This past week, I was given the opportunity of a life time.  On Tuesday, I start my new position at SocialWhirled as Senior Developer and Team Lead.  My first mission is to build an in-house team.  I get to hire Rails developers and build A Rails shop here in Phoenix.  And this will not be just any Rails shop, we will be the biggest and best Rails shop in the Southwest.

When I first got into Rails I heard names like Thoughtbot, Pivotal Labs and Intridea and hoped to one day work for one of them.  I have followed their blogs and now, I have the ability to emulate these companies and make new Rails developers wish to someday work for Socialwhirled.  I want others to look up to how we operate and wish that they too could work for us.

I cannot express my excitement.  We literally have an opportunity to set up shop how we want it.  Each and every new developer that joins our team will be a part of the building process.   We will all decide on what tools we will use and what equipment we will want. I have had my frustrations in the corporate world be we are not even close to corporate and with the CEO's attitude, I don't think we will ever even be close to corporate.  Granted that we are somewhat of a startup, we are solid enough to do things right.

If you have any ideas or suggestions for this, I would love to hear them.

It is going to  be a fun ride ...

UPDATE June 25th

I am so happy to day that I have hired two guys to start building our Rails shop.  Not only that but for the 3 of you that read my blog, you already know that I had a couple of interns a couple of years ago that were working jobs in the valley.  Well it took some bribing but those guys now work with me.  We also have our sights on two interns to add to the team as well.

It really makes me happy that I got to hire these guys.  I watched both of them go from learning Rails to earning with Rails.

We are not done yet.  Time to take over the world !!