Chris Gammell's Analog Life

Redirecting Beams

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For the audio fans out there: I discussed this topic on episode #358 of The Amp Hour

The past couple of years have been a mix of life events for me: I started my course full time, immediately jumped back into the work force (part time), traveled a bunch, started new projects, sold my old stuff, moved to Chicago, I met my podcast co-host in person and started my life over. It’s been a wild ride. Though there have been ups and downs, I’m super grateful for the opportunities I’ve had and the people I’ve been able to work with.

And since I only seem to post on this blog when I have big news these days, I’ll cut right to the chase: I’m starting a new role as a “developer advocate” at Hologram in mid-September.

Hologram is a start-up based here in Chicago, focused on making  cellular data more accessible for internet-connected hardware projects. This takes the form of a SIM card that can be used with a wide range of cellular hardware. The business model is based around enabling projects to connect via cell towers and then charging for data and services. This is currently possible with other carriers, but not in a flexible way and definitely not in a friendly way for developers; this quickly becomes apparent for devs with a large number of devices and not much data needed per-device. The other neat thing is the ubiquitous nature of the SIM card. As an MVNO, Hologram works across a wide range of cell tower operators and in-between mobile carriers, meaning that devices using these SIM cards will work in a large range of the world.

My job will be talking to people building hardware or software and describing the benefits of using Hologram over something else. So…uh…how’d I do?

The past 3.5 years working at Supplyframe have been great. I have really enjoyed writing for the Supplyframe Hardware blog (something I helped create) and running the monthly hardware meetup called Hardware Developers Didactic Galactic (HDDG). One thing I’ve realized about myself is that I really do enjoy communicating information about electronics, even if I’m not the one with the expertise; this should have been apparent from my continued interest in running The Amp Hour (where Dave and I regularly interview people in the industry) and Contextual Electronics (where we have started a forum to get more community involvement and outside opinions).

Working as the “expert” has been increasingly rare as I moved away from daily electronics design. While I think I have become a better interviewer for the podcast, I think my ability to talk about everyday engineering challenges has faded. There is no replacing everyday anecdotes derived from the stress of creating electronic products. I’m looking forward to creating more hardware projects as part of Hologram, even if they are only example projects to help illustrate a point.

This will be the first time I’ll have co-workers and an office to go into in a long time (since 2014). I’m a bit more nervous about this, simply because it feels like I’ll be stepping backwards in terms of “freedom”. But one thing I’ve learned about remote work in the past few years has been the challenges of communication. Even with the near-infinite modes of communication available to us, nothing replaces face-to-face interaction.  I would find myself looking forward to trips out to the corporate headquarters at Supplyframe because of the high-bandwith transfer of information that is possible when you’re sitting around a conference room table. So joining a local company is a cautious step back towards what I think is important in my working life.

That brings up thoughts about other things that are important to me. In fact, many of these things were present at my former job and I want them to be present at any future employer, including Hologram:

  • Motivated, intelligent co-workers — This is an absolute must for me, but I realized over time that co-workers provide a feedback loop that allows me to create better work.
  • Connection with hardware people — Not necessarily just engineers, but I really enjoy connecting people that are excited about hardware. I started a meetup here in Chicago to do just that.
  • Hands on hardware design — This is something I was moving towards at Supplyframe and something that I get to do as part of my course. But I’m excited at the prospect of making hardware solutions for people looking to connect to the internet and solve problems.
  • Work that has impact — At Supplyframe I was communicating with engineers that were solving real world problems. At Hologram, I’m hoping to also work with people that are solving problems using cellular connectivity.
  • Learning opportunities — I am particularly excited about learning more about how cellular networks work “behind the scenes” and best practices for getting devices hooked up to the internet. This in addition to learning more about how to market to a new group of potential customers.

