Somewhere around the start of December 2016 I got an email from LinkedIn informing me about a new friendship request (or however they call it).
I checked it out and it was another of the We have seen your profile and would like to talk to you about a job opportunity kind of messages. At that time I wasn't looking for a new job but I thought - why not.
What I was really looking for is to see if I could get myself something more then an initial offer so I said I am interested. The second reason I accepted was that I was looking for some kind of challenge to see if I still know stuff outside mobile apps.
After a talk with the recruiter/developer she told me I will receive an email with details for a smaller project I would have to develop and send back to them so they can asses my skills. After a day or two the email came and it was a simple app where I had to develop a flight checking application.
You enter your city of origin and destination, pick a date and you would receive some cheap flights. Nothing fancy, nothing difficult but nevertheless a nice change of pace for me.
I submitted my code and got invited to another interview where I got a few helpful tips on how I could improve my code and I really liked getting that kind of feedback!
I came into the final group for consideration but I informed them to exclude me since I had my eyes on another job but after that I was hooked :) I started applying for a few more jobs just to get to the assignment part and crack some code and test myself.
I even applied for a dev position for Microsoft and really enjoyed the online interview.
We first did some coding and afterwards talked for 30-ish minutes about what I work on, what I would like to do and I also had to develop an offline library. This was really an awesome thing and I really enjoyed it. I got asked to come to Norway for an on-site interview but at that stage I declined since I wasn't really looking to relocate to Oslo.
At that time I was talking to a friend about this and he told me his company is looking for developers so I said why not.
I contacted the guys from Five and they invited me for an interview - duh. As it turned out I did pretty good on that interview which consisted of some technical questions as well as whiteboard coding.
I got a job offer (the one because of which I rejected the above offer) but at the last second some changes have hit the project I should have worked on so we agreed I would wait for it to clear out. In the meantime another project was in need for a developer but it turned out I wouldn't be a great fit for it so they said they'll keep me posted for any other position that might come up.
Fast forward a month and I got another email from them and things looked like they were going to get into the final stage but this time I got one more offer from a different company and both of the projects looked awesome so I was pretty torn in the end but ultimately I sticked with Five and now I just have to wrap up a few projects with my current company Axilis and from the 2nd of May I'll start working for them.
I will miss the guys from Axilis quite a lot but since both companies are something like 1 km apart I am pretty sure I'll see these guys from time to time.
I enjoyed working at Axilis and have learned a great deal of things in the almost 3 years I have been there and for that I am really grateful.
Was it selfish to apply for jobs I wasn't really looking to accept an offer? Probably. But on the other hand I wouldn't have got the job I have if I didn't do it so I am happy about it.
I learned a ton of things about how to design larger applications, what to pay attention to and, not less important, sell myself :)
I am looking forward to join a great team and learn even more.
Until next time,
Be good