I nearly moved to Seattle. I suppose it still might happen, but not today.
I had been putting my resume out on job boards and, out of the blue, I got phoned by a contracting firm. They had a position in Seattle for a major company that they thought I was a good fit for. I didn’t think much of it, until a week later they wanted me to come down for an interview.
The thing is, I had never heard of this contracting firm. And I was supposed to pay my own way to Seattle. I was more suspicious than excited. I didn’t accept right away and instead tried to get in contact with the big company to confirm that this was legitimate. It all checked out, so I spent $700 to buy a plane ticket to go down to Seattle for the day.
I flew down on a Thursday before the crack of dawn. I got into my rental car and drove to the interview. The campus was large and it felt like a fun place. Not really an office building. The contracting firm told me to sound excited, and that was easy. I tried to sound excited for everything, even if I didn’t always feel it.
I had two interviews. The first one was where I was given some programming problems and had to write pseudo-code on a whiteboard to solve them. It was actually fun, and I did learn a bit. The second interview had me go over an existing interface and I had to describe all the ways I would create a tool to help test it. That didn’t go as smoothly, but I still did my best. I got the impression that this is what I would be paid to do if I got the job.
Afterwards I briefly saw a friend and then jetted back to home.
On Monday, I was given the job offer for an eight month contract. This was an amazing opportunity to work at a big firm and get solid experience with a popular language. So I verbally said yes, still sounding excited. I started the paperwork, but I never signed anything. That same day I got an interview request for a local firm. I had that meeting the next day because I had told them I had an offer in hand. That job really did sound interesting.
I was feeling sick about the idea of going to Seattle. A couple of days later, I sent an email expressing my doubts. I was trying to be nice and polite and not burn any bridges, so I told them I needed time to think about the job. Really, I was stalling for time to see if the local offer would pan out. But that job kept me waiting. They didn’t seem to really want to make a decision quickly.
By the next week, the contracting firm was starting to wonder. And on Tuesday I let them know I wasn’t interested. They didn’t take “No” for an answer. I once again got phone calls.
I eventually figured out several reasons why I shouldn’t take the job. The chief one was that the job, as described, didn’t sound like what I wanted to do. I would be writing testing automation infrastructure; I would be writing something that no one would enjoy using. I want to like what I write. I want to make things as easy as possible for the end user and that, although they may not want to use the software (because it is work), they would not mind using it. It makes their lives easier. Testing infrastructure just makes a test script easier to write. It is an important job, but not one I would like to do for eight months. And on top of that, pay rent in a foreign country away from all my friends and family.
I explained this to the contracting company, and they understood. They would contact the big company and see if that is what I’ll actually be doing. That was last monday, and I haven’t heard anything since.
Guess I’m staying.