Job transition

This was the first week that we were really getting down to work in my new gig. It sure has been different, for sure, but it's pretty exciting.

The biggest change is of course that I'm now in a program manager role and not a developer. I've had components of that role in most of my jobs in my post-college life, but this is the first time in ten years that it includes no significant hands-on coding responsibilities. That background helps because it gives me such a strong technical background, but it'll probably take me awhile to really feel out to what extent I should get "in the weeds." That's something to worry more about when we actually start building stuff.

So far, I don't feel like I'm contributing at a high level, because there's still a lot of discovery and definition going on, and most of my co-workers have been thinking about and living this stuff for months. I tend to approach a new job like I do a party full of strangers. I do a lot of observing at first, to get a feel of the people and moving parts, before I start to engage. I'm not the type to show up and try to be the life of the party instantly. We'll also start to specialize in certain parts of the product as time goes on, which will also help give focus.

But overall, it's pretty cool. The project is interesting, the people are scary smart, and there are opportunities to work with many different groups around the company. There's a lot of desire to make the ideas real things as soon as possible, too, which of course appeals to my developer sense. The next four or five months should be pretty extraordinary!