"Lisa, I... think I just found my dream job."

The Best-laid Plans...

Late one April night, my wife and I were in the midst of packing up our Seattle apartment. It had been a fun three years, but it was time to move back to the Midwest. Specifically, our sights were set on Madison, Wisconsin.

Our plan was to sell (almost) everything we owned, drive across the country from Seattle to Madison, drop off our remaining stuff at my in-law's place, then backpack around Europe for a few weeks. After Europe, we'd begin looking for new jobs. We'd been saving and meticulously planning for years to pull it off.

All was going according to plan, until a single tweet changed everything:

Calling all product champions! Do you have a technical background, but enjoy being the face and voice of the product, rather than sitting behind the scenes? Ionic is looking for a Senior Product Evangelist to join the team! Position can be remote! https://t.co/lHQo6OHrcJ

— ionic (@Ionicframework) April 17, 2018

Crap.

I had taken a break from packing boxes to browse Twitter and almost scrolled right past this tweet.

I had been working as a software developer and consultant for almost ten years, and was feeling burned out on consulting. I loved (and still do) writing code, but wanted to switch from working on other company's products to focusing on growing one company's products. Through consulting and side projects, I'd built up my writing, public speaking, and leadership skills. I was ready for something new that combined those skills with a product development focus.

This role was perfect. Would my skills and their timeline align?

The Stars Align

I had been casually keeping an eye on Ionic, a small, Madison-based startup for a couple of years already. Not only were they in the same development space as my niche side project apps (hybrid mobile apps built with web technologies), I enjoyed following the adventures of a successful Midwest-based tech company. They were building an internationally-known business with software used by millions of developers - outside the Silicon Valley bubble - what's not to love?

I started updating my resume immediately and applied early the next morning. They got in contact right away and I began interviewing. Hooray! Right?

Crap.

Assuming I got an offer, would they let me start after my Europe trip? Most of it was already planned and paid for.

I was upfront about my situation and was reassured they would work with me. After a handful of successful remote, video-based interviews later, they requested that I fly into Madison for a final interview. Hooray! Right?

Crap.

We were just about to begin our cross-country drive to Madison in a little over one week's time. Could they wait until I was in town? 😅

Once again, they were graciously patient. We arrived in Madison on a Friday, I interviewed at Ionic HQ on Monday, got an offer at the end of the interview, signed the paperwork on Tuesday, and left from Europe on Wednesday.

I'm incredibly grateful for how these events unfolded. It still blows my mind each time I reflect on how perfectly the stars aligned. Where would I be if I hadn't seen that tweet? 😯😲😊

One Year Anniversary

Today marks one year at Ionic! It's been a whirlwind year - one of the most challenging and rewarding of my professional career.

The amount (and variety!) of work I've contributed to over this past year has been incredible. Here's a small sample:

• Launching a podcast
• Writing, writing, and more writing
• Revamping the Ionic developer onboarding experience
• Creating demo apps and tutorials
• Presenting live webinars to a global audience
• Directly improving the business' bottom line via internal sales enablement for Ionic Enterprise
• Upping my Twitter (and emoji) game 😂
• Launching products: Ionic 4, Capacitor, Ionic Enterprise Edition (and soon, Ionic React, Ionic Vue, and something... else! 😉)
• Engaging with the worldwide Ionic community at conferences and online
• Battling Matt Kremer over the title of "Matt #1" 😂

None of my success would be possible without the support of the entire Ionic team. Their incredible passion, hard work, and talent continues to impress and inspire me to bring my best self to work every single day!

Unsurprisingly, I'm far from the only person whose life has been changed by Ionic.

Today, I'm editing a new blog post about #MyIonicStory (update - here it is!), a Twitter hashtag that one of our community members created a few weeks ago. It's incredibly inspiring to see other's stories from around the world. Seriously - click that link to see what I mean!

It reinforces that I'm in the right place, at the right time, with the right team.

I couldn't ask for a better place to be right now. Here's to year two! 💙