<plug>1st: Yes, I am looking for a new job and we are willing to relocate to the US *hint* ;)<plug>
I had 2 job interviews today and one yesterday. Yesterday was for a large corporate type company for a .Net/VB6 development role. Today one was for a local internet applications company for web developer using asp/asp.net and later i got into an interesting interview with a small startup company that ,of course, claims to have the next big thing on their hands. what i saw was quite impressive.
The main feeling though is first "Man, is great to be wanted again!". Ive been hunting job ads in the paper for the last 3-4 months and the dry spell i was having was amazing. It totally got me down. But now i feel much more confident about my future.
The first company (corporate b0rg type) seemed really nice. I have never worked for a company this size before. The biggest place i worked in had 80 people working there. this one has a thousand. Hell, i'm excited to think we'd have our own dining hall! . plus, i think it would be a good experience for me to discover corporate life. perhaps fooling around with small startups with no job security was good for a while (but i still got a spark out of the last job interview in that startup..) but now it's time to try and be useful for a change(my wife and I want to buy a house and later have some kids - i can't d that if i'm unemployed..).
who knows. I am looking for a company that would take care of me just as i would take care of it - send me to courses, help me learn new things and generally appreciate what i do. That company looked like it provides those things. so that is something i would have to think long and hard about (provided , of course, that i would pass the next two interviews with them..).
The second company wanted a web developer - which i am not at this time. however, they were impressed with my current skill set and did not reject me right away. tommorow i am having a conversation with one of their tech guys to see just how much effort and time would it be on my part to learn the web technology stuff. I never had any problem learning new stuff. I actually thrive on it so hopefully that door will not be shut to me.
The third company - A startup - interview was held at the CEO's house. actually, his basement!. What he showed me there was quite an amazing piece of software (sorry, can't tell you) and i can definatly see a future for that product. They just got invested in and are looking for a few good people. I was one of the 20 they picked out. The company should be up and running in all new offices by April 1st and i got an offer to join - provided i pass the next interview. no talk of slary just yet. but it looked very interesting. One thing though - do i REALLY want to get mixed up in another startup affair? hell, i barely lived the current one (it isn't over yet - i'll shut up about it..). should i believe all the promises and sweet talk? god knows ive heard all this before (actually - some of the words were EXACTLY the same) and that didn't turn out very well.
So . in the end i am left with 3 very different paths to take (well - none of them is a sure thing yet. actually the second one is almost a definite closed door..) :
1 - Corporate life (med-large size company - 1000 emp.)- more then fair salary/smaller mind/job security
2 - Web developer life(small size company - 50 emp.) - a smaller salary then today/fair amount of creativity allowed/job security not so good - maybe 1-3 years
3 - Startup life (10 people and a dog)- a much higher salary then today/very big mind and creativity allowed/No job security for more then a year
Man. I wish i get to ponder which to choose. that would be a great feeling! But what do you think is the best course of action for me?
p.s
I just dicovered the Microsoft Careers site, thanks to Dev Hawk. Looks like i will be spending some time in the resume section over there ....