For those of you who don’t know me personally, I am originally from the Southside of Chicago, and moved to Milwaukee for college in 2013. After I graduated in 2017, I received a full-time offer in Brookfield, Wisconsin, so I have remained in the Milwaukee area for the last 6 years or so now.
This post is title “The Move” well because I’m moving. And no I’m not moving down the street or the next town over I’m moving across the country, more specifically to Seattle.
Around late March, early February I started seeking new career opportunities. My initial search started locally in the Milwaukee area, and I found a few bites, most of which led nowhere (I’ll write about the recruitment process in a later post). Sometime early in my job hunt, I got a call from a recruiter at Microsoft. At first, I thought it had to be a hoax, because I didn’t think huge companies like Microsft, Amazon. Google etc, had to head hunt, that people came to them. But to my benefit I was wrong.
Fast forward a few weeks, and next thing you know I on-site in Redmond, Washington interviewing with three managers at Microsoft. At this point I already considered the experience a win. Never in my lifetime did I expect to see myself on that campus let alone interviewing for a position, especially so early in my career.
The moment I left the campus I was all over my phone and email looking for a response. I had thought my technical interviews couldn’t have gone any better, and my talks with the managers were very insightful all of which gave me high hopes.
Then Monday came and nothing. Then went Tuesday. Wednesday is nowhere, and I’m airing on the side that I wasn’t fit for the position. So later that day I reached out to my candidate advocate to see if he had any word. He said “we’re trying for Minecraft”, and I absolutely lost it.
Minecraft?? One of the biggest community based games on the market? You’re telling me that not only could do the one thing I always to do in my career, and be part of team that has a huge global audience. Thursday comes and go.
Friday is here, and I promised other organizations that I would have for them an decision on their offer by the end of the day. Problem was I still didn’t have anything definite from Minecraft or Microsoft. Because I am two hours ahead of Seattle it made things a bit more taxing. I’m both working before they are, and my end of day is before theirs, so now I’m in between a rock and a hard place. Do I turn down a potential opportunity with one of the biggest names in business, or do I play it safe and stay local?
A few hours before my end of the day in Milwaukee I give my advocate a call, giving him the lay of the land. He said to give him a few hours to start knocking on some doors, so I do just that. At this point, I’m not sure what’s going to happen, where I will be working in a few weeks. The only thing I can think to compare it to is the NBA Draft, just finishing a long hard college season, not sure if you’ll be playing next to your idols, or still watching them on TV.
Sure enough, 5 pm rolls around and I get a call. Minecraft became a no go, but the door wasn’t completely shut. One of the three managers I interviewed with decided my name be tossed over to the gaming organization first. They knew I have a high interest in game development and thought it was only right to try getting me there sooner than later, but on the chance, the teams there didn’t find me to be fit at that moment then they would take me to be a part of their team. And that’s exactly what happened.
Which leads me to today-ish, I’m packing up my things and heading west on to endure my Manifest Destiny. Over 29 hours, 2,300 miles, and crossing 5 states, and I look forward to sharing every second of it with all of you.