That last point is important and was tied into my decision to move jobs to this new opportunity. I have been trend-watching on The Amp Hour and as an EE over the past few years. There will always be subject matter experts with deep knowledge around a very focused topic (think “analog design”), but this has inherent risks. Companies that require this depth of knowledge continue to disrespect it; they outsource work to job shops or take advantage of the fact that there are fewer options for these kinds of employees. I think for opportunities as an employee or an entrepreneur, it’s necessary to have a hand in all parts of the process. As a result, I want to focus on more and more of the product design cycle, including sourcing/logistics, firmware and software. I recently wrote about the concept of a “solo engineer“; and while I am interested in working in-person with coworkers on a daily basis again, I truly believe the engineer of the future is capable of achieving a full product design using online services and persistence in their product vision. From an electronics standpoint, chip companies continue to consolidate and offer bespoke chip solutions for very targeted application. I think the solo engineer of the future will be tasked with finding and connecting a potential solution as fast as possible. Optimization is less important than proving out the design. This fast design cycle pace is unlikely to slow anytime soon. Not only is this a skill I’d like to work on (fast iteration), I think there are pieces missing in my ability to get a device operational as fast as possible (the software/platform piece). I’m excited to learn alongside all of you.

Again, I want to reinforce just how grateful I am for everyone I’ve met and interacted with over the past few years. It has been a really wonderful journey and I can’t imagine having done it without all the advice and friendship I’ve gained along the way. I hope to return that favor to others in the coming years; if you have a project you want help getting online, let me know!

Pro Bono Engineering

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Today I’m announcing a new project: Pro bono engineering. I will be offering a couple hours per week to those in need in an attempt to make a positive impact.

The concept of pro bono is nothing new. It is a common practice in law and medicine. Sometimes as a method for writing off hours at a tax break (though that is on shaky ground with the IRS) and sometimes as a public service; the American Bar Association recommends donating time to those in need to maintain good standing with the law community. And while engineering doesn’t really have a centralized organization for licensure (yes, the National Society of Professional Engineers acts as this for some fields), it is still an important thing to think about. Really it’s about helping people who are not able to afford services. Other precedents exist for this as well, like Engineers Without Borders (EWB), but I am not aware of this existing for electronics/tech projects.

I would love to tell you that I’m doing this solely out of the goodness of my heart, but that’s not how idea started. It primarily started because some of my skills are less sharp than they had been in the past. I have been working on a lot of things in the last 3 years, but I’ve been learning mostly outside of the field of engineering: marketing, product management, business administration. All of these things are necessary, especially for running a small business. But the core skills that I talk about and am proud of are my engineering skills. Much like my strife over selling my drums, moving away from engineering is as much an identity crisis as anything else. I am the first person to talk about the power of “learning by doing” (see also Contextual Electronics), so this is my form of that.

That’s not to say I’m not excited by the prospect of social good and helping people move their projects forwards. As you’ll see in the criteria I lay out below, the project goals will also help me decide which project to prioritize. Really instead of “social good”, I’ll try and focus on “impact”. If I can help a software engineer move a project forward for a device that helps a lot of people (even if it’s a commercial project), I’ll favor that.

But enough about the motivations, as this is really an experiment. I’ll only know it is working once I have tried it out! Let’s take a look at some of the restrictions and guidelines for projects I’m looking to work on:

  • This will be no more than 5 hours per week of my time.
  • You will need to pay for parts. Even when a friend mechanic works on a car for “free”, you’re often paying for the parts.
  • I will be working in KiCad. This is my eCAD of choice. If there is mechanical or other work, I’ll help out how I can (have been learning Fusion 360).
  • I will be talking and writing about all projects I help with. If you have a “secret” project, you probably should be hiring someone to help you out.
  • There are restrictions on what I’ll agree to work on, including life-critical and dangerous projects. Really I am the only person who decides what I’ll be working on.
  • Projects with existing documentation (even background info counts) will be given priority as that helps to assess the project. There is a place on the form below to add info about where to find the documentation.

So the last thing is that I am taking the “applications” for this via Google Forms. You can access the form directly here and I will attempt to embed the form below.

