New Job and New Adventures

So I haven’t written that much this week because I started a new job on Wednesday. So far it’s been going really well. I like my new coworkers very much and one of the company founders went to the same college as me. Well, actually a lot of my new coworkers are my former college classmates so it is actually quite fun. With this new job comes some new changes that I will write about in the coming months. For example, I will transfer out of my crappy former 401k that I described in this post. My new employer’s 401k program is through Fidelity once again, and so I am a happy camper and I can roll all my 401k money into one place. Additionally, I have set up my direct deposit to deposit straight into my Vanguard money market account because I never really use my checking account except to funnel money. Vanguard’s direct deposit set up is actually quite cool and you can deposit your paycheck into any number of funds. Finally, I will need to make a decision on whether or not to exercise my vested options at my ex-employer. I do still have about 3 months to exercise my options and I am thinking of doing it in January so that in case I do trigger the AMT I would have to pay it in 2009 instead of 2008. By then, perhaps my old employer would go public (Hah! I wish). At this point, I think the options at my old employer is still worth exercising even though private stock is an illiquid asset. Besides those things, my pay schedule is now synced up with my hubby’s so monthly financial updates should be easier to manage. At my old company I got paid on the 7th and 22nd while he got paid on the 15th and end of the month. So that difference in pay schedule forced me to check our bank accounts every week.

Anyway, I think the hardest part about a new job is really just the first month. After that I can usually get into a regular schedule and comfortably finish my work. Right now I’m trying to get used to the fact that people on my team come to work even later than I do. On Friday I went to work at 11am and I was the first one there. I also got the last cube available in the entire office space and so I’m in the middle of a bunch of boxes and next to the IT lady who talks on the phone all the time about her kid and grandmother. However, that is all going to change soon because the entire company is moving to San Mateo in two weeks. I am looking forward to sitting close to my team and getting a newer office space. It is also ironic because I just left a job in San Mateo and I’m going to move right back. I will definitely see a lot of my old cohorts hanging around downtown San Mateo during lunch. It should be fun because I will get to introduce my new coworkers to the lunch spots I am already very familiar with and still keep up with the gossip of the old office.

On a purely monetary standpoint I am pretty sure that I would have had a higher salary in the next few months if I just stayed at my old company and gotten my yearly review. However, I felt like it was time to learn something new and move on to a younger company. The VP at my old company also tried to convince me that my stock options may be worth a lot even though I have very few shares. That may or may not be true, and I do agree with the VP that the company should do very well in the future. However, I think my current company has a lot more potential because it is younger and makes a great product. I really see stock options as a “possible bonus”, and I don’t count on them to make me rich. I just feel like I have to move on to stay competitive in the field of software engineering. I am really afraid of becoming one of those people that I interviewed who had 8 years of experience and didn’t know the basics.

So that’s what’s happening in my life, and I am pretty excited to do all of these new things.

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