where do i want to go today?
August 25th, 2006 Stephen Lau
lame spin on microsoft’s slogan… and i’m sure it’s never been done before.
anyway. it’s that time of year where focals and goals assessment, etc. etc. have come around; so i’ve spent a lot of time thinking about where i want to go today, and defining my goals for my next year at Sun.
where do i want to go today naturally causes me to wonder where do i want to be a year from now, 5 years from now, and 10 years from now. okay, i’m young. i should probably be wondering where i want to be 20 years from now.
my first thought is that i want to be doing something influential… and no, accidentally taking down the opensolaris.org web server, or screwing up build deliveries doesn’t count. i think at some point i’d like to get back to doing work with distributed and parallel systems - but i’m still feeling a wee bit burned out from my grad school/thesis days.
in the meantime, i’ve started working with the kernel performance group, specifically jonathan, eric, and sasha. if they sound familiar, it’s because i used to be their test guy. i figure i learned a lot with them, they’re nice guys - and hey, they bring chocolate to their meetings. karyn has kindly allowed me to have some time to work with them and hone my kernel development skills… so i hope to start blogging some more on the cool project work i’ve started on now.
so i’ve solved the short-term problem of what do i want to do today, and at least for the next couple of months: i want to be a better kernel hacker. technical skills never hurt anybody, neh?
but where do i want to be long-term? one good thing about being at Sun and being surrounded by brilliant people is that i’ve no shortage of people to look up to. certainly my collection of mentors, and tech leads i’ve come to know personally have been great. the question is… how do i get from here to there… or there… or there?
i’ve turned down a couple of job opportunities recently… and the people who have asked me why inevitably turn their eyes up when i say i love my job. but i challenge you to show me a job where i can sharpen my kernel hacking skills, while giving me a chance to work in the open source community. i love the fact that i get to evangelise, talk to people, interact with the community, and “be outside.”
i think that’s what appeals to me about someone like simon. he gets to set open source policy, and influence the direction of a massive behemoth while guiding it through this crazy open-source ecosphere. the fact that i love to travel doesn’t hurt either. 
would i love to have simon’s job? you bet. would i do it nearly as well? who knows. i would have to stop replying to flame-bait on opensolaris-discuss though. (yeah, you know what i’m talking about).
on the more technical side, i look at my tech lead, and that’s certainly something i aspire to do as well. it’s again, the ability to influence at a high level, a huge and challenging project while fighting the nay-sayers both inside and outside.
who knows. i notice my old mentor (old as in past tense, not old inferring anything about his age) posted something interesting about distributed systems work at Amazon. hrm…my old area of interest… my old mentor… (one of the most influential people in my career so far, i might add). intriguing.
so yes. long rambling blog. but that’s what happens when i finally get an hour of downtime to relax and catch up some thoughts that have been flying through my head for the past few weeks.
if you just skipped straight to end and didn’t read anything before this. well, in summary: i want simon, stephen, or geoff’s jobs. but don’t worry guys. it’s a long way off. 
[tags: Musings, OpenSolaris, SeriousThoughts]
1 Comment Add your own
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1.
Glynn Foster | August 26th, 2006 at 23:46
Keep doing what you’re doing - there’s definitely a niche to be had between being a strong community guy, and a strong technical lead. Having both those skills are invaluable for something like OpenSolaris - and well, I don’t think you’re very far off at all…
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