Personal Brand - Part 1

I have been using computers, programming, and enjoying technology since I was a very little kid. I recently started to look for a new job and realized, very quickly, that I have failed to "manage my personal brand." Here's a little story on how I came to realize it, and, in part two, what I plan to do to fix it.

After having successfully built up a customer base, while serving in the US Air Force, and later transition from military to civilian life on this same clientele, I have found it extremely difficult to explain to employers why I am not a "Junior Programmer." Looking at my résumé, it would appear that I only have three years of development experience. Which is really hard to explain. Really hard.

I successfully built up a great customer base that supported me as I transitioned out of military life to civilian life. Upon deciding to have a child, my wife and I found it prudent for her to come home and me to "get a job." We really wanted a few stable things like healthcare and the ability for me to work a normal 40-hour work week. Had we held off on expanding our family, I would probably still be growing my consultant work and building up a product to bring to market.

Back to work...

Upon posting my résumé online, I received about 20 phone calls from recruiters and had a new job lined up within less than 24 hours. I found myself working back on a military base working on an application that supports a major command (MAJCOM) in the Air Force. I joined the team in their rush to complete a website written using ASP.NET Web Forms with three months left in their year long development cycle. It was a pretty nasty beast with no structure—but it was a "job."

After hitting the release date (which was actually considered a miracle) we went into maintenance mode. The team started to fall apart and, eventually, everybody quit a few months later. Well, everybody except me, the new guy, and a federal employee we worked with. Unfortunately for us, the work load didn't change and the customer still expected the continued support of the application. I became the "lead," as a contractor with the recommendation and support of the "big boss."

Over the next year, I was able to build up a new team and actually competed for, and was hired as, a federal employee. This gave the team some stability, and me the opportunity to change things. I was able to untangle the ball of mud into a pretty elegant ASP.NET Web API and MVC3 solution. My new team was very supportive and open to my guidance. Together we created a composable system that obfuscated the 30+ year old COBOL code and started to drag functionality out of the legacy monolith into C#.

Needless to say, I have been working heavily in .NET for a long time and using, almost exclusively, C#. I know it very well and use my own personal time to research and increase my knowledge. I write code, even when I know I'm going to throw it away, just to practice and learn something new. I explore open source, non-Microsoft frameworks, along with the stuff Microsoft hands us developers. I do not believe that Microsoft has all of the answers and am not a developer that follows them blindly (when able).

Transition

I am now going on a combined two years on this project and was always a bit leery of writing a blog or exposing too much about what I do. My project is not accessible to the public, but it is used world-wide by people from "wrench-turners" to executives in the military. If my application were to suddenly stop, it can keep aircraft from flying, personnel from being moved, and people from working—all over the world. But now I'm leaving.

I decided to stay in the private sector a bit more before jumping back out to form my own company, again. And, after having successfully managed the development and life-cycle of a multi-million dollar application, I am having to answer questions about the difference between a class and an interface. The interviews feel like I won a spot as a player on a very poor C# quiz show. They are very shallow, at best. But I have pushed on through them.

Rejection

Today, I received a rejection notice for a "Software Engineer III" position, from a recruiter:

Hi Jim,

We got feedback from your submission at [redacted]. The hiring manger said that from his perspective you are a little light on the C/.NET development side. He broke it down a little more for us, citing the COBOL application interface, VB6 and independent front end web application work and that he has worked with many engineers in this type of environment for many years. That being said, he needs someone with a more development heavy C/.NET background.

I'll keep looking and will let you know the next time I have a position that suites your skillset. [sic]

I don't even write COBOL! Or VB6 for that matter. Oi! But it is enough to motivate me to manage my personal brand.