Live from San Jose

I flew into San Jose on Wednesday night around 11:30 pm West coast time. The online auction company paid for my flight, rental car, and hotel room. The next day I interviewed for 5 hours with 6 different managers. I really enjoyed speaking to the people I met, and I'm pretty sure they liked me too. The have a very collaborative environment and their team consists of 140 people. I would be a member of this large team. The environment was very comfortable, and I think my background would be a good fit for what they are trying to accomplish. I'd be very shocked if they didn't make me an offer. Since I was only a Caltrain ride away from SF, I decided to meet with our sister office in SF.

The sister office was a lot smaller and only had a team of two people, me being one of the two. It was also very very adverstisingish. I would be working on designing for pitches and concentrated on bringing in new business. I think it would give me the benefit of moving up quickly, and having a lot more responsibility. The creative recruiter there also confirmed my sneaking suspicion--I'm getting way underpaid. Like at least 5-10k underpaid. Lucky for me I live frugally and didn't really notice. They told me they would contact me if they felt it was a good fit. At the end of the day, I'm not sure if its exactly what I'm looking for. It felt too small for me to really feel comfortable.

While I was in SF, I also interviewed for a major West Coast financial institution based out of SF and had a last minute meeting with the manager. That position was more of a leadership role and offered a lot of possibility of getting more experience in doing very HCI related practices. Task flows, pattern making, and content site structure seemed to be the core activities for that position. As well as leading a design team. Though, the atmosphere was a bit too corporate for my taste, and I didn't feel like I would really be a good fit for them.

Overall, these were all very different positions which offered some unique opportunities. I would prefer to work for the online auction company first but if they don't make me an offer, I would probably transfer to the SF office. I'm slightly irritated that I've been underpaid this whole time and now I feel like I definitely need to leave. I've been trying to picture myself living back on the West Coast, and I admit, I'm a little nervous. Hey, thats what makes life exciting though...right?