A Satisfied Mind
… and why you should come work with me at Scout!
Life is too short to spend time on things that don’t make you feel good about yourself, the work you do, or the people you work with.
While this may not exactly be a revelation to you, over the years I’ve needed to be reminded of it. I’ve had career highs and lows. There have been times where I’ve really felt satisfied in my work. Times when I know that each line of code, or customer conversation made a difference. Times when I can feel, and see that difference.
And, there have been times where I’ve felt completely useless. Useless to the team, to the users or customers. At times like these I have found that refocusing myself on seeking out work that makes me satisfied, tends to lead me back to those career highs.
I’ve done this a number of times, over twenty-something years of building products and teams. It’s easy to forget how short your time is. Every so often it’s meeting people who are just starting out their careers that remind me.
And sometimes, it’s getting to work on a product that has been carefully crafted to consider the experience of the customer.
Building something people love
In Startupland a lot of energy is spent on finding product-market fit. A lot of time and money is wasted on searching for a problem to go with what often sounds like a wonderful, elegant solution. Building something that no one needs. Ouch. Yup. Been there. Sure, the journey can be worth it. There’s always learnings in something that didn’t work out.
But there is nothing like working on something that other people love, appreciate, and tell others about.
Scout (developer friendly Application Performance Monitoring) is a fairly mature product. Founded in 2010, it’s long since graduated from startup status. My favourite thing about Scout is how it was built methodically, slow and steady, with years of iteration based on detailed customer feedback.
Built by developers, for developers
This is a road less travelled for a lot of modern software startups, and certainly not one that tends to be encouraged by VCs. A nice “lifestyle business” they might call it. I think there’s a lot to be said for taking this approach.
If you’re a developer, you know how we can be about the tools we use. We tend to have strong opinions on these things. We care about them, because they can make our workload easy or hard. The right tools can help us stay in the flow. The wrong tools can break our concentration, tie up our time, and after a while, make us feel less satisfied in our work.
This is the fundamental motivation we have at Scout. We make it easy for you to get to the bottom of a bottleneck quickly, or spot a blip before it becomes a full-blown problem. Then we get out of the way.
Ok, so why am I sharing this with you?
- Well, because for the first time in a long time, I’m feeling satisfied :)
- Because if you run Ruby, Python or Elixir, you should really give Scout a go. (Support for PHP, NodeJS & Java are roadmapped). As lead for EMEA, I’ve a bunch of discounts to get you up and running if you’re in this neck of the woods. Just drop me a line: eamo@scoutapp.com
- Because I’m hiring in Dublin, Ireland for what you might call a mix of developer relations and customer support. 👇
Does this sound like you (or someone you know?)
I’m on the lookout for someone who can have technical conversations with technical people. Scout is very much a “by developers, for developers” tool, and I believe one of the best ways to let developers know about something like Scout, is at places where they come together.
So I have a lot of EU travel in the works this year, as I go to different conferences and meetups across the continent. And I need 1–2 people to join me in doing that.
This would probably suit someone who:
- has spent time over a few years building software, and ideally has an interest in application performance
- enjoys talking shop to other developers, likes listening to people describe technical problems and is comfortable suggesting solutions
- has some flexibility for travel
No prior experience with developer relations is required (though it could be advantageous.) Training will be provided.
Remote is OK, if you’re based in the EU.
If this sounds like you or someone you know, drop me a line: eamo@scoutapp.com
Scout is Application Monitoring that finds what you can’t see in charts.
Scout continually tracks down N+1 database queries, sources of memory bloat, performance abnormalities, and more. Get back to coding with Scout.
We’re on Twitter, and GitHub. You should read Scout’s Documentation!
The Scout Blog is a great source of performance best practices.
