I built the product!

Three weeks. Wow. I built the product. This is so friggin' awesome. I asked one of the QA guys if I could run the regress on the product, you know, just to make sure that I built it correctly. He said "You will need to schedule that, we do it all by hand here".

I thought about that. I think its really cool that we hand test all our releases. Its a real commitment to quality. Most places I have seen they automate it and then you spend all the time fixing the scripts when you change the code. That involves people, so they might as well be adaptive and apply themselves to testing by hand. Hand crafted like a Rolls Royce. Its probably why we have a ratio of 1.5 QA for each Engineer. But that's cool, they are all cheap and on H1 visa's so they are not going anywhere or costing us!

I love this company.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 2 bottles (down two last week)
Shots : 1 x Tequila, 1 x Bourbon (down two from last week)
Dinner : 4 nights (4 x pizza)
Weight : 156 lbs

Still not built the product!

I'm starting to worry. I still have not built the product. It seems a never ending loop of problems and asking questions and people getting mad at me. I met my boss, he has some unpronounceable name ("can-I-have-a-latter-sir" or something). I'm told he is a super techie but he shouted at me a lot which did not make me feel good about myself.

I meant to start the eating and drinking spreadsheet this week but found out that us engineers don't get Microsoft Office. It makes total sense, the money should go on important things like new servers, storage, Oracle licenses etc. rather than waste it on frivolous stuff. My boss also said that I have to use Eclipse rather than IntelliJ, but I can make that switch it will be worth it for the company. Still can't wait to meet Henry, he's in Charlotte, NC this week (again).

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 4 bottles (one up from last week)
Shots : 4 x Tequila (three up from last week)
Dinner : 4 nights (3 x pizza, 1 x Thai)
Weight : 152 lbs

Wow, one week down!

Wow, that first week shot by. I met so many great people here. Everybody is so friendly and gave me loads of great advice ("dev manager x is bi-polar, director Y is a pyscho, don't do shots with the VPE" etc.).

Still trying to build the product. Its been a long week and many, many late nights but I can't seem to get the thing built. There are so many frameworks, go and ask such-and-such, Database upgrade fails, get a new CentOS baseline etc. You know its never easy in your first week. But this must be such an amazing product if it is this difficult to build!

Still not met Henry, apparently he is in Charlotte, NC to meet with American City Bank. Apparently he is there a lot. They are a potential big investor so I guess it makes sense. Just wish I could hear his inspirational thoughts in person.

Found out they really look after their staff here. I had food three nights last week (great Thai, so-so Pizza and fabulous Indian food). There was also drinking. I'll keep a chart in a spreadsheet but here's the data.

Beer : 3 bottles (1 Coors Light, 2 Corona)
Shots : 1 x Tequila at Friday's beer bash
Food : 3 (Thai, Pizza, Indian)

Here's hoping that I get the product to build this week.

Welcome to Hank!

Wow. I can't believe it, I'm finally here. Many months after being referred by my mentor at Sun Microsystems, three rounds of interviews and all the back and forth over money I'm finally here. I have been blessed with the chance to work at the Next Big Internet company. I have to say a big thanks to Adrian and Lucy (she a little hottie) in the recruiting team getting me through that process.

I arrived at 9.30am, I could not sleep and was so eager to get into work. Although they said 10am, I'm sure it was Ok to be there early. People have been soooo helpful (OMG they are all so smart!). Got a used machine (hear that happens a lot here) and now I'm trying to sync and build the product. I'm told that "really smart" people can get this done in a week. I'm sure that I will manage because I am super smart.

Can't wait to meet and hear Henry, I hear that he's super inspirational and had an amazing vision of what this company will become.

So I'll try to keep posting this blog as I get up to speed and really understand the vision and business model. If I seem to disappear its just because I'm writting the Next Big Internet Story!