Two years ago I joined InRule Technology, in part, because I saw tremendous potential in the company and it's software. During those years, we've seen great sales growth (with a 67% increase year-over-year revenue in 2013), and all signs indicate that sales growth will continue for a very long time. Accordingly, the company is poised to grow in size and maturity as well, and in my new role as Director of Development, I will be helping guide the ship through.
I'm a huge believer in continuous improvement and frequent incremental change, not just for improving our software codebase and feature set, but also for our people, processes, practices - both at the micro (individual contributor) and macro (department and company) levels. In the Director of Development role, I'll help drive strategic initiatives within the Product Development (aka software development) group aimed at improving our processes, software architectures, system infrastructures and our people to make it easier to expand our products, grow the department and to venture into new technologies and new markets. I'll play a key role in growing the team itself, as well as representing the development group in cross-departmental concerns.
Many of these are things I've already been doing in the background, because I'm passionate about my work and enjoy the work I do. This title change just makes that part of my official role. Of course, Jeff Key, Sr VP of Engineering, will continue to oversee the department overall, and I will continue to report to him. While I will be absorbing some of the work that is currently in his plate, we both felt it was important that I continue to spend a large portion of my time writing code.
As such, I will still be doing development/architecture the majority of the time. This is my "happy place" and I wouldn't want it any other way. Too often, companies will take high performing members of the team and "promote" them into a leadership role which takes them away from development and the things they enjoy about their jobs. This ends up hurting the individual and the company in the long run, something I've experienced in my own career, and is something Jeff and I both wanted to avoid. That I work with a management team that understands this dynamic is yet another of the great things about working for InRule!
Hmm... Guess it's time I dusted off my Thoughts on Employment series.
Alright, enough self-aggrandizing. Check back with me in a year when I've got something to show along with my big words!
Photo Credit: Michael Heiss (Creative Commons License) Some rights reserved