Goodbye, Philadelphia. Hello, New York.

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Uprooting 20 years of your life wasn’t what I had in mind 2 weeks ago. But this weekend I was made an offer I couldn’t refuse:

I’ll be leaving Philadelphia and SEER Interactive to join Conductor as a software engineer in New York City.

SEER has been an amazing company to work for and Wil has been an amazing boss, mentor, and friend. I cannot tell you how much I’ve learned personally and professionally working at SEER.

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I love being at the intersection between technology and business. I love being creative and technical at the same time. I love using both sides of my brain. An artistic, extroverted, coder is not an oxymoron.

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SEER knows that my talent and my passion is with software but SEER isn’t going to be software company anytime soon.

But, if there’s one thing SEER does well it’s put employees in the right seat on the right bus. It’s where a person’s talent and passion meets a business need to become their highest point of contribution.

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So, make no mistake! The parting is amicable. We’re on good terms. SEER supports my move. I couldn’t ask for more.

They know the importance of the right person, in the right seat, on the right bus. Even if it  isn’t SEER’s bus.

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Looking for the right bus led me to Conductor.

I immediately connected with their team. 30 minutes into the interview we were adding Monty Python references into code reviews. (Yes, they were fake code reviews, but still funny.)

Later we arm-chair-philosophized about REST API best practices. (Nerds!)

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The conversation then shifted to SEO, penguin updates, and speculating on the impact of social to the larger inbound marketing industry. (Geeks!)

By the end of the interview I forgot it was an interview. It felt like a 7-hour meet up. (Except, I didn’t have any beer.)

I was on the train back home, half asleep, when my iPhone chimed: I had been given an offer via email.

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If you told me this 2 weeks ago that I would be uprooting 20 years of living in Philadelphia to move to New York, I wouldn’t have believed you.

But there it was … a chance to work with a team of smart engineers, on a product that people use every day, in a growing industry, in the city that never sleeps.

It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. I guess it helps that I never sleep anyway.

print(“Hello, Conductor.”);

Conductor

(You can follow me on Twitter: @iamchrisle)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2013 at 7:42 am and is filed under Business, Personal, Startups. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

  • http://www.thedan1984.com/ Dan

    That’s some awesome news Chris. I didn’t realize you were moving to New York by the “sound” of your tweet the other day. Good luck at Conductor, I hope to see some amazing software coming from them in the upcoming years!

    • iamchrisle

      They already have amazing software :) I hope that I can help make it mooorre awesommmmeerrrrr :)

  • http://twitter.com/Conductor Conductor

    Thrilled to have you, Chris! Thanks for the great post about your interview here. See you around very soon :)

    • iamchrisle

      I’m super excited to join your team! TY

  • http://www.sumoheavy.com/ Bob Brodie

    Congrats, dude! We’ll have to catch up soon, being in the same city again.

    • http://twitter.com/iamchrisle Chris Le

      Oh! That would be awesome!

  • http://twitter.com/NicoMiceli Nico Miceli

    Congrats Chris! You were always the dude who I put down [in the Rypple reviews] as the co-worker who I learned from the most and always willing to share knowledge. I am now jealous of Conductor and NYC! Looks like I’m going to have to make some trips up to NYC more often. I’ll pick your brain about regarding my simple low level JS errors and then party it up at Pacha!

    • http://twitter.com/iamchrisle Chris Le

      You know exactly how to get a hold of me. And Pacha? Yeah, let do this! :)

  • http://twitter.com/jenastelli Jen Marie Robustelli

    WIN! Much love for both Conductor and SEER.

  • Jon Payne

    All this talk about being on the right bus… How could you not mention a train and play up the obvious conductor pun? Boo! Ha. Good luck on the new gig.

  • http://twitter.com/napoleonsuarez Napoleon Suarez

    Very happy for you, Chris! It was great watching your progress from the guy that came in and fixed any networking issues, to the guy that had the task of debugging the reporting suite, to the guy that built omniSEER from scratch. It was great geeking out with you on the Rialto balcony even when I had no clue about half of the stuff that you were saying. As happy as I am that you will be working on the software portion full time, don’t forget about the music. It’s no secret that many people that have a passion for CS also have a passion for creating music. Keep in touch, bro!

  • Nick Nelson

    Congratulations. I’ve recently uprooted from Houston to Seattle for similar purposes. Mine came easier with family being in Seattle though – new challenges on the horizon. And you definitely left Philly on a good note.