The truth is out there..

I haven’t posted anything for a while which has been mostly due to weather, Christmas and other commitments but also due to me starting to fall into a bit of a black hole.  Without going into too much detail the company I work for (It has many redeeming qualities on top of this) seems, at this moment in time, to be sucking my enthusiasm from me.  I’ve been stopped so many times when trying to take a step forward or move to a newer technology, which in most cases would have saved time money and improved the product in question but I understand that more intelligent people than me make these decisions for the good of the business but it no less disheartens e when I’ve worked a large number of hours in my on time to prove a point and still get knocked back.

I’ve had it drummed into me in no uncertain terms (mostly from my current project manager, a seasoned veteran in IT) that my view of companies adopting new technologies and providing clients with exciting, responsive and robust applications is a deluded one that doesn’t happen in the real world and only took place within elite circles.  I had begun to believe this view, despite the podcasts, blogs and other sources I consume on a regular basis showing me otherwise.  I’d decided that my role was a reasonable one and I could just sit there crunching mediocre code that produced average quality applications.  Then out of the blue I had a spate of phone calls from recruitment agents one of which was a .Net role that was asking for MVC skills this pricked my spideysenses and after a number of arguments with my down trodden inner self I went for an Interview (At the time of writing I’m still waiting for the outcome of the interview)…. Boy did I get my eyes opened; the company has an amazing new building even though they are relatively small in comparison to my current employer (our building is late 60/70s both in building and décor, Its ran on a shoe string budget where we have to move desks if the rain gets to bad).   I was greeted by a very friendly Finance Director and Senior developer and proceeded to have a very enjoyable 2 hr “Interview” which felt more like an informal chat than many of my informal chats have done.

The main point of this is that I found people of like minds that believe software/web development can and should be a great experience for both developers and end users that can use modern technologies and practices whilst still being cost effective.  Not just pushing change for the sack of it but laying out rational reasons why the product should be improved and having these put in place.  The Finance guy was very approachable and admitted to being ready to have new ideas thrust open him and with convincing arguments would allow such projects (considering that they are using MVC as a production app already I think he’s as good as his word).  The lead developer read similar blogs and was very much singing from the same him sheet as me all in all it was a fantastic experience.

I pray I got the job but have to wait and find out, which is killing me at the minute but whatever the outcome what I have found most liberating is that I’m not traveling this path alone and there are jobs available for passionate developers who like to see technologies pushed to its limits to provide users with life altering experiences (OTT but hey..).  It has made me more determined to up my efforts and keep on doing what I was doing and soon a role will show its face that suites me.  In the mean time I just need to make working with old COBAL and VB apps as enjoyable as possible for myself but the main things is there is a light at the end of the tunnel and there is alt.net development opportunities in North East England WOOO HOOOOOW.