At the beginning of March I put in my two week notice at Ally. I got a really great offer from Kroger
Technology to work on cloud native integrations; I was spending a good chunk of time doing cloud
integrations at Ally too, but Kroger presented a few enticing things about the new position.
First, the role assumes (or at least seems to assume) a bit more architectural/design clout. One of my
biggest issues with Ally at the time of my departure was enterprise architects prescribing implementation
details. This is no good! Paraphrasing the relevant writings by Brooks in The Mythical Man Month,
an architect should define the expected functionality of a project, and they should be able to demonstrate
an implementation, but they cannot decide the implementation. Obviously, being able to
show a working proof of concept necessitates some ability in the technology that the team will use to build
the product. Thus, I believe that architects who cannot or do not code should not be in a position where
they are handing out designs. Anyway, these prescribed implementations were the cause of much headache,
confrontations between tech lead, dev manager, and architect, and nigh unmaintainable codebases. Imagine
being handed a seven page Visio diagram with hundreds of nodes and edges between components, and then having
to explain that diagram to the production operations team. It was a nightmare.
Second, the offered job is fully remote, which helps me in two ways. First, the ever dreary commute downtown
was getting very very bad with construction on I-75 just going on and on. I know seasoned commuters would
laugh, but this isn't what I signed up for - when I joined Ally almost five years ago my office was a ten
minute drive away. The other plus of a remote job is that I no longer need to consider work location in my
home search. I'm in the market for a house or condo (high density housing is off the table for me - I'm a
musician, I need to be able to make noise!), and being able to venture further into the suburbs means
cheaper options are available.
Next, my work at Ally has been very samey for the last few years, and while I have kept an eye out, I
haven't seen any other opportunities arise within the company. Also, and this is more of a nitpick, Ally
claims to embrace horizontal mobility but I have yet to see it happen within my former organization, so I
didn't expect it to happen for me in any reasonable time.
Another important thing to me is feeling good about my position and growth opportunity, and finding meaning
in my work. As for the former, Ally as a financial company is intrinsically tied to the movements of the
market, where fluctuations place restrictions in place that limit growth opportunities. That is ostensibly
an unhealthy look, especially when the company reports good things (or at least not bad things) in all hands
meetings and internal news. It seems like Ally should be diversifying further to prevent market tendencies
to completely govern its direction. But hey, what do I know? I'm just a code monkey. The nice thing about
Kroger is that no matter what, people buy groceries. As for the latter, my job satisfaction has been
dropping lately. Ally, as a financial giant, sometimes feels like a place where individual contributors are
working to further line the pockets of a wealthy business. The emphasis on culture, volunteering, and
community engagement are good things, but that's how I've felt at times. This one is definitely a me thing;
it's probably just inside my head but I can't seem to shake it out.
Finally, the offer from Kroger was very generous in terms of compensation. I finally feel that I am getting
paid what I am worth in a tech lead role, and then some. My compensation at Ally was still great, but given
the other things I had to deal with outlined above, this offer really made me reconsider what my time and
energy is worth.
I start my new job tomorrow - I'm pretty excited, but also a bit nervous. As the first job change in my
software career, I suppose this makes sense. Despite this, though, I'm expecting to do alright. I've got a
shiny new MacBook Pro, a new company email address, and a lot of learning and engaging to do in the next few
weeks.