Time For Change

Time For Change

It’s been six weeks to the day since the Automattic layoffs, so it seems fitting to finally gather my thoughts about it.

I haven’t blogged publicly for quite a while, not counting the odd code snippet post. But in the last few months I’ve been itching more and more to do so again. I was going to dip my toes gently by writing semi-public updates to share with my work colleagues, alas always leaving it at the bottom of the todo list meant I never got to the more personal / lessons learned / interesting-things-found-on-the-web kind of P2s (internal blog posts).

Well, I guess it makes this a bit of a Goodbye post, but also a Hello at the same time.

Farewell

Working on Tumblr has been one of the best work experience I've had and I do not regret skipping the alignment offers last year. It meant I got to work on a product I liked and believed in with people I respect and admire for those extra months. So with that chapter closing here’s a look back at the last three years.

When I started, I was giddy with excitement when I got my initial team placement details (👋 Core Web). The learning curve was steep, but worth it. Being surrounded by so many knowledgeable engineers, who share your passion to learn and co-learn with others, who are quirky, and fun, and kind, was exhilarating. There was passion for the product and our users, with fierce internal debates, even if sometimes that was not visible outside (the steamroller of capitalism and 'bills need to be paid' reality getting in the way).

I gained a real appreciation for user research while on the Labs Team. I still wish we could have explored more of the weird and wonderful ideas that came from the user needs inspired brainstorming sessions.

The re-orgs were tough, but despite the impact of the company-wide changes the newly formed Tumblr Web team managed to keep the momentum going. I’m glad to have stickers with our super adorable team logo! The design system work was something we all are proud of. It probably won't be a surprise to those I've worked with, that the Storybook work we did was one of my favourite things.

The team meetups really were the secret sauce to remote work - maybe I got lucky, but after meeting my colleagues in person they quickly became more like good old friends (even though most were younger *cough*). I'm grateful for the travel opportunities (and all the glorious food 😂). I'll always think fondly of both the project work we did during the meetups and the goofing off after hours. I don't like naming names, but I've enjoyed working with every single person on all those teams and a bunch of others outside them. :)

Guess-the-meetup activity:

Processing

With all that said, I was surprised how calmly I took the layoff. The abrupt severance of access to not just work, but also: hobby discussions, parenting talk, draft knowledge sharing posts, tons of to-read-later posts saved on Slack... was eerie to say the least. In many ways it wasn't just work, the official Slack was full of smaller more personal communities, that you suddenly are booted from too. It was a new experience for me (I was the one to move on in all the positions before) and so I was glad for the friendships that allowed me to reconnect with others outside of the official Slack.

Personally the timing was odd. I had a big family trip planned just days after, followed by Easter holidays. In hindsight, this might have helped with the transition, as I was winding down things already for the two week break. But it did make for an awkward vacation juggling all the paperwork while herding kids between the pool and holiday clubs. It also meant there wasn't much point looking at the job market properly until after the break.

I've clearly had a few more weeks after that to think. Well, almost. As I said, the timing was odd. While my husband and I normally don't do big celebrations for our anniversary this year was a big, round one, so I did have a bunch of planning and herding of guests to do. So between many party checklists and food shops, and reading about my colleagues' interview prep work 🙈 I kind of, mostly, swept the big question under the metaphorical carpet.

Hello

What is next then? After some soul searching (and a bunch of productivity research *cough* procrastination), I've come to the conclusion that while I'm open to a job that would be challenging and interesting and maybe returning to contracting, I want to first try something else. There’s been a few ideas I’ve been itching to try, but have not had time to do. There’s a parenting app I’ve been meaning to do, if just for my own use, and book writing I’ve put on hold when I had kids, as well as adventures with AI.

I wanted to document my workflows and experiments at work and share my thoughts more. Guess I’ll be doing that here instead of in internal P2s. It feels a bit weird putting it all out in the open again, but also a bit exciting.

Let’s see where it goes.