Unemployed No More

My fourth week at the county has my plate as full as if I were an old-timer here, with the usual software development projects filling my ticket queue. But I'm not complaining: the job is a perfect match for my skills, has plenty of room to grow professionally, is quite flexible, and pays well (surprisingly competitive for a county government job). I am a Software Engineer III (senior level), responsible for implementing and maintaining integrations for the school district. By "integrations", I mean that when a couple of systems need to interface (exchange data or use each other's services), it is an integration that enables that sort of thing by providing a "bridge" or "adapter" for them to communicate.

The job is in Castle Rock, CO, about 40 miles door-to-door north of Colorado Springs where we live. It takes me 30-40 minutes to drive there in traffic, a much easier commute than when I worked in Denver for 3 weeks preceding this job. The county serves more than 8000 students, a considerable number of vendors, and thousands of teachers. I work in the student data and IT support services center, where a torrent of public school data are processed - everything from payroll to student grades and bus routes. It is a fun environment.

I was unemployed for 5 weeks total. My original intent had been to take a break from work (be unemployed) for 2-3 months, and had even qualified for unemployment benefits of $532/week. But during the second week, we realized we owed a crap ton to the IRS for 2014 (never mind a new baby and first home purchase, which we expected would give us great windfall). So I decided I would return to work as soon as possible to help cover the taxes we owed. Besides, technical recruiters also mentioned that long periods of unemployment would not look good on my résumé.

The job search was swift and lasted only 3 weeks. Everyday, I had a torrent of recruiter calls setting up phone interviews and such. I attended 5 in-person and 3 Skype interviews. I am blessed that my technical skills are currently in demand, with potential to fetch $40/hour or more on W-2 basis. I essentially had my pick of jobs, although my top 2 choices eventually didn't work out. One of them is still interviewing candidates to this day, and the other would only have been a 9-month contract without extension. My fifth choice was the first to make an offer, which is how I ended up in Denver for a while. Castle Rock was my third choice.

Because I was set up for this job by technical recruiters, I started out as a contractor for 2 months. In about 4 weeks, my hope is that I will be converted to a school district county employee. Except perhaps for the commute, this is as close to a perfect job as I could have hoped for. The commute itself is not bad: I now listen to podcasts more consistently during the commute.

The Next Job, Part II: Know Your Stuff

Aside from computing, my other passion has always been medicine. In fact, I was a pre-med student for two semesters when I first started college, but decided to pursue computer engineering instead because I would start making money sooner (5 years compared to surgery's 13 years). In the back of my mind, I've always thought I might make the jump back to medicine, perhaps in a position that integrates computing.

With the prospect of unemployment in March 2015, I wondered whether this was the opportunity to consider a medical career. I reasoned that if my wife's job could support the family wholly for a few years, I might return to school and start out as a nurse, working my way towards surgery. Possibility. The harder I considered this, I became convinced that your 30's are the last opportunity to settle into your last career, one that will take you into a comfortable retirement. Yes, you still have another 30 years before retirement age, but it is much harder to change careers after your 30's. You surely can change jobs within your career, but not many more times. Age discrimination is on the rise, as well as a growing younger and immigrant labor force that will make the labor market highly competitive. Old dogs cannot learn new tricks.

In the end, I decided to stick with computing as my career. In fact, I also determined that I would be really good at it that even in my 50's, I'll still be markatable with tons of relevant experience. Having learned what skills were in demand for jobs I could qualify for, the next step was to determine which skills I already have, which ones I needed to spruce up, and which ones I need to attain. Out of 55 skills, I decided to focus on 25 of the most requested, and gave myself a year (until July 2015) to master them. Even with the birth of our son and off-schedule sleeping routines, I still manage 2-4 hours of quiet study in the mornings while everyone else sleeps, so I have a chance to pursue this goal.

The Next Job, Part I: Skills In Demand

I'll be the first to confirm that there is no such thing as "job security". It used to be that if you did something unique or very few people did what you do, you were safe. It used to be like that for me, until our company was bought out by another. Suddenly everything changed, and my position is scheduled for elimination in March 2015. Never mind that what I did will remain, probably assigned to somebody that has no experience with it.

But I'm not one to bemoan spilled milk: I quickly came up with a strategy for landing my next job. It comprises of 4 steps: (1) determining what skills are "hot" in the industry, (2) reviewing the skills I have, (3) attaining any new compelling skills, and (4) determining how I'll identify my next job. That last step is important: you don't want to apply for anything that comes across your radar just because you have the skills it requires.

For the last 4 months, I have tallied the general categories of skills or qualifications in jobs posted at Dice, Glassdoor, SimplyHired, Indeed, Careerbuilder, and LinkedIn. The jobs match a general search query "java+web+developer+software+engineer", and I only tallied the ones I could reasonably apply for, even if I did not have all the required skills. Additionally, I got a torrent of job matches arrived via the armies of IT recruiters out there, almost as soon as I posted on the first job site. Fortunately, their matches are closer to what I am looking for (except for the relocation).

Below are the results of what's hot in my nexus (step 1), skills that I should know if I will be highly marketable. They are sorted by relative importance, with must-haves at the bottom. It says, for example: "there is three times as much demand for ORM frameworks (such as Hibernate) than there is for portal technologies (such as portlets or iFrames)" among the jobs I could do. The data shows that I should care little about the skills at the top; the ones at the bottom are my best bet. The next question then is: which of these skills do I have (am I sure about or expert at)? Future blog post.

