Tuesday December 10th was my last day at Cozi. I had recently rolled off a major project that lasted for most of a year, and the timing was good to go do something else. In my six years there, I made lasting friend­ships and I built a lot of software that makes me proud. Cozi has about 15 engineers, small enough that I worked on most of the software, notably on the web services that power everything else and on the web client ap­pli­ca­tion, though not, alas, on the iOS or Android ap­pli­ca­tions. Cozi was a great place to work and I knew I wanted to replicate what I valued there, working with a team of engineers that I liked and respected, building in­ter­est­ing software in a variety of tech­nolo­gies, at a small company.

I started my job search just before Thanks­giv­ing, expecting to spend several weeks, but I didn’t reckon with the demand in the Seattle market for ex­pe­ri­enced software developers. I sent out several ap­pli­ca­tions and heard very little during Thanks­giv­ing week. The next week, my job search caught fire. In the space of a little more than 24 hours, I had set up interview loops or in­for­ma­tion­als with CEOs at four different startups. I gave notice at Cozi later that week, as it was apparent that I would be leaving soon.

I had heard back from all of the startups where I in­ter­viewed by Thursday of last week. After con­sid­er­ing their offers, I accepted a position at CookBrite, a stealth-mode early-stage startup in Pioneer Square, where I will be one of the first developers. I’ve never joined a company so early before and I’m looking forward to the op­por­tu­ni­ty. The founders have done a lot of planning and market research, and I like what they’ve shown me. I start there on Thursday, December 19th.

I knew that there was more demand than supply in the Seattle software market, but I was still blindsided by the speed at which this came together. There are a lot of jobs for talented software developers. All modesty aside, I do have a great résumé. In fact, CookBrite first contacted me a couple of weeks before I started looking, via Stack Overflow Careers.

Outside my tech bubble, I know it’s not so easy to find work. Many of my friends are struggling on the margins, as are millions of others, in America and elsewhere. I wish I could spread some of that em­ploy­a­bil­i­ty fairydust around.

Meanwhile, I’m taking a few days off before starting my new job.