In case anybody missed it: I GOT HIRED.

I start full-time employment tomorrow.

In terms of location, the building is literally 2 blocks from my front 
door. It's almost close enough to /walk/ to work. (Take note, all ye who 
sayeth "there are no jobs in Milton Keynes, you should move to London".) 
There is only one other site which is nearer than this. So it's almost 
as near as is physically possible.

In terms of the work, it appears that I'm going to be a full-time C# 
programmer, occasionally specialising in Linux deployment and packaging. 
(As opposed to Linux deployment and packaging, occasionally doing some 
C# programming, which is what it initially sounded like.) The guys seem 
convinced that I'm a Linux wizard, despite my statements to the 
contrary. This seems to be based largely on the fact that I know how to 
run "ps" and I know that "kill" is a command that sends signals, not 
just a tool for killing processes.

In terms of what the company does, the Non-Disclosure Agreement that I 
just signed prevents me saying too much. Their products are used by 
government bodies and the military (but also normal commercial customers 
as well). Apparently I need to undergo some fairly extensive security 
checks. The software they write has some very technical aspects to it - 
manipulating low-level stuff like computer file-systems, network 
protocols and even cryptography. (I.e., stuff that I would actually find 
interesting, rather than just writing yet /another/ CRUD system.)

The company is quite small, and everything is fairly informal. The 
development team consists of a bunch of lads all roughly my age. I spent 
most of Friday hanging out with them in their den, and I went home 
feeling like I'd had "a fun day" rather than "a job interview". It seems 
that I fit right in. This is probably no small part of why they hired 
me; they do a lot of "pair programming", which I'd imagine doesn't work 
at all if the people in the pair aren't both on the same wavelength. In 
short, it's a very friendly, very fun environment. (OTOH, I didn't do 
any actual *work*, so...)

I wrote quite a lot of C# code for somebody who doesn't "know" C# yet. 
Obviously it was all exercises. And they were really more interested in 
my problem-solving approach (and social skills) than the actual code 
produced (which was obviously trivial).

Oh, and did I mention? The salary isn't peanuts this time. It's real 
money. OK, it's not a fortune. But it's not a joke now. And in 
percentage terms, it's a rather large increase. (I'm not completely sure 
what my final salary from the last place was, but we're talking about 
something like a 50% pay rise. Would *you* complain about that??) 
Bearing in mind that my previous employer is still paying me what 
amounts to a full salary until December, I will basically be earning two 
wages for the next few months.

Obviously I'm now in a probation period. My official title is "junior 
developer". It has been indicated to me, by several people who have the 
authority to be making such statements, that this could change quite 
soon, and that if so the pay would also increase. (But to be clear, I do 
not have this part in writing.)

So, to summarise, an extremely local job, doing interesting, technical 
work, in a relaxed atmosphere with friendly people, for drastically 
increased pay. And I start tomorrow. To say that this is my "dream job" 
would be an exaggeration, and would be more than a little premature. But 
I think you'll all agree this is an extremely positive outcome. Now 
let's just hope to **** that after all this I can actually DO the job! O_O

PS. My quip about Mordor seems tame compared to some of the jokes I 
heard offered in the office. Indeed, that quip may even by why they 
invited me back in the first place... (But that's just speculation on my 
part.)

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