How Impending Job Loss Is A Blessing

In December 2013, we sat down to strategize how the next year would go. We knew it would be our biggest year yet, specifically with the arrival of our first child, and finally becoming homeowners. Because of those two events, we anticipated our living costs would rise, so we talked about increasing our income 15% in 2014. Calculations showed we would manage better with such a margin if it came down to my wife becoming a stay-at-home mom. We could still get by on my current salary, but it'd be harder going forward. We had a few options at our disposal: (1) trim our budget so we live on less, (2) I get a second job that brings in the extra 15%, or (3) we somehow get raises or promotions that make up the 15%. We decided we would pursue all three options in the new year and see where we end up.

Enter 2014. We curb our appetites and the budget loses weight. Success! I start looking for contracts under my small business STRIVE. Promising! At our annual employee performance reviews, we inquire about raises and promotions, or lateral movement within our respective companies. Bleak! The first two options are viable, but the third is a no-go. We buy a house with 20% downpayment, leaving us with the lowest reserves we've seen in our entire marriage. Super! Then in April, we learn that my current job would be ending, the consequence of our company's acquisition and absorption into another. Bummer! Initially, it looks like the rest of the year will suck, but we chose to trust God still for our well-being and livelihood.

During that week, we literally "cast our burdens" unto God and reflected on how faithful He had been in our life thus far. We were reminded that when we yearned for a mate, we found each other although it wasn't how we had thought we'd meet our spouse. We wanted an easy marriage, and we have it. We wanted a child, and he'll be here in 3 weeks. We wanted a house, and we found it in 5 weeks. It even closed in much less time than short-sales usually do. We pray for good health and have generally lived it. Whatever we have needed, He has been faithful to provide, in His own time, in His own way.

Even in the impending job loss, we still see God's hand at work:
(1) The job does not end immediately -- I have until March 31, 2015. Most other layoffs have been immediate.
(2) It means we would still have our health coverage, which we think is important to have for at least the baby's first few months. We'll have 7 months.
(3) At the end of the job, I'll receive a severance package equivalent to 16 weeks of my current pay. That's 4 months income while I look for another job. I sense that we'll need me home these four months with the baby, depending on how childcare works out.
(4) It would have been impossible to get a 15% raise soon enough in this job, even through promotion. I would have had to work a lot more hours chasing the unattainable goal at the expense of time spent with family.
(5) Until the job ends, I have ample time to find a good job that can meet our original goal, without pressure to find something quickly or settle for the first thing that comes down the pipe.
(6) I can use the time until then to spruce up my resume, update my skills and even attain new ones that would make me more marketable. I've perused the job postings and feel confident that I will find work relatively easily when I start applying. It's also given me a chance to learn what skills are in demand today so I can prepare accordingly.
(7) The company has changed so much since the acquisition that some perks we were counting on after the baby arrives will no longer be there. The flexibility to work from home is gone (they prefer everyone to be in the office), among other things. Eventually, I would have hated working here.

For many people, losing a job is the worst blow to their lives. But we are blessed that we are in the best possible financial and emotional position to handle this impending job loss, so our pity party lasted only a week. Our emergency plans allow for a worst-case scenario of 6 months basic living if we both lost our jobs. Besides that, the severance package and unemployment benefits would cover us for up to 2 years. That in itself is a blessing, to have such safety nets in place.

We nonetheless do not anticipate that I will be unemployed for long, if at all. I'll officially start looking for another job in February 2015, although if a great opportunity presents before then, I'll seriously consider it. We trust that God will still be providing our daily needs no matter what happens, and are eagerly anticipating how the rest of the year will unfold.

Our Company Sold

A big surprise early Monday morning: that our company had been sold to Avago Corporation, which is expanding into the storage and networking space. An even bigger surprise is that many of us on the the inside had no idea whatsoever that such a big transaction was in the works. Many of my co-workers seem upbeat about the news nonetheless, especially that our stock price has finally broken the $10 barrier. Our company stock, earned over the years through the ESPP or as RSU grants, is suddenly worth a whole lot more. I'll give myself a couple of weeks before I sell some of it.

The question on everyone's mind has been whether people would lose their jobs. Traditionally, the absorbed company sheds some positions as they get assimilated into the owning company. We did that when we acquired Agere Systems and MegaRAID. But in this week's employee conferences (3 by week's end) with both CEOs, the message has been that this is more like a merger, a combining of specialties to create a larger company, and so business should proceed as usual albeit under a new name on our side. If any jobs will be shed, it will be in departments that do similar work in both companies, and such decisions will be made in the 3rd or 4th quarters of 2014 after the acquisition gets approved in in March or April.

What does this acquisition mean for our family though? For the time being, we will proceed with our lives as originally planned. If I were to lose my job, three things would be at stake: our plans to buy a house next year, our healthcare insurance, and a sabbatical I have been delaying. The slight uncertainty has caused us to look more critically at our finances, and to begin considering alternatives (part-time work or contracts through my business STRIVE). It's definitely a sterner dynamic.

So we covet your prayers that we may find peace and not be thrown off course by uncertainties that would befall us. In times like this, we are glad that we still have two incomes, and that our emergency plans account for one of us losing their job. It's comforting and helps us avoid panic.