Red Interactive

I had a lot to think about over Thanksgiving weekend, as Red Interactive offered me a job for about 40% more than what I'm currently making at Disney.

It was the worst kind of thinking, too, because I didn't have all the other factors laid out. It's hard to think about something and consider two different routes to take when you don't have one of the options on the table and you have to just imagine your choices based on what your second option could be.

After all that thought, though, it wasn't too hard of a choice to make in the end. Disney said that they wouldn't counter anything. I'll be starting with Red as a software engineer on December 15th!

I was leaning towards Red anyway, even though it was a for-real full-time Engineer position, but I was curious to what Disney thought all my efforts were worth over the past 9 months. Apparently, not more than I was currently making. It was good to know. I really loved my time at Disney and I'm sad to go, but stuff like "no counteroffer" makes me think that I'm leaving at the right time. Disney has a reputation for stringing people along almost until they're not legally allowed to any more.

The thing that was driving the possibility of me staying at Disney was a producer title, and it looks like that was farther away for my career than I thought. Getting a producer title would have been nice, because it the only qualification for being a producer is "having been a producer", an irony that is not lost on me. But, if Disney isn't willing to offer me a producer title while I'm about to leave for another company, they're probably not going to offer me one later just for being a swell guy. I suspect that I was 2-3 years out on landing that title, and that's too long. I have stuff to get done.

I'm extremely excited to start with Red, for a lot of reasons. They run many, simultaneous projects that last around 6 months each, with 2-4 people per team based on the need. Smaller teams means that my creative contributions will be much more likely to help steer a project, and it will even be possible to be a developer that completely understands all aspects of the project I'm working on.

Even though I'm horrified that I'll be getting paid to do engineering, I'm excited to really give it the majority of my attention. In the past, I've tried to engage with engineering but have always found more important things to work on. Cyber Heist needed a designer, Disney needed a producer, and even though I've always loved engineering it's been more important to do other things instead. Everyone at Red assures me that there is way too much engineering to do compared to the rest of the responsibilities there, so I feel hopeful. It seems like the perfect step to take for my career.