It has been a whirlwind of just shy of a month. Today I finished my second full week of a probationary period with Mobomo. As per Mobomo’s “about us” page:
Mobomo is a trusted Federal partner, modernizing legacy systems and building scalable, reliable solutions for millions.
Yes, you read that right…at least for the moment, I found footing in the federal sector with the US government. This is definitely a pivot from client type that I had been used to previously, but one I’m willing to try out for the time being.
This position came in like a proverbial whirlwind, very similar to my original hiring at WDS. I shared my resume with someone at Mobomo, who knew me from shared time at WDS, on Sunday August 2nd. He passed it along on Monday the 3rd, and I received an initial call on Tuesday the 4th. This call was to gather some initial details, ask some questions, gauge desired/expected salary, etc. Maybe 5 minutes total call. I received a followup call on Thursday the 6th, just to re-confirm some things, but also to inquire if I could start Monday the 10th.
I know what’s going on in my industry, I know I should not look gift horses in the mouth, I said that yes I could. It would be foolish to turn down an opportunity when so many are struggling to find work.
So my official probationary start date was the 10th, and while it was a little slow at first, with a fair amount of “just sitting there, waiting for some tasks to do”, it has definitely picked up and I’m well into my first project.
Part of the on-boarding that I’ve done, is try to not break “bad habits”, but more make intentional small changes to my workflows. This could be changing up tools used, trying out a different local development environment that matches with what others on the development team uses, or even as simple as color scheme changes and wallpaper choices. This is not to try and forget the past, but more re-invent for the future. At least thus far, I haven’t received any pressure into AI tools, but who knows with future projects, if I am around long enough for that.
On top of that, of course there’s going to be different company culture and processes, all of which I’m sure I’ll adapt to in due time. I do miss some more casual chatter in our internal communication spaces. All in due time.
Admittedly, I probably should have seen if I could haven gotten a higher salary than I left with at WDS, but I did quote that I wanted to at least match at where I was, so I’m out like $100 or less per year. This is because I said “*intentionally redacted*”, so for now it’s exactly that. If things go well long term, hopefully I can move myself up more!
I still have the promised severance payments from WDS scheduled through the end of September, so I’m considering that a temporary raise. That’ll be an extra near *intentionally redacted* in the end, after taxes.
Here’s to moving forward, and new experiences.
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