Birth of a Website
In my home office, I keep a couple of long-sleeved Fiserv exercise pullovers I got during employee appreciation days of years past. They are nice quality and are just enough to keep me warm while sitting in front of a laptop, earbuds in, coordinating the efforts of a couple teams of software developers in the USA and India. I have been their software development manager for some years now and we work wonderfully together. We enhance and support the CUSA and Reliance core processing software used to run credit unions. As I write this, I ponder that over 250 institutions rely on us to keep their business running smoothly day in and day out. It has been an exciting run for the past 18 years!
But times change and unexpected events occur. The COVID-19 pandemic brought the closure of my office in Salt Lake and positioned me to work remotely for the safety of all. More recently, senior leaders are implementing a long-term business strategy that requires employees to return to work at a Fiserv facility. I have been given the choice to either relocate to a Fiserv campus far from Salt Lake or train a replacement and leave. For my own reasons, I have opted for the latter, meaning I exit the company by early August.
Change can be good though. I must accept this one in spite of the melancholy I feel, knowing I stand to leave such good friends and associates at Fiserv. I refuse to sit still awaiting my final day, however.
I have owned makingthemostofit.org for several years, using it to dabble in web development. As my Fiserv departure is nearing, I am revamping it to be an online journal of my development learning and abilities. The hope is that when I exit Fiserv, I will have something to showcase the skills I have achieved.
I am uncertain where this strategy will ultimately take me. But I hope to get into designing and creating great software firsthand.
A wonderful feeling of accomplishment comes to those who are part of the conceptualization and creation of useful and desirable software and I wish to join their ranks. Whatever the future brings, this entire experience promises to add fulfillment in both my career and personal life.