[EN] My new job
Most of you guys know it but i haven’t given you further details yet. Well, here we are. I have decided to find a new job.
Why changing it?
Well first, let’s set the context. Since the end of June 2009, i am working for a French consultancy, also based in Spain. My mission is for a big french Insurace group. My work basically consists in corrective and evolutive maintenance of Web applications. Before i had never done any maintenance work, i kind of knew i wouldn’t like it, but who never tries never knows…
Looking back on it, i never really liked my job. Technically speaking, i almost haven’t learned anything (i am working with old applications and technologies – Java 1.4, JSP, Servlets). I am more attracted to recent and reusable technologies, those that will add some value on my resume and that i will enjoy working with.
Most of my work is technical: analyse a bug, find the piece of code to change, do some copy and paste (the framework is unfuckable), try to add some value… And that’s all. No time for refactoring, either in the code or in the class structure and inheritance. So it is the most frustrating thing ever, cause i was completely stuck
Sometimes i get to do some task planning, JIRA issues scheduling, and it gets interesting… After 8 months, i kind of understand what i’m doing and all the input and output of my applications/batches, so the analysis part becomes more interesting (cause less frustrating)…
However…
I never enjoyed my work. Well, i know, many people don’t enjoy their work. But after 2 years in Belgium with amazing projects and interesting things to learn, i’m somehow trying to find this situation again. I have been remembering this for the past months… those belgian mornings when i used to wake up with enthusiasm, knowing i was about to create something with my own two hands. So, obviously, here, i was suffering.
And there are more reasons than that, among which, the limited perspective of evolutions inside my company, the physical environment (10 people closed openspace), the Internet limitation, the hierarchy, the financial condition, ….
Anyway, it was time to change.
My new job
To say the truth, already back in September i was thinking about changing, but i never found the guts to start looking for a new challenge until very lately.
After coming back from Sweden, i finally decided to start searching for real. After updating my Web page, my resume and applying on dozens of offers on InfoJobs, i finally had my shot on several interviews… most of them for consultancies, but obviously i was trying to find a final client, not a consultancy (i’ll let you know why in a future article)…
And…
Well, i finally found something. I decided to join a final client (in other words, i don’t have any intermediary). I won’t name my new company, as well as i haven’t named my current company. I won’t enter into details now, the truth i haven’t yet caught all the inputs and outputs of this company and of its activity. Let me just tell you its an italian multinational (more than 1000 people over 5 continents), that started ten years ago with emailing and newsletter and that is now dedicated to users captation via Web and WAP. On a Web page, when you see a shiny blinking Flash ad banner , kind of « Enter your first name and the one of the person you like, and we’ll tell you if you are made for each other ». You are supposed to click on that link, a Flash page opens, asking several stuff and ending on asking your mobile phone number. Well, maybe that’s my company who offers that service and that ad. They are working in several areas: B2C (Business to Customer – they directly offer the ad banners on the web), B2B2C (Business to Business to Customer – they offer their platform to tierce company, that use it to put ad banners on the web) and B2TV (when you are asked to vote on 84215 for Micheal in Big Brother).
The main idea of their business is to convince people to enter their phone number (using games, free ringtones, …) and then frequently send to that person text message or MMS with new gifts, links,… Obviously the user will pay these messages. I have to admit i don’t really like this marketing system (and don’t understand that people are actually interested in receiving every now and them non-free stuff on their mobile); but it seems to be working very well.
What i’ll be doing
What i’ll be doing? Well, Web developer, obviously! What else?
Right now they are industralizing their marketing tools (among others, one tool that helps them to create splashs, those Flash screens that ad banners links to, and that at the end ask you for your mobile phone). They recently acquired several companies and in one of the company, have to install a brand new version of that tool and develop new modules and new portlets : for a start, i’ll be working with Mexico and Brazil, as a Java/J2EE developer, with technologies such as Liferay, Ibatis, Maven, Velocity, portlets, … I’ll have a special schedule, working from 11 to 20 from Mondays to Thursdays and from 9 to 16 on Fridays during at least the first two months of this project.
That will be such a change. They do have their own framework, which scares me a little, but based on that framework i’ll get to create new portlets from scratch, and deploy them. I’ll be working with new technologies, on a new business model, so i’ll get to learn a lot. The offices are big giant open-spaces; and atmosphere seems young and dynamic. Everything seems possible on my workstation (no more restriction to email or Youtube, and i’m sorry, but when you work 8 hours a day, its nice to be able to have proper distraction).
My economical situation has significantly improve and career plan opportunities seems more interesting: this company is located everywhere around the world, and my evolution inside the group relies a lot on my own work and my own implication. On my proactivity….
So, yes im happy. I’m scared also. Changing is never easy, but it can’t get possibly worse anyway. And after looking for some time for a job, i am now aware that perfect jobs and perfect projects simply don’t exist. I had this amazing chance for 2 years, back in Belgium, where i got to learn so much. So let’s be happy and not hope for this again cause it won’t happen.
I’ll try here to get the best out of my new work and try to learn as much as i can and quickly prove my (added) value to my new company. I will be in a motivating environment, with very little hierarchy, dynamic, and technically interesting; so i guess i’ll cound find back the necessary motivation i used to have every morning back in Belgium…
The start is planned on 3rd of May….
Comments
Leave a Reply
