The opportunity to do your best work

Some time ago I wrote down some thoughts on engineering hiring processes in NL in 2025. I’ve been meaning to write about its conclusion for a while. The search went well, albeit a tad unorthodox from my side, and as of June I’m crushing it at Wissel.nl^[1].

I’m a Ruby guy now.^[2]

How did I get here?

As a frequent lurker on r/ExperiencedDevs and r/cscareerquestionsEU, I’ve definitely noticed a sentiment shift over the past year (even after applying a drama filter). People say the market’s rough: Experienced devs having a hard time finding roles, hiring shifting to a buyer’s market, AI firmly integrated in many enterprises and startups, and more elaborate hiring processes.

I was a bit apprehensive. This would be the first time since my teens where I had to actively search for myself. In the past I had my own business (still had to do acquisition though), and all my roles since have been from push—not pull. Here in the Netherlands things weren’t (and still aren’t, I think?) too bad and there was ample opportunity to pursue lead or equivalent roles.

A big difficulty I found was aligning pipelines between companies. Some were fast, some were slower. One had a moving goalpost thing going on. Despite these difficulties, I’ve kept myself confident, honest, and unequivocally positive.

I am grateful that I didn’t have to rush things. It allowed me to reflect on my career so far, and put into focus what was important to me in work.

I work best with people who share the desire to lift each other up. While making cool shit.

I came to this conclusion at the tail-end of my job application process. In my time spent reflecting, I found that common themes at my best employers were shared autonomy, shared responsibility and shared flexibility. This cultivated a culture of excellence, open communication, and mutual respect. As a result, people felt impactful and valued.

You see, the cool shit part is easy enough. There’s plenty of cool shit all around. Some arguably cooler than others. Some definitely cooler than others. Cool, as it is, is subjective stuff and prone to change. Video killed the radio star and all. For me, I can confidently say that cool shit still is working on (almost) any layer of the web.

As for the people part, at some point in the hiring process I’d ask about an opportunity to meet the team. This wasn’t one of my goals specifically, I just found it quite important to vibe because I felt that was important in an environment where I would spend about one third of any weekday.

Looking back, it comes as no surprise that I gelled best with the companies that did an on-site-including-lunch thing as part of their hiring process. Being able to talk with potential colleagues is invaluable for both parties.

Up and to the right

One omission in my philosophy towards work is the notion of career. This is on purpose.

When starting my job search I was very much under the impression that with career trajectory, like equity, the line should go up and to the right. So, when interviewers asked me where I would want to go in my career I confidently said CTO (of a small-medium org). Behind the optimistic confidence I hid a lot of uncertainty though. Not because I doubted my capabilities but because I really hadn’t thoroughly considered what I would actually want to aim for now.

I made a premature commitment to myself.

It was probably on a Saturday halfway May when this hit me. I’m 38 and I carry 20 years of experience across a variety of roles and levels. I’ve got plenty of time left exploring manager’s track. The biggest priority for me, currently, is my daughter. Being able to explore her world and just be there in the formative years is invaluable to me. My previous employers gave me the autonomy, responsibility and flexibility to work on my own terms. So, ambitions-wise, a company where I could grow into the role organically—as opposed to jumping into a bigger role head-first—should be high on my list of considerations.

It got me thinking back about some of the interviews I had and people I met. I had lined up a few still after rejecting some offers. One rejection in particular I found painful because it was a perfect fit, people and cool shit wise (Wissel.nl, obviously). It was only because of my premature ambition that I said no to their offer.

Thinking about it now, it seems absurd that I didn’t see it before: here was a profitable company with an amazingly warm team in a scale-up phase looking for lead-level dev. It was the perfect fit.

Remember I said “unorthodox”? I called the CEO on Monday afternoon if there was a possibility for me to reconsider. We had a good talk about why I thought my earlier doubts were invalid. I told them about my reflections, and how the fact that they gave me the opportunity to reconsider shows their values strongly align with mine, and that it for our mutual benefit boiled down to this:

I believe here is where I can do my best work.

And that’s how it went. I am very grateful to the people at Wissel.nl for giving me this opportunity, all of my previous employers, colleagues and partners for showing me how its done, the people I got to talk to in my interviews, and my wife for keeping up with my mental vomit during this time.

I consider myself privileged to have been able to go through the experience like this. It will be different for others. You might value different things. You might not have the time or resources to make this an edifying thing.

Still, I’ve become convinced that, when given the chance: look for places where you can do your best work.

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