Category Archives: Jobs

IAM Robotics laid off most of its management and employees yesterday, myself included.

It’s a shame; it was a good place to work for the last year and a half. We had a whole lot of talent, experience, and drive all in the same place, and I really genuinely believed in what we were doing. I really would have liked to see all our hard work be shipped to real customers and make a real difference.

Cookies crumble, I suppose, especially if you’re working at a startup.

To the many friends and colleagues I made at IAMR, I will miss you all. It’s hard to say if our paths will cross again, but if they do, let’s at least do lunch

Not sure what comes next. I’m somewhat unexpectedly on the job market now, and while it’s not a great time to be on the job market in the tech sector, I’m sure I’ll find something. I’ve updated my resume here, so if you’re curious, feel free to take a look.

I had myself a nice break of a couple months after leaving HomeNet — and I really needed that break! — but it’s time to go back to being employed somewhere. I miss having a source of external purpose in my life, and a team to make things with. So I’ve updated my résumé (or CV, for you Brits in the audience), updated my LinkedIn profile, and here we go off on a new adventure —

I’m now talking to everybody, any recruiter willing to take my résumé, because I’m hoping that if I cast the net wide enough, I’ll eventually find that place that’s right, whatever it may be. So if you’re a recruiter or hiring manager and you think you have a good opening and you want to say hello, please don’t be shy about calling or e-mailing!

What am I looking for in a new job? I’m looking for three things:

• I want to work with a team of dedicated, smart colleagues, who genuinely care about what they do and who really want to make great things. Don’t tell me you’re “working for the weekend.” It’s quite okay if you work nine-to-five — and you should have a life outside of work — but I want to be with people who when they’re in the office are truly passionate about what they do.
• I want the company to care about quality. Lots of companies will give lip-service to quality work — of course we want to make good things! — but whenever there’s any pressure, quality goes out the door, and we have to ship yesterday. I don’t mind the occasional crunch time, but the intent matters: The company should care about making good products and should be occasionally willing to put their money where their mouth is.
• I want the job to matter. Not just be necessary for the company’s bottom line, but to be meaningful in the world. That doesn’t mean we have to be curing cancer, but it does mean we have to be doing more than just fattening the CEO’s paycheck: In some small way, the company (or at least the role) should be making the world a better place. I need to be able to look in the mirror at the end of the day and say, “You did something important today.”

That’s it. It’s not really about technology: I’ve worked on dozens of technologies and technology stacks in my years, and I’m sure I’ll work on dozens more. Pure tech for the sake of tech doesn’t excite me anymore, if it ever really did. What I’m looking for is something a little bigger than that: It’s about making good things, with good people, for good reasons.

Think that’s something your company offers? Think you have a place for someone who’s a 10x programmer, who speaks dozens of programming languages, who likes writing documentation and unit tests, who likes training and mentoring others, and who thinks fixing bugs is an absolute delight? Feel free to send me an e-mail or call me!

Today is my last day here at HomeNet.

It’s strange, surreal, and unbelievable; but it’s necessary.  I don’t know what’s next for me, but I know that it’s time for next to happen.  I did many good things here, some even worthy of note, and I think I had a good run — but everything must someday end, and the next page must be turned.  This chapter ends — but a new chapter begins, and though much of the wild cast who enthralled in the last will be gone in the next, I still hope my next will be as amazing and crazy and wonderful as this chapter before.

So to all of you, to all my friends and colleagues, to those whose stories continue here, I offer one last aspiration, one last wish, one last hope:  We each get only one chance to tell our story — a few short years in this world, and then our story is done, to make room for the stories that must come next.  So whatever it may entail, whatever future you may follow, whatever goals you may pursue, make your story amazing — because the great stories are the only ones worth telling.

With love and respect,

Sean Werkema
Principal Software Engineer
HomeNet Automotive

sean@werkema.com

I quit my job today.

Well, to be specific, I gave three-week notice, but by the end of this month, I’ll be a free agent — which is to say: Unemployed.

The time was right for moving on. I don’t have anything next planned yet — there’s no job waiting in the wings, no next gig, no next source of income — and that fact leaves me a little nervous. But I have some savings, and it was still time to leave. You can, at least, reasonably hope to see a few long-overdue blog postings appear here.

For those still at HomeNet, I wish you all the best, and I’ll miss you. There is a new place out there somewhere that needs me, and after a little break, I’ll go find it. I have some savings, and I desperately need to not be involved in anything for a while — good, bad, or otherwise.

What happens next? I don’t know. I guess we’ll all find out together.