March
Madness
New Doors
Working 2 jobs at the moment while trying to juggle bills and not falling behind on rent. It's been pretty hectic the past 6 months and I really wish I was in the sunny weather of California with my dream girl. Can't believe it's been almost a year since I met her but unfortunately I'm too broke to make it to GDC this year. The other California jobs I've been targeting haven't panned out the way I'd hoped even though I have a great relationship with folks at the animation company and did pretty well with my 2 rounds at the large gaming company. If I had money figured out I might still be able to make another conference next month in San Francisco since there's a lot of them going on in the AI space. I told my guitarist that I've driven all across the US as far as Canada but I've always fantasized about route 66 out west. I even have signs of it on my walls!
My best lead at the moment is a local company that’s looking for a Flutter Developer. They make cashless laundry machines and are trying to improve the user interface. It's definitely a stable option since they've been in business for over 20 years and are looking for someone long-term. When I talked to the president last morning we had a great conversation and he seemed surprised when I told him I was working with some local house-builders right now! I'll definitely send a follow-up email with him tomorrow and see if I can come on-site for another interview. I could see working a senior role could definitely open some doors down the line and with a high salary I'd be able to afford a car in no time.
When I do make it to the west coast hopefully I can seduce the woman of my dreams, but if not I still need to look closer to home. In a few days I'm working construction at a new property in the city, so I might be able to swing by our old singer on the south side who I definitely need to catch up with. I worked pretty much all day today but I'm happy I was able to first follow up with my business partner in Finland who initially introduced me to FFI bindings and more advanced rendering capabilities in Flutter. I want to make a new AI app and an entire suite of tools for producing cool visual effects, but while framework has always been geared towards mobile development I'm hoping that Impeller finally catches up on desktop. The dream is to one day be financially free, have a successful business, and sell my own apps and software. But I know I just have to take it one step at a time. Then, hopefully I can make it.
Bittersweet Melody
Started off the day doing a job in the city demoing a bathroom at an older woman's apartment. Since this was a residential area just north of downtown Chicago we had to be very careful not to track dirt and debris all over the place. A TikToker also recently hit me up to collaborate on the roleplaying app I published last year, which makes me excited to pursue my other projects to reach a wider audience. For roleplaying we might choose the Fallout system when we play again on my patio, but as far as the digital projects go I know I could bring something way better to market!
When the workday was over I went to hang out with one of our singer's and apparently her new boyfriend I wish she'd given me a heads up about. I joked with my construction friends that I had a "booty call" with our best singer after we were done, but the truth is seeing someone you dated trying to make things work with another guy bummed me out. It was actually kind of funny when she asked me about the other chicks we were jamming with, so I suppose jealousy can go both ways. With the weather warming up again this spring, I can't wait to play out again!
With the rise of AI the tech job search has felt very daunting, and I haven't been working in the space for over a year at this point. I've been bouncing in-between running deliveries, doing flooring, holiday lighting, and most recently working with local house-builders. Hopefully I'll have a shot of getting a 6-figure senior Flutter developer role not far in my area, since I know it would open many doors down the road. The company makes smart laundry machines that require an app to support their fleet, and are looking for someone long-term to join them. I know I've been on a pursuit to the Bay area for quite some time, but landing something stable seems like what I need now more than ever.
Hazy Spring
Started off the day with a good interview for a neuroscience company that is looking for an app developer, with offices in Chicago and the Bay area which is pretty ideal for me. I've got more leads then I had before and have more calls lined up for tomorrow and the day after with companies on the West Coast, so I'll see if I can land any one of those. In the meantime, I need to make some progress on my own tech projects including a potential new update for the roleplaying app, as well as early work on an AI companion app and a cross-platform visual effects project using Flutter. I'm seeing if saving or encoding images/videos is feasible within my texturing library in addition to experimenting with CUDA libraries in my own renderer for things like GPU audio processing.
I was probably going to go see a show this weekend with my friend and check if the tattooed chick at the coffee shop nearby wants to tag along. I know that for St. Patriks day they dye the river green every year in Chicago, but it's the first time I'll get to see it first-hand. The venue we are heading to is one of the spots I want to play at this Spring with my guitarist and it's funny because if it wasn't for the buddy who invited me out I wouldn't have never started my own band in the first place. I originally auditioned as a bassist for my friend's rock band, but when I got to his garage for the audition I was cramped in the corner while he complained I wasn't loud enough even though I wasn't plugged in! I told the guy I was just there for fun when he told me to leave -- after which he invited me to an open mic because he felt bad -- and there's where I met my guitarist who we've been playing with for over 2 years.
With the Chicago weather finnicky as always and cold days reapproaching, I feel torn between being productive on my side-projects versus sleeping through the days until the evening. It's been a struggle financially, but the good news is I got my tax return so that should make things a little easier. I tell my friends that even though my business technically only made a profit of 15$ over the past year having an LLC pays for itself when it's time to catalogue your expenses for an IRS refund. I know I've got to hustle hard and shake hands as much as possible if any of my endeavors are going to succeed though, including my pursuit to California. If there's anything you can learn from my story, is that you should never stop networking because it can literally save your life; even situations that don't go your way might lead to a life-long connection down the road or the opportunity you've been waiting for.
Blue Collar to White
I was chilling on the porch today with my guitarist recounting the time I was almost arrested in Canada while on a road trip that direction. This was in Toronto a few years back where I had my hands up against the wall surrounded by police officers, telling them "I'm not the guy your looking for!" Luckily my knife wasn't on me at the time and the chick cop who was with them found a picture of the suspect, confirming it wasn't me. After 5 minutes of questioning me why I was angry and me replying because I did nothing wrong, I was let off without even an apology.
