Job announcement

So, now I've checked I'm allowed to announce it. I'm happy to say that, from February 2nd, I'll be working for Red Hat, as a Senior Quality Assurance Engineer (sadly, I can't have 'monkey' in my job title any more). I'll be working under Jay Turner in the QE department. Initially I'm going to be working on a new community QA system they're developing. If I'm not misremembering entirely from my interview last month and horribly butchering the concept, it's basically a system for automated submission and testing of fixes by external contributors. I'm going to be helping to build a developer community around the system. It sounds like a really fun area to work on, and I'm really grateful to the folks at Red Hat for taking me on.

Mandriva was always a natural fit for me: it was the first and only distribution I ever used, and I got on well (I hope!) with the developer and user communities. It will be strange to move into a much bigger company with much more of a traditional corporate structure and organization - I'm used to being able to just break the heck out of whatever I like, at Mandriva anyone who's been around for a couple of years has commit access to just about everything! However, Red Hat has always been the open source company I've most admired: they're by far the biggest example of a company which has taken free software ideals to heart and built a big and extremely successful business around them, without ever losing sight of those ideals. RH definitely 'gets it' - the employment contract and non-compete agreements even have language specifically encouraging upstream contributions in them. RH has a long and awesome history of contributing to every area of the free software environment and releasing really high-quality products. Plus everyone I've talked to there so far has been great. So I'm really excited to be joining them. I'll be going down to Raleigh on Feb 2nd for orientation and starting work as soon as I get back - I'll still be working from home here in Vancouver, so no need to worry about a lack of moaning about the Canucks' latest performance! - so I expect I'll be blogging about the new project as soon as I get cracking on it.

Just wanted to say thanks again to everyone who sent messages of support when I was laid off at Mandriva, and especially to Tom Callaway, Alexander Kurtakov and the others at Red Hat who helped me get my foot in the door, you guys all rule. For now I'm going to enjoy the rest of my little vacation. See you on the other side!