I am hopeful I will be able to help a lot of people and find great new people to work with. If you have thoughts or questions, please leave them in the comments below.

Thank you Antonella Beccaria for the picture of helping hands

Internet Denizenry

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I’m rounding out a stint of travel to Serbia, Germany, the UK and am now back in the states. It has been a wonderful experience, even if I am ready for a bit of quiet at home for a while.

One thing that strikes me as I travel to these foreign destinations and meet new people and experience new things: work stays the same.

This is the effect of spending a large percentage of time in front of a screen. No matter what the surrounding environment, with a wifi connection, a laptop and possibly a VPN, I can access the exact same setup as anywhere else. No surprise to most people, why should work ever change for an internet worker?

It’s actually the effect of having that consistency of experience that intrigues me. Very few other professions (that aren’t primarily screen based) would have the same effect. A doctor in a different country would need to learn the local trends and traditions. A construction worker would need to figure out how the building codes are different. An accountant would need to learn the local tax rules. With the internet, it really starts to normalize.

This combines with the cultural homogenization I observed. I’m not saying that all of the places I visited are converging towards the suburban Ohio experience that I’m accustomed to (thank goodness). But there is a sneaking suspicion that advertisers are following me from country to country as they attempt to penetrate new markets. Life is not a series of advertisements (I hope) but the availability of comforts and fashion across the globe has me questioning daily experience in another country.

On a broader level, this starts to make me question the idea of location and citizenship at all. Hopefully I don’t sound ungrateful for the comforts a US passport and background affords me. But now that I start to experience similar daily experience in and out of work and an overall convergent culture and I start to wonder what differentiates one country over another. On the surface it seems like:

  • Currency
  • Power standards (plugs, voltages)
  • Language (though I benefit from the world moving towards an English standard)
  • Tax structures, bureaucratic struggles and the services the pay for, such as healthcare.

Yes, this is a drastic oversimplification. But calling out these things as some of the large differentiating points, I really wonder what a “internet” passport and citizenship would look like, some kind of new world order simplified across all the willing participants of the web. Not just a tax haven and a lack of regulation (looking at you SeaLand), but an actual society of people that are living and working online. A government run by hackers and makers, optimized for low overhead and allowing maximum flexibility between the various geographies of the world. It would probably be a mess, but allows for an interesting thought experiment. Where would move people choose to live in the real world? How would that further impact culture? What defines citizenship in the first place?

Ultimately, I am grateful for the opportunity to work from a variety of locations and bring my work with me. I continue to be an American and likely would choose that again if given the opportunity. Perhaps I’ll start working from more varied locations though.

 

On The Road Again

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One large change in my transition from a desk-based engineer to a “product manager helping desk-based engineers” (and part time basement-based engineer) is the sharp increase in travel. I am writing this post from a hotel room, as I likely will others in the future.

Travel has been a blessing. I get to meet more people in person, make deeper connections with those I have met online and see parts of the world that are drastically different than my basement.

However, I am learning that I thrive in situations that are boring.

A large part of my success on projects like Contextual Electronics was a focus on routines; these were natural extensions of excess time while firmly planted in my house in the midwest. There wasn’t all that much to do on any given weeknight and any social activity takes planning because of the relative distance of my friends in the area. When I’m home, I stay on track with my daily habits. Travel throws a wrench in the works though.

One problem relates to my last post about co-workers. I often work by myself, and that’s when I get a lot of work done. But when I’m with co-workers on the road or at the office, I want to spend time with them! Friends…right next to me! This means dinners and social events and simply sitting down and chatting for extended periods. My rather packed habit schedule does not go for this though.

Ultimately, it comes down to balancing fun and social things with work. That’s the nature of work, right? If I want to continue improving myself, my course and my life, I need to sometimes pass up going out for a beer. I think in general, the coincidence of alcohol and social functions also needs to decrease on travel, but that is a topic for another post. The first thing I will be focusing on is striking a healthy balance between spending time face to face with people I don’t see very often (which is important) and getting work done for the future (which is also important).

