivity and ability to run new applications with the RoR-ease. Unfortunately, it's not the way it happens right now.Posted by Olexiy Prokhorenko on November 27, 2008 at 06:16 AM MST #
Posted by Mats Henricson on November 27, 2008 at 08:08 AM MST #
Posted by Esmit Pérez C on November 28, 2008 at 04:45 AM MST #
Posted by Peter Neubauer on November 28, 2008 at 07:05 AM MST #
Posted by 72.181.204.24 on December 06, 2008 at 11:43 AM MST #
Very nice to read that Matt. It was expected for someone so competent. It's nice that you managed to keep your team united. I know it's hard for a team to click and form a friendship on top of a work relationship, with everyone knowing the others strengths and weaknesses, helping each other and growing together. It makes them like a team of commandos, which is hard and find and even harder to keep.
@Olexiy: From your description, seems like Grails was made for you. Check out other Matt's posts about it.
Posted by RaphaelM on December 08, 2008 at 11:09 AM MST #
Posted by Raible Designs on December 18, 2008 at 02:45 AM MST #