I graduated in 1996 after studying 1 year of Electrical Engineering and 3 years of Computer Engineering.
My career began in technical support for a “real time” operating system company in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. After a year of feeling like my skills as a developer weren’t growing, I took a new job after doing a little networking. I knew a guy that knew a guy. I worked as a firmware developer for 3 more years at that company plus one other company, before moving to the United States.
In 2000, I got my first taste of startup life. Tiny company in the financial sector which lasted through the dot-com bust of 2001. Working at startups appealed to my nature of working quickly and feeling like my contributions truly mattered to the company. Through my career I’ve worked at, or freelanced for, over a dozen startup businesses.
Many of my jobs only lasted 12-18 months…
Almost half of my career has been spent finding the best candidates for positions my company has open, through evaluating resumes, phone screens and conducting on-site interviews. I’ve also spent significant time refining on-site interview processes, and several years as a hiring manager or director of engineering and negotiating with candidates to find what’s going to make everyone happy.
While a lot of my background comes from working in companies from 4 employees to 300 employees, I’ve also worked with much larger firms with employees in the thousands.