Thanks to Moyan Brenn for the picture of the road.

On Having Co-workers

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I thought the thing I wanted more than anything else was to work alone. By myself. With myself. For myself.

Quit my job. Strike out on my own.

Sure, no job actually exists in a vacuum. The basis of commerce is one entity paying another, which sets up a power structure. So I assumed I would be working for my customers. That continues to be a very rewarding part of Contextual Electronics (CE). Hearing about the problems they’re having and working to solve those problems tickles my teaching nerve and my engineering nerve (the one the rewards me when I solve problems).

But I thought I’d be on my own and that’s what I really wanted. I was kind of wrong.

Shortly after leaving my last job to work on CE, I joined Supplyframe part time. We have been doing exciting things like the Hackaday Prize (now in its third year) and building tools I’ve always wanted for myself as an engineer. That has become a bigger part of my life and I really like where the company is right now and where it’s going. Today marks the two year anniversary of that decision. Also along the way, the direction of CE has also taken a turn towards embedded, so I brought on two part time instructors, who also act as advisors for both the content and the site.

Co-workers challenge me.  They keep tabs on me. They inspire new ideas during our discussions. They prevent me from getting lonely, even working remotely in a basement in Cleveland (the “Co” in “Co-workers” meaning working on the same stuff, not necessarily in the same location).

In both of my jobs, I now work with people on a daily basis. Engineers aren’t supposed to like that. I’m supposed to be a lone wolf. I’m either a bad engineer or a true pack animal, because I enjoy having co-workers again.

Thanks to Lex Photographic for the picture of the Lone Wolf

As big as…space

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Last week on my electronics podcast, The Amp Hour, I did something uncharacteristic: I mentioned where I’m working, while I’m working there. Normally I don’t talk about my place of employment until after I have left, which has always served me well. There is no conflict of interest in talking about work that protected by non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).  This time is different though, because the nature of the company is different (and my role will be more public facing than my normal role as an engineer).

I’ve been working with Supply Frame part time, in addition to my work on Contextual Electronics. It has been great working with a team dedicated to making the supply chain (the complex system of vendors and distributors) a bit easier to navigate. As it so happens, Supply Frame also purchased a popular blog site a while back that I have always been a fan of, Hackaday. That site highlights fun projects from around the web and is a great way to keep up on recent innovations in personal projects.

So why all this explaining and build-up? Well I’ve also been asked to help out on a project as part of Hackaday. In fact, it falls in line with my past experience of running the 555 contest back in 2011.

Hackaday is sending the grand prize winner of a new design contest to space. Whoa.

When they first told me about this idea, I figured they must be joking. How the hell would this be possible? Well, it turns out there are more and more commercial space flight options opening up. These days with enough money (and yeah, it’s a lot of money), you can buy a ticket to ride. So that’s how we’re doing it.

The contest itself is really exciting as well. The goal is for people to build “open, connected hardware”. In my experience (with the 555 contest), you need a constraint to base the contest around; openness as a constraint is particularly interesting. Not only does it encourage people to design something cool (like an open source Nest Thermostat or similar), but it also then allows that hard work to be built upon later. I’m a huge fan of open source hardware and up until this point, the way most people are rewarded for their openness has been a community building up around their project (a prize unto itself); now they can also win a trip to space (or other prizes).

I put in a couple emails to friends and acquaintances and we’re going to have a killer judges panel as well; they’re all as interested in sending open hardware experts to space as we are. Bunnie, Limor, Dave Jones, Elecia, Jack Ganssle, Ian of Dangerous Proto, Joe Grand, Sprite_tm. We’re also announcing the final winner in Germany at the huge tradeshow Electronica.

Anyway, I’m super pumped and I hope you are too. I feel very lucky to be involved with such a fun project and hope lots of people will be interested in submitting an entry.

Don’t Wait For Permission

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I have corresponded with a international student for a few years now. I honestly can’t even remember how we met online and it doesn’t matter. He showed interest in my work and we started talking and have continued as he has graduated from US university and found a job locally. Recently he asked me:

I don’t like my current job. How can I get a job at Google?

