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The offer that never came —why I left my job of 16 years

uxBrad
Bootcamp
Published in
3 min readJan 31, 2022

That’s 6000+ days of my life dedicated to working for one company. My previously longest-held job before that was a year and a half, just for some perspective.

This story is going to be a bit lengthy and I’m not trying to write a tomb of a post about it right now — so let’s start small and hope that I’m motivated to keep writing about my experiences — because I think they’re worth sharing.

There’s going to be a good bit to cover — why I stayed at one place so long, how I made the decision to leave, what I did wrong in that process, what it was like interviewing, putting together a portfolio, and how I came to choose the company that I’m now working for.

I’ll start with the good parts of my previous role and what finally convinced me to get out in pursuit of better opportunities.

I loved my job

My job paid well, gave me the freedom to work on what I wanted to work on and to take any approach that I felt would be of value. Over that 16 years, unlike many of my coworkers, I was able to stare at the ceiling and ponder ideas, facilitate rooms of amazingly smart people to help solve problems and to spend my time working with creative people designing solutions that were unique, innovative, and most importantly — viable in old and new markets.

It was fun, oftentimes exciting, and gave me a balance between my professional and personal life.

Deep work

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Bootcamp
Bootcamp

Published in Bootcamp

From idea to product, one lesson at a time. Bootcamp is a collection of resources and opinion pieces about UX, UI, and Product. To submit your story: https://tinyurl.com/bootspub1

uxBrad
uxBrad

Written by uxBrad

I’m Brad Cooper — UX Practitioner. A11y Evangelist (CPACC). Blockchain Enthusiast. Web Theorist. Find out more on how I work at https://uxBrad.com.

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