Comments

eugeni wrote on 2009-01-23 17:59:
Congratulations! It sound to be a really cool job, and it has everything to do with your interests. So best of luck to you!
adamw wrote on 2009-01-23 18:05:
Thanks, Eugeni :)
linsec.ca blog » Switching Hats wrote on 2009-01-23 19:24:
[...] out with Adam for two days in February… you can see where he’s going to be from his job announcement. I actually didn’t know about it until today, so it’s pretty cool that after having [...]
pacho wrote on 2009-01-23 19:31:
Great :-D Good luck on your new job! :-)
[...] Adam en su blog, como Vincent en el suyo, han anunciado donde trabajarán y qué funciones habrán de [...]
boklm wrote on 2009-01-23 23:15:
Good news, I hope you will enjoy your new job. Nice to see you're not leaving free software world.
vfmmeo wrote on 2009-01-23 23:16:
Cool! When i grow enough i wanna be like you. :D Glad to see theese good news, Adam. Good luck and enjoy!
medo3891 wrote on 2009-01-24 04:14:
Great! good luck with the new job, should be right up your alley, you've been doing probably the same job (with out the shiny corporate title of a "Senior Quality Assurance Engineer", ;) ). So MDV's loss is RH's gain. Hope you prosper in your new job :)
shikamaru wrote on 2009-01-24 08:43:
Congratulations Adam :D sounds really great !
luismago wrote on 2009-01-24 14:51:
Congratulations for the new job, Adam! Nice to see you're on the road again. Best wishes for you and good luck in Red Hat. :D
alfred wrote on 2009-01-24 15:13:
Congratulations :-) You will now be on a decent income with real career path prospects. Just remember that when you are stuck in boring meetings with Managers or you are chewing through pages and pages of boring policies (you think you won't?...oh yes you will LOL. Welcome to the world of big corporate) Are you getting a company vehicle?
adamw wrote on 2009-01-24 16:17:
alfred: I'm still working from home, which will hopefully enable me to avoid as much of that crap as possible :P. (fun fact: I've been working various jobs since I was 12 - 14 years - but I've never been in a meeting. Not one.) And I don't drive, so no, I'm not getting a company vehicle, not that I'd need one for anything...
kiaram wrote on 2009-01-25 11:45:
Congratulations on your new job! Et bonne chance :)
gregdek wrote on 2009-01-25 16:25:
1. Awesome to have you on-board. The job you're taking on has been waiting for the right person for a very long time now. :) 2. Get on planet.fedoraproject.org soon. :) 3. The Sedin brothers are terrible. :) That is all. :)
adamw wrote on 2009-01-25 16:34:
1. Thanks! 2. Who do I ask? 3. THEM'S FIGHTING WORDS! I love the Sedins, actually. They're my favourite players on the team by a ways. People around here get on them for being too 'complicated', and not shooting enough - but I look at it this way...pretty much any time one of the Sedins is in charge of a move into the offensive zone, we get in, get set up and get the puck in front. Whereas with just about any other forward line, there's at least a moderate chance they'll break down before they even get it across the blue line. That's what real puck handling skill and teamwork gets you. I think people around here will miss them a lot whenever they're finally gone (hopefully to retirement).
[...] www.happyassassin.net [...]
jkeller wrote on 2009-01-26 09:49:
Congratulations, Adam. I'm really glad that you found something permanent, and in such a good place, so quickly. Nice to see you landed on your feet, and then some. Between you and Vincent working on QA at Red Hat, I can guess which distribution I'd use if Mandriva stops being my distro of choice. :-)
[...] demite, Red Hat contrata, Fedora sai ganhando “Como foi anunciado em seu próprio blog, Adam Williamson, antigo colaborador e empregado da Mandriva, estava [...]
[...] Williamson y Vincent Danen trabajarán para Red Hat 26 01 2009 Tanto Adam en su blog, como Vincent en el suyo, han anunciado donde trabajarán y qué funciones habrán de [...]
Sal wrote on 2009-01-26 15:25:
I'm so glad to hear you've landed on your feet Adam! We at PCLinuxOS wish you all the best in your new postion at Red Hat. Sal http://www.pclinuxos.com
ehabkost wrote on 2009-01-26 17:03:
Welcome on board. :)
vdanen wrote on 2009-01-26 17:59:
Woooo... finally I get to meet Adam face-to-face... =)
antman wrote on 2009-01-26 20:39:
I'm glad to hear you landed on your feet Adam... and with RedHat... :) Be sure to buy a new Fedora. ;) Congrats!!! Anthony (Antman)
cm1967 wrote on 2009-01-27 23:25:
Congrats on the new job. Man, I've had my resume with Red Hat for almost a year. Oh, well...maybe one day... :)
adamw wrote on 2009-01-27 23:51:
Thanks to everyone for the kind comments - there's too many to reply to each individually, but I appreciate them all!
[...] Job announcement So, now I’ve checked I’m allowed to announce it. I’m happy to say that, from February 2nd, I’ll be working for Red Hat, as a Senior Quality Assurance Engineer (sadly, I can’t have ‘monkey’ in my job title any more). I’ll be working under Jay Turner in the QE department. Initially I’m going to be working on a new community QA system they’re developing. If I’m not misremembering entirely from my interview last month and horribly butchering the concept, it’s basically a system for automated submission and testing of fixes by external contributors. I’m going to be helping to build a developer community around the system. It sounds like a really fun area to work on, and I’m really grateful to the folks at Red Hat for taking me on. [...]
[...] Подробности здесьи здесь. [...]
Dviip wrote on 2009-02-02 09:31:
Dear Adam, Hearty congratulations for the new job. It's really wonderful to have people like you on net who could make anyone comfortable with Linux, even on Linux. ;-) I've been an avid user of Mandriva, could even put up with Mdv2006. Their letting go of you looks like a bolt from blue. Having said that, I hope and believe that you shall continue to have fun with the Linux community out there! With best wishes, -D