I asked him why he wanted to move to Google. High pay? Exciting work? Big challenges? A recognizable name on a resume? All of these things can be had at other companies, many that are easier to get to than Google. Without having someone on the inside of Google that knows his work, I told him that he will be forced to go through the same process that every other interviewee does when applying to jobs posted online…and that’s a lot of competition. Not that competition is bad, just that there are so many better ways to find interesting, rewarding, high paid work.

So here’s the advice I give him and to all of you and any other recent graduates or young people looking for work:

I recommend you pick an open source project you think that Google would work on (or any other target company you’d like to work with). Maybe it’s a robot. Or a new API. Or a delivery service for soggy cereal milk (really?!?).

Next, start working on that project. If you can’t find an existing project, start your own (I started the BenchBudEE as part of Contextual Electronics because I didn’t see anything else in the marketplace). If you can’t do it alone, find some others that might be interested in the same topic. Find discussion boards or subreddits around the topic to find like minded people (hopefully with complementary skill sets)

Finally, spend all of your waking moments not at your job or school working on this project. You won’t be paid at all and likely never will be for this project. Work really really hard on it. At the end, you’ll either have one of two things

  1. A job offer from Google (or whichever company you were targeting)
  2. A great project and great experience.

If you don’t want to do the hard work when you’re not already working for Google, they likely won’t want to hire you in the first place.

Don’t wait for a company to give you permission to do interesting work. Go out there and find it and do it. The world is a playground!

First Day Rejection

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Well, it’s my first day out on my own and I have already had a rejection. Whee!

In reality, it was a contract job that I bid on without too much expectation of getting the work. I definitely was not counting on this work as part of my survival in my new jump to self employment. Mostly it was an interesting problem that I would have enjoyed working on and I would have been able to work with some good people; this is my main disappointment with not getting the work.

However, I did get feedback on my proposal, which is great. A lot of times, people will just blow you off and you later get the, “Oh, we went with someone else” a few months down the road. The feedback was positive, that the proposal was well enough done, which was reassuring because I haven’t submitted many in the past. The reality of the situation was that they decided to go with a completely different architecture for the project, which I had no chance of doing well. As such, their decision to not go with me was a good one.

I suppose the biggest disappointment after “not getting the work” was that I failed to convince them to see my solution as the best solution (really the point of any proposal). I knew this would be an uphill battle from the beginning as the project manager seemed to favor the other way of architecting the solution. But how do you change someone’s mind when they have been envisioning a particular type of solution from the beginning? This isn’t isolated to this situation, I have experienced a preconceived notion by managers in the past.

I could complain about a manager making a decision in a vacuum, but the truth is, I don’t know if this decision was made in a vacuum. In fact, it could be that the solution that was asked for is in fact the best way to go forward. If I really wanted (or needed) the work, I suppose I could tailor a solution to the manager’s preconceived notion, quickly iterate on it and show how it ultimately will fail as a final solution and then be ready to propose the alternate (better) solution. Is this realistic as a contractor? No. I think from the outset if you plan on failure, you’re going to hurt your reputation. Plus, as I mentioned above, I have no way of actually creating the (preconceived) solution, so this wouldn’t have even been an option for me. I think the only real way for me to win this (long term) would be to develop this solution on my own for fun/educational purposes and then be at the ready to offer it up later as a possible solution, assuming the preconceived method does ultimately fail. In reality, I have other things to get done, so I’ll just wait and see if they call and I’ll start on the work then.

So yeah, first day out of the gate and I’ve already had a rejection! It feels good to get it out of my system…I’m sure no more will happen in the future…right? RIGHT? Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

I Quit My Job To Teach People About Hardware

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This topic was discussed in greater detail in Episode 184 of to The Amp Hour. This article is more about the personal feelings that have accompanied this (ongoing) transition.

