What the heck?
I don't work for GitHub (anymore). After writing the first version of this eBook, GitHub contacted me, flew me to San Francisco for a day of interviews, and offered me their second sysadmin position soon after. It was a fun and interesting ride, but first I'll mention why I'm updating this book 13 years later.
Running a business
After a few years working at GitHub, we parted ways and I set off to start my own company. I bootstrapped the business for over a decade and had a blast doing it, but the urge to contribute more to society using my years of experience and knowledge, kicked-in. As a solo-entrepreneur, your attention is divided unevenly and interrupt-laden among a million different tasks, often unrelated to tech: the reason us tech people create companies in the first place. To keep your company profitable, you can't focus exclusively on the tech.
I wanted to get back to just being a tech guy. You know, hacking on systems, coding, idea-generating, problem-solving, working with other brilliant tech people, and overall having a larger impact on society.
Of course during the decade of running a company, I did all of the above, but significantly less than I had hoped. As a legit tech geek, I can't leave these damn computers alone, but I also know better than to work like a madman and end up in burn-out. After jumping deep into the hardware world, writing embedded firmware, designing PCBs, and even selling some, I realized it's just not viable as a bootstrapped startup. Unlike software, hardware is extremely expensive, particularly when you make mistakes. It's a great hobby and I probably should have left it at that haha.
So with that knowledge, what's the best thing to do? I believe, finding an Awesome Company to work with would be a good start.
13 years later
Thirteen years is a long-time between releases ;). It's probably obvious by now that I'm looking for a job, but with my +20 years experience, I refuse to settle for some rubbish company with lame corporate policies and a toxic work environment. I can take my time to find the best place to work.
Later in this book I'll provide a list of companies which I think are awesome, but for the moment there's only one I'm applying to, so if you're reading this, perhaps (hopefully) one day we'll be Awesome Teammates.
Why write this book?
Other than the obvious, I really enjoyed the process of writing version 1. I'm not sure if it was helpful for other sysadmins looking to work at GitHub (seriously, the only feedback I've ever received was during my interview). My goal with version 2 is to be a bit more generic, that's why I changed the title to focus on awesome companies rather than just one in particular.