For all the stereotypes you hear about Canadian people being chill it's certainly not the case for their law enforcement. Besides that incident I did really enjoy my trip up northwest, especially when it came to visit Niagara Falls and Quebec City. My trip to New Orleans was equally exciting even if I had to take the nastiest job of my life back in Nashville to make my way home! I may have ran out of money for gas back then but luckily I was able to get my last tech job immediately afterwards.
But if I can ever land another tech job and afford a new car, I've got my sights set on only one place going forward: California. Ever since my first trip there with a couple Russian girls I've been in love with the landscape, cities and coastline. Before I land out there I already know I'm going to probably stay at a hostel in San Francisco I usually frequent for conferences. If I get out there by car I definitely wanna camp in the Arizona desert again and if time permits drive around all the major cities in Texas.
With AI continuing to displace the labor force, we live in a very competitive time for tech jobs. But I've always done blue collar work before transitioning to white collar, and my band even created 2 songs for the occasion called "Blue Collar Blues" and "White Collar Crime". I suppose there's no such thing as politics and work-from-home days when your doing manual labor, but even with the struggle comes some up-sides. They say that the way Al Capone was caught was through tax fraud before he was sent to Al Catraz, so I'm lucky I chose computer graphics over getting into hacking and didn't go back to a life of crime now when I need money most.
Currently I'm crossing my fingers for the local company that's looking for a Flutter developer and my dream animation company which just had 2 roles open up I think I'd be a better fit for than the previous ones. I fortunately have a good relationship with the head of talent and the founders of the company know about me, one of which liked my "background and scrappiness" upon viewing my resume and his brother who recently viewed my profile which I actually met in person at GDC. I also do have an interview lined up for Monday in the Bay area and my dungeon master who might need help with IT closer to Chicago, even though I know the latter role won't be 6 figures. All in all, I think somethings gonna work out soon and I hope my future picks up just like the weather has lately.
Finding my Rythm
I ended an interview today with "apologies it took me some time to find my rhythm" and went right back to the construction site I was working at earlier that day. I don't know if I passed or if I'll even advance to later rounds since I had a few moments where I wasn't sure how to proceed immediately. The funny part was when I was stuck doing character conversion in Kotlin I told the interviewer I knew how to do it in C. After he told me to show him, I did, and the familiar key - '0' syntax actually worked! I got much more confident as we were programming together and we both shared our common gripes with 3D programming and even had a laugh when I said "I struggle with Vulkan too".
I did manage to really screw up at work today a few times when I was alone with the boss. Probably the worst thing I did was when I held the drill wrong and it spun in on itself, snapping the electric cable. I felt like a total clutz at times, and it's just as important to be careful as it is to be efficient on a job like that. The best mentors and some of the best folks I've met in my life have been in construction, and I never want to lose the work ethic they bring to the table. I also know that if I ever do become filthy rich, I know exactly which house-builders I'm hiring to for my own property.
Luckily -- in addition to the 2 calls I got from people in the tech space -- I got invited to a final round with the San Francisco company the next day. It's going to be 2 hours long and I pray to god I don't screw up the live coding portion. The longest interview I've had lasted 4 hours the last time I was in California and -- even though the interview was stressful -- the most intimidating part came when 2 of the interviewers deciding my fate took me out to lunch! I do better in-person than I do over a zoom call though and in this day and age face-to-face communication is something our society lacks. That's why I want to bring people together with my music. I know the move to California would make us blow up! So I'm definitely looking forward to the future and hoping to follow up with my network.
Making the Rounds
I my final few hours of the morning and the day before I spent preparing for the final round for the geo-spatial company in the Bay area. The interview went well and I had 3 conversations with different people of the company, including a round for leadership, a technical assessment, and ending with a system design portion. Unfortunately, my internet went out just 5 minutes before my first call and it was intermittently going out all day, but despite this setback I think I was still descent. Two of the interviewers even joked about Murphy's Law which I thought was funny. If they did end up going forward with me I think we'd get along very well, especially since we share a passion for computer graphics programming.
The same day as my I interview got a random message from the Galactic Ambassador once more and it literally said: "Yo Anton what's up buddy hope everything is alright with you I've been exploring Chicago and found some nice bars to meet women. Hope you and the band is doing well." Me and my guitarist gave him his nickname because we never know when he's going to send an email or come in the house again uninvited! I definitely have been putting off looking for gigs lately since I've been preoccupied lately and we haven't played out at all yet this spring. Our current drummer is probably one of the best multi-instrumentalists I know but I wanna get someone more permanent on percussion so he'd be free to switch between keys and sax. It would also be nice to get my guitarist to relearn the songs we've made over the years and invite the last chick singer we had who's just as good at improv as she is gorgeous.
If I don't hear back today from the geo-spatial company I'm probably going to send a follow-up email since I genuinely enjoyed talking to everyone on the team. I've been persistent so maybe I'll get lucky this time, just like the early founders of Android who developed the OS in the Bay area. The book I've been reading about the history of the mobile platform had a fun little fact about the first ringtone being the song "Crazy" by Gnarles Barkley which apparently they had to change because it drove everyone at the office insane! Another book I've been reading by Tony Robbins has had some very good advice as well, especially when it comes to taking care of your body which I've neglected through years of drinking coffee and kratom. You only live once I guess, so you need to take care of yourself since death can come for you at any time. Just the other day my roommate was standing outside when a branch fell from a tree straight down like a spear. I told him thank god he was 2 feet in front of it or that incident could have been fatal! But I know we will survive, just gotta take it one day at a time and pray I can land this 6-figure job.