Starting Friday, for the first time in my adult life I will be without a job; at least a job as I’ve always defined it. I have been employed as a full time electrical engineer (in various roles, the most relevant being analog ones) for 8 years straight. Prior to that I had been working as a co-op for 10-20 hours a week for another 2 years. All told, I would estimate I have worked roughly 17,000 hours up until this point (in an official capacity). While that would qualify me for the “expert” category if you listened to Malcolm Gladwell and the people he was quoting in that book, it feels like I’m just getting started. It feels like I have a TON to learn and the backlog of things I need to know in the future keeps growing. And you know what? That is one of the best parts of engineering! The real story here is that I have been working for the past 8 months on an electronics education program that is currently running. It’s called Contextual Electronics.

The program launched in January and as of this writing, we are in the middle of the 4th week out of 8 of Session 1A (where we are designing a board). Session 1B (where we build the board) will start in March, a couple weeks after the conclusion of Session 1A. It has been a spectacular group of people who decided to sign up for the program and my decision to leave my full time job is largely based around wanting to serve them better. The 6 months before the program started were dedicated (on nights and weekends) to developing the 8 week curriculum. I want to be able to be forward looking with future curriculum and to better serve them on a day to day basis. But that’s not all I’ll be doing! I’ll also be working on:

  • A medical startup — This is a fledgling project with a friend, but one that I am very excited about. It’s in a new field for me as well, resetting the clock on my 10,000+ hours. It is unlikely my “nights and weekends” schedule will change any time soon and I’m ok with that, especially if I get to work on something that excites me like this project does.
  • Consulting — I have had a consulting company for about 4 years now, called “Analog Life, LLC” (sounds familiar, eh?). That was normally part time, smaller jobs when I could find them. This will be a larger part of my life now as it will help to support my family more than being a source of income to build out my lab. If you have analog work you need done (or really any electronics projects you’d like to talk about hiring me for), please feel free to contact me.
  • Giving talks — This is a new one for me, but I am currently scheduled to do two talks this year: One at the HKN Student Leadership Conference and one at SolidCon. Very different venues, excited about both (and always open to more!).
  • Running meetups — I started a local meetup group in Cleveland alongside my friend Martin Lorton. It’s a great opportunity to network and an even better excuse to drink beer and talk about nerdy stuff. It’s called Charged Conversation (shamelessly stolen from a list of possible taglines for The Amp Hour)
  • The Amp Hour — Nothing new or different, Dave and I will continue producing podcasts, ranting about what upsets us in the electronics industry and asking people much smarter than us to come talk to us. I’m excited about the potential a looser schedule has for The Amp Hour. Running a show with someone in a timezone 14 hours ahead of you can be restricting…and now that work schedules aren’t a problem (Dave is also self employed), we don’t have that restriction. Just families and the need to sleep at some point.

I also have a running list of projects and other things that have been put off as part of spending my free time on Contextual Electronics. While I don’t think I will have “free” time in any way, shape or form, I do hope some of the following will start to work their way back up the priority list (in no particular order):

