code6000: 4 Years in the Making...

I'm rolling out a software consultancy. Here's the story behind it:

Roll-out

While code6000 is my new brand, before that there was English3000.

I discovered tech in the course of creating a curriculum for rapid language acquisition. Did you know: The 3000 most frequent words in English make up 98 percent of the words we regularly use?

Four years ago I had a business venture and I needed a website. So I built one.

Unfortunately, in the US, English language education is a tough market because there is the civic tradition of libraries running free programs with passionate volunteers from their communities. It's hard to compete with free. Suffice to say: It was a learning experience.

Re-calibrate

The good thing is when you're young, you can take risks. So while the venture didn't exactly thrive, I gained business experience, developed intellectual property, and got into tech.

I also had nearly a decade of experience in government:

• At the US State Department I piloted and produced English grammar videos for a Facebook audience of 2 million then, and nearly double that today.
• At the IT Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office, as a Business Analyst I gathered requirements for a new in-house case management platform.

So, I had a choice to make: Did I want to utilize my experience in government, or delve deeper into tech?

The good thing about my time at the Attorney General's Office was that I got to do both. And by the end, I had made my decision...

Take II

I took a job in the private sector with ArcLight Consulting, a software consultancy that partners with Oracle. Having just made the professional switch to tech, I was grateful for the opportunity.

At the same time, I knew San Francisco was the capital of tech.

By this point, you've gathered that I'm not afraid to take calculated risks. So after the better part of a year, I took my experience and moved across the country.

The thing is, while coming to the top of the market offers significantly more lucrative opportunities, it is also the most competitive. So, in order to take my career to the next level, I needed to take my skills to the next level. Good thing that I didn't just move. I had planned ahead.

So, when I arrived in San Francisco, I entered a professional development program that is harder to get into than Harvard.

And from there,

just as I had built my own website,

I oriented myself within the market by teaching myself certain technologies.

I did a good enough job that I landed one as a full-stack developer with consultants from the company that created Elixir!

"Growing Pains"

Working for The RealReal was a wonderful experience in many ways. To name a few:

• Having the opportunity to use Elixir, a niche technology, professionally
• Being part of a friendly, supportive culture
• Doing agile development

But, just like how I graduated from college early and picked up coding rapidly, I also contributed quickly on the job...

In SF it's not said out loud, but there are these social pressures to assimilate:

• To pass as left-leaning for "workplace harmony"
• To stay silent in a technical conversation when a more senior person...

At The RealReal, I had a spiritual choice:

Follow "the path of least resistance" for the money and "experience",

OR

carefully fight for what I believe in out of loyalty to the business and to actually grow professionally.

I chose to step up rather than step back. And I made some headway. But I saw there was a glass ceiling to my efforts. So, the way things were, I took an opportunity at Facebook.

"The Smartest One in the Room"

Going to Facebook, I hoped I wouldn't run into what I had in the role I left. And I didn't. I ran into something else: office politics.

During my time at Facebook, I:

• Helped build an internal tool
• Identified a bug in the Facebook Design System
• Absorbed the state-of-the-art of React there

However there were some cultural hurdles, from the different tone of voice my boss used only with me, to my colleagues' professed ignorance of and apathy towards Judaism.

On the upside, I did have the opportunity to step up. But when I did, I was shocked to discover the people senior to me didn't care whether I was right, even when I proved it. Instead, they used their power to block my perfectly acceptable work from passing code review. Given these particular individuals would not allow me to shine, I soon left.

code6000

After having worked with the companies that, respectively, created Elixir and React, and having used each professionally, I figured:

"If my more experienced colleagues aren't open to my ideas, no matter how clearly and cleverly I communicate them, why not appeal straight to the decision-maker for the business?"

At both roles, the moral dilemma I found myself in was that in order to do what I believed was best for the company, I risked the wrath of the colleagues senior to me.

I could have just taken the money, bided my time, and done what was asked mindlessly. Instead, I'm using these experiences to my advantage.

When technical decisions are made based on interpersonal factors, the best decisions aren't always made.

Whether it's an idea that hasn't faced a critical perspective, or a founder who reaches for the language one knows without seriously evaluating whether there's a new one that's better, value is missed.

So, rather than passively submitting myself to this problem, I've created my own company to help solve it.

Check it out!