What's up with Adam?

I recently checked in on ODK Developer Slack for the first time in a while and realized that @ankita240796 had wished me a Happy Birthday waaaay back on July 4, and I hadn't even noticed. (Thanks! It was a very nice time. Instead of cake, we had home made cinnamon rolls.)

This reminded me that I should check in here and let the community know what is up with me and how that relates to ODK Docs. I didn't mean to just disappear, but I'm afraid that might have been the effect.

Most of you probably know that for the last year I've been the lead maintainer for ODK Docs. I was doing this work through a contract with Nafundi. I have absolutely loved this work --- probably the best job I've ever had. And it has been especially helpful to have such a flexible engagement while my wife finished up her last year of seminary.

Once she finally graduated in May, and we have had to move out of student housing, the reality of living expenses in the Bay Area has become more clear. While we could have taken this awesome remote job and fled to the countryside, we kinda have to stay out here for her work/ministry. So earlier this year I started looking for jobs again.

I took a short contract through May and June which I (FOOLISHLY) thought would let me keep working on ODK. This turned out to be extremely inaccurate. (I can barely do one job well. So I really should have known better.)

Looking at my likely job prospects, and another too-good-to-pass-up contract for July, I decided --- after a few difficult conversations with @yanokwa and @LN --- to step away from leadership on ODK Docs.

So that's why none of you have heard from me in a couple months. I'm sorry for any threads, conversations, bug reports, or PRs I had left hanging. I trust everything will work out.


Some other updates, plans, and things I just really want to say...

I got a "real" job!

After several years of various contract gigs, I started a FULL TIME JOB in early July! I'm now the first (and only) Technical Writer at Aporeto, a cloud security startup.

My work there will be similar to my work at ODK --- a mix of lots of writing and a bit of engineering around how docs are authored and deployed.

I consider this job to be a gift of Open Data Kit. The work I had the opportunity to do for you all directly prepared me for this new role. I'm extremely grateful.

I'm speaking soon!

In August I will be speaking at a Write the Docs event, trying to spread the DocOps/Docs-as-code message. Among other things, the talk will highlight some of the work we've done on ODK Docs.

This will be my first time speaking at a Tech Conference, and --- once again --- this is a gift from this community. I am very grateful.

(If you live in Cincinnati, send me a note and we'll get together in August.)

I'm still around.... a bit

I don't have a lot of time for work outside of work, but I am still subscribed to all the ODK repos, slack channels, and forum threads. And I still have specific issues I want to work on.

I hope that I will always be a part of the ODK community.

So if you have questions about anything that I might be able to help with, feel free to @ me.

Why don't you come up and see me sometime?

I live in Berkeley, CA and work in San Jose. If you're in the neighborhood, let's have lunch or something.

Docs work continues, of course

And really needs contributors.

Please consider helping out with the docs.
(Just, you know... don't email me about it.)

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I really love this community, and feel extremely grateful to have been able to work with you all over the last year. I'm especially grateful to @yanokwa and @LN for taking a chance to hire someone with lots of neat ideas about how to do docs, but nearly zero open source experience. (And very grateful for their patience through my intermittent work flakiness.)

This work that you all are doing --- building tools, collecting data, empowering communities --- is the most important work I have had the privilege to participate in. I don't really know how I got lucky enough to be a part of it, but I am thankful to all of you.

Thanks. See you 'round.

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