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Back in 2002 I lost my job during a regional financial crisis (I’m from Uruguay). I was working at a bank (as a contractors) and some coworkers and I were work
by fipar 3y ago
Back in 2002 I lost my job during a regional financial crisis (I’m from Uruguay).
I was working at a bank (as a contractors) and some coworkers and I were working on a HA project for MySQL at the moment (to use it at work). Once I got laid off, I focused on it to the point that it became quite useful, and at some point, someone from Israel reached out with questions.
I answered with a lot of delay, and when I explained that was due to me being out of a job and not able to afford a permanent internet connection, he offered to hire me and also set me up with a permanent connection with a contract paid by him.
If you’re reading this, thank you Aric, I’m forever grateful for that chance!
Curiously, last year I switched jobs and during the interview process it turned out the hiring manager had been a user of my project back in 2003 or so, which definitely helped with the interview process.
The project’s name was mysql-ha, later renamed to highbase due to a Copyright infringement notice from Sun (who were good about it and gave me a free 1 year subscription to Enterprise MySQL when I renamed the project). I abandoned it around 2008 as better things became available around that time .
- fipar 3y agoI mean better things became available to manage HA in a MySQL deployment.
- binwiederhier 3y agoHaving done a large scale MySQL deployment (700+ servers), I still find the HA landscape in MySQL land pretty sad. It's all very manual, nad it's very easy to screw up failovers. Even with Vitesse or Orchestrator or semi-sync ...
- fipar 3y agoOh, definitely, I meant things better than my project had become available. MySQL still has a long way to go in terms of friendly HA, and I’m not sure it will ever get to the level of something like cockroachdb. There’s plenty of room for improvements in that area, just not through something like what I was doing (mostly shell scripts).
- moneywoes 3y agophenomenal story, did you keep working on the project after ?
- fipar 3y agoThanks! In 2009 I joined Percona and saw that, by then, it was better for me to contribute to other open source projects in the MySQL ecosystem than to continue trying to get highbase caught up with things like mysql-mmm.
- mandeepj 3y agoThat must give you an adrenaline rush of another level when the interviewer turns out to be your user. I want to feel that one day
- fipar 3y agoIt was great though honestly, my first reaction was a bit of panic. The first thoughts that came to my mind were "will he say it sucked? maybe he used it and lost some data?". Once that didn't happen then yeah, it was thrilling, and completely unexpected for a project I hadn't worked on for over a decade!
- zlg_codes 3y agoThat's a fantastic story. I hope fortune has followed you. I would be thrilled to find even one user of software I've wrote. To be interviewed by one for a job? That's amazing. Good stuff!
- fipar 3y agoThank you!
- brezelgoring 3y agoQue bueno ver otro Uruguayo aca en HN, somos pocos pero buenos! Que estes bien Fernando, me alegro que prefieras quedarte en el paisito y cultivarlo ayudando a otros.
- fipar 3y ago¡Muchas gracias! Y si, espero que ahora que el trabajo remoto es mas aceptado, mucha mas gente pueda "irse sin irse", trabajando para donde sea pero desde acá. ¡Que estés bien también!
- ftorres16 3y ago¡Somos al menos tres!
- ggambetta 3y ago¡Somos como cuatro! Dozens of us! Dozens!
- tolai 3y agoGabriel? Trabajamos en un proyecto común en 2007 para un proyecto de robótica para una empresa americana... otro uruguayo acá pero yo me tuve que subir al avión :(
- ggambetta 3y agoMe acuerdo del proyecto :) Para que lado te tomaste el avión? Yo estoy en Europa desde 2011...
- sebnun 3y ago!Al menos cinco! All joking aside, great story @fipar.
- solarkraft 3y ago> who were good about it and gave me a free 1 year subscription to Enterprise MySQL when I renamed the project Sun really was good, huh?
- fipar 3y agoConsidering I was (unknowingly) very obviously infringing their trademark (X for MySQL was OK, MySQL-X was not), yeah, I felt the whole thing was handled in a good way.
- santiagobasulto 3y agoHola uruguayo. Los amo, nunca cambien. Abrazo grande.
- ggambetta 3y agoI wonder how many of us got their life trajectories completely altered by that crisis. Mine sure was. There's this fun question "if you could change one thing from the past...", and I don't know how to answer it truthfully, because we are the sum of everything in our past, the good and the bad, and I like where I am today... but man, that crisis was rough.
- fipar 3y ago> because we are the sum of everything in our past, the good and the bad Oh, definitely! I had a bunch of obviously bad things happen to me and I’ve gone through your “if you could change one thing “ exercise many times, until I learned to accept all of it got me to where I am. In late 2001 my mother killed herself so by the end of 2002 I had a crash course on dealing with adversity! Anyway, while I’m slightly older than you, one of my coworkers at the bank was the same generation as you at university so I remember you, and all the software you wrote that your classmates used. Crisis or no crisis, it’s no surprise you did great :) Nice to see your name on a comment!
- ggambetta 3y agoWow, that sounds pretty rough, I hope you're doing better now :) Thanks for the kind words, your name definitely rings a bell. Small world!