My career progress -- up to early 40's
It has been kind of my tradition to leave a blog post about a move in my life, at least about my career. I find writing blog posts being time taking since I'd end up doing some research about the subject, but because of that it always is valuable in the end, particularly years later I'd find the older posts by myself and appreciate my thoughts laid out.
This post from 2013 about the career choice of my own is exactly what I found today interesting by myself, and timely since I'm on career move now after 4 years since then.
As I posted a few days ago I've resigned the non-profit robotics consultancy that I took part in launching phase. It was a memorable experience as a business owner. I've never even thought of pricing the product/service that I and my team are selling, and I'm never good at it. However small it is (2 full-timers plus part-timers etc.), I was representing a company spun out of a prestegious university in Japan so I was often counterparting customers unreasonably higher than me. Dealt with legal documents although IANL, gave a pitch for government's competitive bid (lost). Of course most precious is the customers and supporters.
Despite all these invaluable moments, the geographical distance to Japan from California always challenged me. Easy to understand that there's time difference of 14 hours so that I often stayed up until morning to work with people on the other side of the planet, but then I couldn't sleep through all morning at all since I need to take care of my son. Also working from remote doesn't guarantee that you get local buddies, friends, network. In my case I have only a handful local people closer to my field. Now after having served for a little less than but almost 2 terms as a rep (total 4 years) it makes perfect sense to me to move on.
Job search protocol 2017
This time I'm seeking:
Unlike 4 years ago, I have not worked the hardest as I could on spending so much time on finding positions online, tailoring my resumes per position and submitting application. Instead, being a little more confident, this time I've not applied online yet as of today after almost 1.5 months passed since I started looking around for jobs, except a few cases where I have employee's connection. I can only assume that it is LinkedIn and a few other recruiting websites where recruiters have found me. Having a name of prestigious employer seems to help quite a bit, even as an intern -- after doing internship 5 years ago at Willow Garage, a startup used to exist that some people called a Google in robotics, I've kept getting contacted from well known tech companies, none of which I took serious because there was no necessity.
Before starting looking around, I already knew that there aren't even more than a few companies in Sacramento that does even remotely related to my skill. I ended up sending emails through LinkedIn to a few people in the local companies I found.
Progress, thoughts
Things have been slow but I got an offer on table that I feel honor for. This is from a startup company in hardcore industrial robotics. They kindly agreed with me working from remote with occasional travels (here my wife is being supportive). So, all criterion checked. Only one thing worth noted is that this employer is a startup, a profitable company unlike my previous one that was non-profit.
They offer both compensation and equity option, meaning I do get paid salary AND get equity. I might be very wrong but in my personal understanding, people consider and negotiate a lot about the offer from startups when they feel there's a higher risk of not getting what they deserve, e.g. lower compensation AND equity, or I hear even an offer with unpaid with equity only is quite common. Compared, I feel fairly well treated with the pay rate I look for at this time of job search, and equity.
Before accepting the offer, I will just take advantage of this opportunity to get a deeper understanding for the equity and financial portfolio.
This post from 2013 about the career choice of my own is exactly what I found today interesting by myself, and timely since I'm on career move now after 4 years since then.
As I posted a few days ago I've resigned the non-profit robotics consultancy that I took part in launching phase. It was a memorable experience as a business owner. I've never even thought of pricing the product/service that I and my team are selling, and I'm never good at it. However small it is (2 full-timers plus part-timers etc.), I was representing a company spun out of a prestegious university in Japan so I was often counterparting customers unreasonably higher than me. Dealt with legal documents although IANL, gave a pitch for government's competitive bid (lost). Of course most precious is the customers and supporters.
Despite all these invaluable moments, the geographical distance to Japan from California always challenged me. Easy to understand that there's time difference of 14 hours so that I often stayed up until morning to work with people on the other side of the planet, but then I couldn't sleep through all morning at all since I need to take care of my son. Also working from remote doesn't guarantee that you get local buddies, friends, network. In my case I have only a handful local people closer to my field. Now after having served for a little less than but almost 2 terms as a rep (total 4 years) it makes perfect sense to me to move on.
Job search protocol 2017
This time I'm seeking:
- in industrial robotics or something that are close to a market with decent size. Robots are and will be mostly used in factory / automation setting. Countless talented people are working to expand into other fields, which I truly appreciate and am excited to see the development, but industrial robots are what are actually serving the purpose and where the cut-throat business is happening. I've always wanted to put myself in that world.
- opensource contribution is part of the job. Last several years was eye-opening for me to see the next big paradigm of software development. Not just consuming opensource but contributing to opensource actually benefits the corporate development. I realized that I feel the greatest passion for using my time on something that scaled out -- opensource is an ideal way for doing that practically speaking.
- local job in Sacramento. If possible. I want office-mate badly... Already mentioned. I want office-mates if possible. And I'm limited to Sacramento only due to my wife's commitment. I'd happily work from remote / semi-remote (e.g. going to the office a few times a week if in commutable distance).
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| Son and a butler robot made by Savioke (nothing to do with the article nor my job search) at Aloft Hotel in Cupertino, CA. |
Before starting looking around, I already knew that there aren't even more than a few companies in Sacramento that does even remotely related to my skill. I ended up sending emails through LinkedIn to a few people in the local companies I found.
Progress, thoughts
Things have been slow but I got an offer on table that I feel honor for. This is from a startup company in hardcore industrial robotics. They kindly agreed with me working from remote with occasional travels (here my wife is being supportive). So, all criterion checked. Only one thing worth noted is that this employer is a startup, a profitable company unlike my previous one that was non-profit.
They offer both compensation and equity option, meaning I do get paid salary AND get equity. I might be very wrong but in my personal understanding, people consider and negotiate a lot about the offer from startups when they feel there's a higher risk of not getting what they deserve, e.g. lower compensation AND equity, or I hear even an offer with unpaid with equity only is quite common. Compared, I feel fairly well treated with the pay rate I look for at this time of job search, and equity.
Before accepting the offer, I will just take advantage of this opportunity to get a deeper understanding for the equity and financial portfolio.
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