It’s official! I start next week as a developer for Shepherd Dog, a local consulting firm (announcement on their blog). As they describe in the announcement, I’m very active in a local tech group. I asked some questions in the group’s Slack channel about getting hired as a developer, and one of the people behind Shepherd Dog sent me a message asking if that meant I was looking for a job. We had lunch the following week, and the conversation went really well.
So what kind of development will I be doing there? I’ll start out mostly doing WordPress work since that’s where I have the most experience. But I’ll also be learning mobile development and other web frameworks on the job.
Although I’m working as a developer, part of the appeal both for Shepherd Dog hiring me and me wanting to work there was that they clearly care very much about design (see for yourself). A lot of small business websites and apps can look pretty janky, and they work to avoid that. I expect to apply what I’ve learned about design so far just as much as I expect to apply what I’ve learned about development.
Who knows – I might even put up a portfolio with real client work at some point. Stay tuned!