“Holy shit..... Now I am being recruited by Facebook....”
That was the entire note I added before forwarding the recruiter's email.
She had found my profile online and wanted to talk about a full-time role. Facebook was already on a very short list of companies I would have seriously considered, and the timing felt almost absurd.
I told her I was interested and asked her to call.
The month had already been busy. I was working at Peek, had started a consulting systems role with AdaptiveBlue, and was considering another small startup job. The working theory appeared to be that the correct response to too much work was a conversation about even more work.
Facebook was different, though. It was no longer a tiny site built for colleges. It had hundreds of millions of users and infrastructure problems at a scale that was difficult to ignore. For somebody who had spent the Beatport years pushing systems through growth, the attraction was obvious.
It also raised a question I had been avoiding. I liked infrastructure, systems, networks, data centers, and the business around them. Facebook's role looked more deeply technical and closer to programming than I wanted my career to become.
I did not know that yet when the first message arrived. The first reaction was simpler: Facebook had found me, I was excited, and I wanted to hear what they had.
There was a location question too. The recruiting conversation pointed toward San Francisco or London. I had only recently built a life in New York after moving from Denver. Another cross-country move was possible, but it was not a small decision.
The email did not become a job. It did become one of several real options arriving at the same time, just as Peek's future was getting less certain.
For the moment, I sent the reply and waited for the phone to ring.