Three years ago tomorrow (wait... what?!?), I showed up for my first day of work here at a Facebook. Since my background was in teaching, software engineering, graphics, games, and free software - I really had no idea what I would be working on here. All I really knew then was that I would not work on Facebooks massive databases, because that was really the one thing I knew absolutely nothing about. Surprisingly, six weeks later, I chose to join the Database Engineering team. Ive learned a lot in these past three years. Ive had some great experiences working with the various database (and other) teams here at Facebook, and, more recently, the database teams of several other companies, as we formed WebScaleSQL to collaborate more widely on our various MySQL engineering efforts. Things changed a bit earlier this year. Something else happened that surprised me: Facebook acquired Oculus VR. Ive been passionately following the developments in 3D and VR/AR for decades now - ever since I saw a particularly awesome tech demo at Disney World as a kid. I had assumed Oculus was just another one in the long line of disappointing, gimmicky, pointless, VR systems. But, this acquisition made me take notice, and I looked into it more closely. Turns out... its awesome! I think the age of true consumer VR is finally dawning! :) ...and suddenly I find that I work for the very company that is actually making it happen. :D Rather than pontificate on the odds that the company I chose to work for, 3 years ago, just happened to be the company that acquired the technology that I have been waiting my whole life for, I will just mention that Id have to be insane not to take advantage of this coincidence. So, starting in a couple weeks, I will be working on Oculus as my primary project - for a least a few months, maybe longer, well see how it goes. Fortunately, Facebook is the sort of work-place that lets me make vague plans like that. We call this hack-a-month - but the only binding one of the three words in there is hack. To those out there I am working with on WebScaleSQL, dont worry. I will still be working on WebScaleSQL as my secondary project (which it already was) for the foreseeable future. So, nothing is changing there. It will just now be more separate from my primary work - which I actually think will be a good thing. Overall, a lot has happened to me in these last three years: Ive met many great new friends. Ive also lost a few good ones (Still missing you both, Ivan and Nathan). I feel at home now, out here in California - especially right now when its not so warm out. Yet, I have missed 3 years of birthdays and holidays with my family back on the East Coast. The bad comes with the good, and it has been mostly good. So, I hope this great adventure continues for many more years to come. :)
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 22:48:37 +0000
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