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Am 52. Served as IBM’s “corporate webmaster” in the 1990s (sort of like being CTO but without the cool executive hat). Corporate Webmaster was responsible for a
by epc 7y ago
Am 52. Served as IBM’s “corporate webmaster” in the 1990s (sort of like being CTO but without the cool executive hat). Corporate Webmaster was responsible for all technical operations of IBM’s corporate sites (from systems administration to application development), as well as theoretically responsible for all IBM web sites. As well as serve as the single point of contact inside IBM for anything “internet”.
Have been mostly unemployed since leaving IBM in 2001, other than a few short stints with NYC area startups.
To F100 corporate organizations I was too “internet” and claimed far too much experience than possible (circa 2002), to startups I was (and apparently am) too conservative, too corporate.
And yes, I tried the non–profit track. Every non–profit I interviewed with decided that I was clearly going to drop them as soon as I could reacquire a job in corporate America.
I’ve found other ways to make money instead of being employed by others.
- docker_up 7y agoI'm almost 50 myself. I've been coding for 25+ years, and am looking for a new job myself. I have one at a well-known company but I want to make more hay while the sun shines. I currently have a week of onsites booked with the Big N, and I'm in study mode. Because I'm still technical and hands-on and never became a manager, I haven't had any trouble getting contacted constantly for new jobs.
- markbnj 7y agoSame, except add nine years to the age. :). I actually did try management back in the late 90's and early 2000's, first at a startup I cofounded, then at a mid-size public company after the startup was acquired. I basically hated my life from the point where the startup stopped being a bunch of us coding and playing Quake III at night, to the point where I quit the public corp. Went back into engineering, stayed there, work at home and love what I do. Have no lack of opportunities being floated my way.
- RickJWagner 7y agoWhat's the 'Big N'?
- AlexCoventry 7y agoTop N companies, with N abstract.
- __s 7y agoNetflix
- docker_up 7y agoThat's a term used on Reddit /r/cscareerquestions, it's basically FAANG
- mixmastamyk 7y agoSame, technical and hands on, people love my work. Had a lot of trouble getting hired last time. Was unemployed for a year and whole family was a mere couple of weeks from homelessness when a govt contract finally came through. Next time I won’t be so lucky as little has changed, and feel the winds of recession picking up.
- RickSanchez2600 7y agoMY next door neighbor worked for IBM in OS/2. when IBM stopped supporting OS/2 they laid him off. He blamed Microsoft for it and refused to run Windows. I got him a copy of OpenSUSE from my computer because he refused to use Windows. He went to Linux, and had worked on the IBM Mainframes as well before. He had trouble getting hired because he was in his 60s. He recently died and had called himself a Windows Bigot because he refused to use or support Windows.
- sk5t 7y agoInteresting background - any story behind leaving IBM 18 years ago at the young age of ~33? As an aside, ultimate responsibility for IBM's corporate websites does not _sound_ very similar to the CTO role at a tech company.
- epc 7y agoI was burned out after 5 years of 7x24x365. Days were filled with conference calls and escalations about conference calls, nights were filled with the technical work I was supposed to be doing during the day. I was prohibited from filing patents due to some sort of corporate reporting arcanity, which derailed my technical career. I had (and apparently still have) an extremely negative reputation in the executive ranks from all of the times I told people that no, they couldn't run an IBM site under their desk, and many others. Appreciate that it's not similar to today's concept of CTO. I was not only responsible for all IBM web sites, I was expected to design, develop, deploy, manage, diagnose software for all IBM web sites, even those that I had no direct control over. IBM’s own software products tended to trail what we were doing in production by 12-24 months, when they were actually released. It was a fun job, until it wasn't.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- user5994461 7y agoHence a classic toxic 24/7 role where you're expected to double as operation and developer and database and architect and all. You should have run away much quicker. Nothing to do whatsoever with CTO. It's not event relevant to anything executive or management. I hope that you can describe your position in a more positive light than this text and without alluding to being CTO, because both will get you rejected fairly quickly in any interview.
- JKCalhoun 7y ago> 7x24x365 7x24x52 or 24x365 ;^)
- 7y ago
- rapfaria 7y ago> I’ve found other ways to make money instead of being employed by others SaaS?
- bonestamp2 7y agoWhat area are you working in now?
- epc 7y agoMostly retired. Stopped worrying about finding FTE 5-6 years ago and focused on making the cash I had work for me on a more immediate time scale. I do some advisory work with local startups for equity. Angel invested for awhile but stopped as mentioned elsewhere in an earlier thread. Would love to work again in tech but have never cracked getting on recruiters’ radar and I have better things to do than play whack—a-mole with the latest and greatest in applicant tracking systems automated decision algorithms.
- luckydata 7y agoI'm going to rock your world: almost nobody uses the keyword scanners in the ATSs. Sending a resume is mostly a waste of time, if you find a job you like just speak to someone that works at that company, preferably the hiring manager, and your likelihood of at least getting an interview goes up by about two orders of magnitude. Happy to teach you other tricks if you care for it.
- vageli 7y ago> I'm going to rock your world: almost nobody uses the keyword scanners in the ATSs. Sending a resume is mostly a waste of time, if you find a job you like just speak to someone that works at that company, preferably the hiring manager, and your likelihood of at least getting an interview goes up by about two orders of magnitude. Happy to teach you other tricks if you care for it. How are you supposed to find out the hiring manager's name from a job post? I'd be curious to hear some of these tricks.
- w-ll 7y agoLook at their company/about page, then go to LinkedIn. Also most email address are fairly predictable.