...tfw management shifts your priorities suddenly, for the next 2 days, and it requires that you completely alter your environment from what you have been building up for the last two weeks...

Thanks, plugin, that help text was incredibly...helpful?

The biggest things I’ve probably learned working on side projects are patience and planning. Side projects are a great place to hone your skills of negotiation with other people, but I’ve personally learned a great deal about the process of architecture, simply by doing side projects where I’ve experienced scoping and tooling problems later on. Being patient lends itself to getting better at planning. Working with others on side projects has given me insight into “when to hold em and when to fold em”...and again, this patience education has often helped me be a better planner for a multitude of tasks.

Disclaimer: I’m a Test Automation Architect...so with that in mind...

I aim to solve the massive problem with test (and more specifically) test automation data management that pervades throughout the testing ecosystem. I’m on to something right now, and frankly, this is, and has been, a huge issue that needs a path forward to solving.

Going old school, but...
Does anyone else want to literally reach over and strangle people who move your desk items, including swinging your monitor around, using your pen and paper, moving your fan or bottles, or other things?

I was in the last stage of a 12 hour interview process (over 3 days), meeting with the CEO/founder of the company. His final conclusion was (and he said this directly to me) that he felt I would do really well, and that my skill set was perfect and all the feedback from the interviewers was top notch...but he asked if I was published or had any patents. I said “no”. So, he paused and then said “well, without a full 4 year degree or either having been published or having any patents, I think we would be taking too great a risk. I mean, there’s a chance you would work out. I have taken that chance before, and he’s now our CTO. But I’m just not sure about this”.
I was not offered the position.