And let your spirit show
So today I had my delayed informal 30-minute introductory phone call with a person at Company A. This is the one a friend recommended to me. It went ... pretty well, I'd say. The recruiter seemed impressed that I had looked up the company and its main product and had played around with their app a little. I was able to talk without rambling about two of the big projects I had done for Old Company, the ones that seemed to touch most directly on the thing their app does. (And that, it turns out, is what they're hiring for, so that fits nicely.) Recruiter did ask why I was looking to leave Old Company, indicating that it wasn't clear enough from my resume or LinkedIn what it meant that my dates of employment were marked as ending September 2021. Well, I could give a clear enough reason without saying they laid me off: the company was bought out and they were hollowing out the place, and there's a point where it's not the enjoyable place I had worked for anymore.
The recruiter asked what compensation I'd need. I led with looking at the salary range they offered for people living in Denver --- thank you, Colorado law that requires salary ranges to be posted! --- and acknowledged that I had read how that was meant to reflect local costs of living, and that mid-Michigan is not so pricey as Denver. I gave a range of salaries that is actually larger than my Old Company salary (I told you I had accepted being underpaid) and they didn't choke or cut things off, so, that's good. I followed my brother's advice in giving a pretty big range and saying that I was sure there'd be something in there that works for us both.
And now there's to be a follow-up interview, one that gets a bit more technical. That'll be with a hiring manager/senior engineer. It's also to include some tech demonstration, completing a challenge in HTML/CSS. This terrifies me. I've been writing web sites since 1994 so the topic sounds like ``we're going to test you on entering your debit card's PIN''. There seems so little to ask about that there must be something crazy deep to ask about, you know? They also asked what I knew about React, which is that I know there's a thing called React, but I did note that given a couple days to prepare I could at least get the basics down. So I've been reading w3schools's stuff about React and I think I have a basic understanding of what it is, although not what particular problems this solves. (It happens I was doing some of what React does well, with custom-written code, on projects for Old Company, but that doesn't really translate over.)
You know what Crossroads Village needs? Some more walking around! Here, please, enjoy.
Looking at the central Christmas tree and some of the lighting around it.
A whole mass of bushes and trees decorated with lights here.
And a slightly different angle, looking up at the lights in the trees above where we stood.
Trivia: The eleventh month in the Ancient Egyptian calendar was Nini. Source: Source: Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History, EG Richards.
Currently Reading: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Cartoon Animals, Jeff Rovin.
PS: From my Fourth A-to-Z: Zeta Functions, which have nothing to do with the workings of synthetic squirrel-oid creations. That's a joke for a specific audience, only half of whom will ever read this.