  • Machining — Remember how I used to write about my new toy, my Taig mill? I started with it about a year ago and then decided I wanted to work on a part time gig that could turn into a full time gig (which it has!). Of particular interest is using my mill to create circuit boards by routing copper clad FR4. This could have lots of benefits for my consulting.
  • Run classes in person around the world — This fulfills two interests: Getting out into the world and teaching some of the Contextual Electronics content in person and also doing it in different areas (and seeing the world in the process). This one takes more planning and will be a longer term goal.
  • Writing — Sure, everyone says they want to write more, but I do already…it’s just not very visible. I do daily updates for Contextual Electronics and also did so throughout the Beta Process. I would just like to move that same consistency onto this site or others. As much as I already say online, I have a lot more opinions to air! 
  • Different Podcasts — I stepped away from The Engineering Commons to work on Contextual Electronics (and even went back to talk to them about the program). I am regularly thinking up new podcast topics and would like to explore different formats.
  • Developing more products — This is part of developing the curriculum of Contextual Electronics (each session produces an Open Source Hardware project), but I would love to do a start to finish project with the sole goal of commercializing it (without a large corporation backing me).
  • Working in different industries — This would be part of consulting, but I would love to branch out a little bit. I have been focused mainly in analog for industrial applications in the past, but also enjoy FPGAs and occasionally have been known to program a microcontroller. I would also like to try different industries, maybe working on a large scale art installation or similar. This is a very nebulous goal, but the main point is I want to continue learning by doing.
  • Sleeping/getting healthy — To say my health has declined would be a bit of an understatement. I have definitely gained weight and I can feel my mind getting cloudier from less rest. I think that was another thing that helped edge me towards this decision. I have been keeping the following schedule for the past 8 months:
    • Up at 8:00 am
    • Get to work at 9:30 am (flexible schedule)
    • Short/no lunch
    • Leave work at 6:30 pm (on a good day)
    • Dinner with family 7:00 pm
    • Start working on CE or recording The Amp Hour at 8:00 pm
    • Collapse into bed at 2:00 am. Lather, rinse, repeat.
  • Playing music — This one has fallen completely off the map and represents true leisure time for me. I used to play in bands and I really miss it. I doubt I’ll ever get back to where I was as a drummer, but I would love to be active musically again. If I can, it will be a sign that I’m moving towards a simpler, more balanced life.

I think one of the things that excites me, is that this inadvertently moves me closer to a post I wrote about 5 years ago called “Engineering The Perfect Day“. Some of my personal goals have definitely changed and music has definitely faded in my priorities, though I still like the feel of that post. It feels like what would be a good life. Only time will tell if it will actually be my future. More than anything, I made good on what I’ve often said about my future when people asked me, “What’s next?” I always respond that my next employer would be me. I don’t know if I’ll be my last employer, but given my increasing restlessness with corporate engineering culture, it seemed like an inevitability. That said, I am sad to leave my current job (which I’ll possibly talk about in the future, as the company is also a good one and I’d like to promote their end goals). I believe I’m leaving under good conditions, though I had asked to stay on part time and was denied for now (more about that in The Amp Hour episode linked at the top). But since I’m leaving and because I want to capture the emotions I’m feeling during this process, I thought I would do a quick list about the things I will and won’t miss.

  • Things I’ll miss

    • Co-workers — Always first on my list, I wouldn’t be working there if I didn’t enjoy the people I work with. I’ve learned a lot from this group and learned a bunch from the ones at the job before. For the first time I won’t have any co-workers and coming to terms with that will be odd. I suppose Twitter folk will be my office mates (as well as my slightly less verbal dogs).
    • Structure — I was warned about this from consultants in the field now and ones that have come back to the workplace: the lack of structure can be difficult at the beginning. I can see why. It feels like I have an extended vacation coming up to work on whatever I’d like. In reality, I need to purchase food and keep my house in the future.
    • Large scale projects that require skills beyond my own — We talked about this a little bit on The Amp Hour a few weeks back. Large companies often work on larger projects and the accompanying budgets. This can present (though doesn’t guarantee) more interesting problems to be solved. It also allows me to lean on skilled co-workers to help me along on new tasks.
    • Seeing my work out in the world — Similarly, when the big projects get out into the real world, they can have some impact. Engineers (myself included) take great pride in pointing at a piece of hardware and saying, “I designed/tested/built that”.
    • Non-billable time — As I move into consulting, I recognize some of the finer points of how to bill clients and give them The Warm Fuzzy Feeling™ (one of my favorite articles on the internet). This also means I won’t have as much non-billable time that corporate jobs allow for training and researching new topics. Sure, I track my time at my job, but as a salaried person it is more based upon the result of my work than the number of hours on the project.
    • Leverage over vendors — As a hardware person, this can be a big one. Having a large company name behind you (and the associated dollar amounts) can really get a vendor’s attention. Now that I’m a shop of one, that will be much more difficult when I need to talk to someone inside a chip company. Hopefully I might be able to use my previous industry connections and my role on The Amp Hour to garner a little extra attention. Every bit helps when you’re in a bind.
    • Significant resources (travel, prototypes) — Basically having a budget from my employer and being able to use it to build the stuff necessary in any hardware business.

