Damien has a new job!
Starting March 5, I will be working for MySQL!
The sound-bite version of what I'll be doing: Making MySQL more dependable.
I'll be working on the maintenance team. This job will mean I spend a lot of time finding and understanding bugs and weird behaviors and then either documenting or fixing them.
To some people this sounds like a crappy job, dealing with bugs full time. However, I've done similar work on Notes and Domino and actually enjoyed it immensely. Finding the cause of a bug in otherwise working code is a puzzle, and it's something my mind enjoys attacking. And I like taking a working software product and making it better.
Anyway I'm excited about this since I can have a direct, positive effect on a lot of people. I'm also a bit worried about announcing it too loudly for fear of being inundated with people's pet bugs and issues, both real and imagined. It's quite the popular database platform you know.
Posted February 22, 2007 3:00 PM
Comments
That's really very very cool. I am extremely happy for you!
FWIW, I too am starting to appreciate the inherent joy in ferreting out those awkward little bugs (just as well really, given how shite my code is).
Anyway, congratulations! MySQL are lucky to get you.
Ben Poole, February 22, 2007 3:41 PM
That a Flaming Fantastic Fantabulous piece of inFormation.
Don't worry Damien gets the joke :-)
Carl Tyler, February 22, 2007 3:42 PM
Congrats, Katz!
p.s. you suck
Jeff Atwood, February 22, 2007 4:58 PM
That's very cool. Are you working from NC or moving to CA, WA or perhaps Sweden?
Pete Lyons, February 22, 2007 5:03 PM
Awesome! What a great thing for MySQL. Congratulations, Damien and best of luck in the new job!
Chris Blatnick, February 22, 2007 7:49 PM
Congrats Damien! Kill bugs, make money and most of all, have fun.
Dan Sickles, February 23, 2007 1:35 AM
Congrats!
If you ever travel to the head office in Sweden, post it. As a North American expat in Stockholm, I know the good bars and best places to do the tourist thing.
Nat, February 23, 2007 4:46 AM
Congrats, helping MySQL to mature sounds like a great job :)
Vince Schuurman, February 23, 2007 5:10 AM
congratulations, really good move!
Alan Bell, February 23, 2007 7:31 AM
Maybe they need a formula engine? Congrats - great job!
Steve Castledine, February 23, 2007 8:59 AM
Excellent. Say HI to Jason in tech support for me. He's been with MySQL for several months and is loving it. From what I hear, it's a pretty cool company to work for!
Greyhawk68, February 23, 2007 10:04 AM
So when do we see the MySQL Distributed Database Engine beta?
Congrats on the new solution.
Sean---
Sean Burgess, February 23, 2007 10:43 AM
Thanks everyone!
Carl's referring to the comment spam filter for this blog. For the past two weeks, somehow I had it set to refuse any post with the letter F in it. Too Funny.
Damien, February 23, 2007 2:45 PM
Woo hoo! Congrats - I am glad this has worked out for you. I am big fan of MySQL.
Bruce, February 24, 2007 4:53 PM
Congrats! Good luck and best wishes for all future endeavors..
Raj, February 24, 2007 10:06 PM
Congrats Damien.
Adam Rosien, February 25, 2007 6:05 PM
That is an awesome job - I'm really glad for you (and for MySQL, one of my favourites, now, of course, destined to become the greatest...)
Adeleida, February 26, 2007 12:10 AM
I want to say congrats but I mean, it's a paint factory! :)
David Boudreau, February 26, 2007 12:16 AM
Hey Damien congrats. I was hoping you'd "come back to the Light Side..." (aka IBM/Lotus), but that's cool stuff too. I didn't even know there *was* a formal company called MySQL (always thought it was open source, loosely coupled devs., etc.). Anyway, I'm also interested, are you staying Charlotte?
Mike R, February 27, 2007 12:27 PM
Awesome Damien, that actually sounds like a really engaging gig; best of luck!
-Dz
Dana Z, March 2, 2007 6:12 PM
Good news for MySQL. I was very impressed last year when they employed Jim Starkey to develop their new storage engine. Starkey is the father of InterBase/Firebird database. Starkey invented multi-version concurrency control for InterBase years before such features were implemented in Oracle, PostgreSQL and SQL Server.
MySQL are obviously recruiting top notch people.
Bernard Devlin, March 7, 2007 4:49 AM
Welcome aboard!
I'm glad it worked out.
Konstantin Osipov, March 7, 2007 11:33 AM
All the best and MySQL is probably lucky to get you.
My dutch freelancing office mate who really earns for my standards quite a lot of money, asked yesterday if he is doing creative work.
I mean he has a family in Thailand, makes home office there or works in Ireland or Germany. And he possibly makes in a day more money than 40% or so of all people on this planet in a year.
I bursted out laughing.
Maybe this industry of ours is obsessed with this "creative work" thing.
And of course it can be really rewarding to solve problems for people.
Axel, March 7, 2007 2:16 PM
Welcome aboard :)
Marc Alff, March 8, 2007 11:38 AM
Congrats-
You're right. Nothing beats the satisfaction of beating an elusive bug to death.
Jeff Eisen, March 9, 2007 6:39 AM
Congrats. Glad you took the job.
Volker Weber, March 10, 2007 12:12 PM
WOOHOO!! Congrats dude!! And MySQL just got a helluva engineer ;)
Rock, March 13, 2007 2:56 PM
Congratulations! Glad to read that this worked out.
Elliot, March 13, 2007 5:07 PM