Hiring 101

Foraker just posted my new blog article: “Hiring 101“. The key point:

At Foraker, we recognize that our best chance at success involves getting the right people on our bus. So we’re almost always looking for people who live and breathe the web, who are passionate about getting just a little bit better every single day, who enjoy the challenge of working closely with a team of like-minded individuals, and who are eager to produce exceptional websites and web applications for our clients.

What we look for: Passion + team fit + core skills + general intelligence. In that order.

Why Rails?

Foraker just posted my new blog article: “Why Rails?“. The key point:

Rails lets us focus on solving business problems. At the end of the day, our customers care more about results than about any particular technology. Using Rails as a common language for our team means we can spend more time wrestling with our customers’ business problems, and less time wrestling with the technology itself. Rails lets us get started quickly, work efficiently, and respond flexibly, helping us to focus on the real challenges of designing and implementing functional, usable, and reliable web applications for our customers.

End of an era

As many of you know, I’ve decided to leave my current place of employment and pursue a new opportunity as Director of Web Development at a small web development shop in Boulder.

Both Tara and I are extremely excited about this opportunity. Foraker Design is a very small company (I’m employee number 9!), but they’re growing fast. In this role I’ll have a chance to do quite a bit more “hands on” programming than I was afforded at Insight (the breakdown should end up being about 75% programming / 25% managing), and since Foraker is job shop that gets business from all shapes and sizes, I’ll also get a chance to play with some of the technologies and languages all the “kids” are raving about: Ruby, PHP, ASP, Java, et cetera. And while several people have commented on how leaving the “safety” of a big corporate environment is borderline crazy, in many ways I feel much more secure in working for a company where the employees are more than just entries on someone else’s budget sheet, and where I’ll likely have more say in our collective direction.

Yet the parting is obviously bittersweet. After four and a half years, I’ve made many, many friends at Insight. I am enormously grateful for the support, guidance, and encouragement I received during my tenure. I had so many teachers, from every part and every level of the organization. I thank all of them for allowing me to learn as we helped grow this business together. I am especially grateful to the members of the Software Development team, whom I now leave in my successor’s exceedingly capable hands: Thank you for your support and friendship, for the opportunity to be a part of the most dynamic and talented team of developers on the Front Range, and for all that you have taught me over the last few years. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve you. I will miss you all.

I’ll start up again after the Thanksgiving holiday with a full belly and much enthusiasm for the new challenges that lay ahead.