  • Things I won’t miss 

    • Corporate culture (from all sides) and hierarchy — Blah blah blah, Chris doesn’t like large corporations. But more than experiencing an Office Space environment, it’s more about the slowness that large companies move. If there is a new technology, it’s less often the case that a large company will be a first adopter. As a small consultant, I can take that risk (either on products I design for sale or with a client’s approval on their project).
    • Time restrictions — While non-billable time is nice, it does also mean that I am sitting at the office when I could be out working on a podcast or developing more course material. One of the key parts of having a larger workforce is having flexibility in your workers so they can jump onto new projects as they pop up. This also can mean that workers get a little restless when underutilized.
    • Commuting — Working in Cleveland in the winter, this comes into sharper relief. I bought a house near my first company for a short commute and promptly changed jobs (brilliant!). Now my 25 mile commute is a drain on the wallet, my car, my sanity…and most importantly my time. My new commute will be down the basement stairs with a much lower chance of slipping and sliding on the snowy roads.
    • Profit restrictions — While a salary is a nice guarantee to a steady amount of money throughout the year, it is also by definition is a limited upside. You’ll never earn more than your salary (plus a possible bonus, also usually limited). As a consultant, and more so as someone starting a business, there is “unlimited” upside, meaning there is a potential for making more money. Sure, there is also risk of making less (or no) money. I think Paul Graham captures this idea well in his article about wealth.
    • Job roles — Just like having available labor in their workforce, large companies like defined roles so that it is easier to identify who should take on work as it comes down the pipeline. They also like that there is efficiency in one person becoming a subject matter expert (the theory being they get stuff done quicker). Yes, I like analog electronics. You could even say I love the field. But as mentioned above I want to branch out and try new things. And these days, it feels like engineers need to branch out in order to stay flexible and employable (even as a consultant).

  • Noticeably absent from both lists

    • Meetings — These will still happen in my new ventures and may even become more common as I need to get to know new clients and assure them I can do the work. The best case scenario is to minimize the stupidity of all meetings by keeping them short and to the point.
    • Benefits — While healthcare was one of my largest concerns going into this decision, it’s really not as big of a deal. I pay either way. You do too! I now will be responsible for paying my corporate premiums as part of any healthcare plan I’m part of of; if I take COBRA, I’ll pay what the company paid for me while I worked there. I’ll still need to pay my personal premiums and put money into an HSA. Yes, it’s a significant cost, but the entire amount paid towards healthcare can be viewed as a lump sum, regardless of who pays it. If my company didn’t pay part of my health insurance now, I would expect them to pay me more per month to match my compensation package to the rest of the market. Now I expect my personal company to pay for my health insurance. The big difference between this year and last is I now have an option if COBRA is overpriced or (in the past) wasn’t guaranteed coverage: I can switch to Obamacare. I like Mr Money Moustache’s take on the new regulations.
    • Having a dedicated place to do work — Yes, I also complain about loud co-workers near my cube at work and the fans that blare in the servers near my desk, but my home office will be no different; I’ll have distractions that range from puppies wanting to go outside and play to wives who ask me to do laundry during conference calls (and I’ll listen because she has been so supportive of me!). Unless I get an isolation tank and a waterproof laptop, I likely will have some kind of distraction to complain about.

Really this is all just the beginning of a journey on my own. I’m really appreciative to everyone who listened to my nervous whining about making this jump and still reassured me. I’m very grateful to all the people I’ve worked with in Cleveland over the years and am optimistic that people in other parts of the country are as friendly and helpful. And I’m happy you read all the way to the end of this overly detailed brain dump. Hope to do more of this soon. Thanks to Theen Moy for the cover picture of the caps.

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