So today I am officially announcing a huge change in our lives. On November 19th, less than a month after starting my new position at Nokia, I was contacted by a recruiter asking about a position in Palo Alto. I replied to him that I had just taken a new position and wasn’t really looking for a new one, but that I might be open to a once in a lifetime opportunity. He replied asking if I knew anyone that would be interested in an Operations Engineering type position with Facebook and of course I replied saying that was exactly the sort of once in a lifetime opportunity I was talking about.
He arranged for me to speak with a Facebook recruiter over the phone on November 29th. I guess I met any requirements he had, so a technical interview was arranged. This didn’t happen until December 11th, so things were proceeding at a relatively slow pace. After my first technical phone interview, they decided that they would like to do a second one. Normally, I believe they would have done an in person interview, but since I was so far away they wanted to do a 2nd before deciding to fly me out for an in person interview. This second phone interview happened pretty soon after the first, on December 17th.
A few days later I found out they were interested in doing an in person interview. With the holidays approaching, we decided that it would be better to wait until a week or so after. On January 11th, I had a 2 hour interview at their office in Palo Alto. On January 18th, they made me an offer and on the 22nd I accepted. My start date is February 25th and I fly out on the 23rd. Currently, I still don’t have a place to stay and am looking on craigslist for short term housing and might end up at an extended stay hotel type place.
Perhaps you’d like to hear a little more detail about our visit to Palo Alto and the interview? Mary Ann and I decided it would be useful for her to come with me, so she could explore the area for housing and potential places to work. We flew out the day before my interview, stayed two nights and then flew back. We drove around the Palo Alto area a lot and just sort of took it all in. We also went and had dinner with Bharat, our Gallery friend who lives in the area.
The interview itself was actually pretty fun. My recent interview at Nokia sort of made me realize something and also provided a situation I had never interviewed in before. Since I already had a job I liked (in both cases) and would be okay either way, I was able to just sort of let go and be myself. Of course, I was nervous as heck and probably sounded a bit silly, but at the same time I was able to be more myself. The technical portion went okay, there were many things I knew, some things I didn’t know and some things I figured out literally while we were talking about it. The two common things between my last two interviews was that when I didn’t know something, I believe I was plain that I wasn’t sure, but offered an educated guess. Then, I followed up with questions and actually cared about figuring it out or at the very least learning when I was totally unable to figure it out.
I’ve never moved across the country by myself, so this is proving a bit hard. I also have to deal with getting our house ready to sell, and of course selling it… in the worst selling market known to man. Our plan is for me to fly out, start my job and live some place temporary while we look for a place. Mary Ann is going to join me for about a week, helping me find some place, possibly interviewing at some vet clinics in the area and doing what ever else we need to do. Once we have a place, we’ll make the cross country drive in a big moving truck with our car on a trailer and the animals who knows where. Simultaneously, Mary Ann will have the task of cleaning, repairing and fixing up our house to the point it can be safely put on the market. Not a job I’d want to have. The last two weeks I am here are going to be a mad dash of my dad and I doing as much as possible.