Leaving SAP

Posted: April 27, 2015 | Categories: Miscellaneous

For those of you that follow me on Twitter or are connected with me on LinkedIn, you probably already know that I no longer work at SAP. This wasn't my idea, instead it was part of an office consolidation that SAP has undertaken. Since I worked in the development organization but wasn't working in an office with my team, my position was eliminated. I live in North Carolina but the people I worked with were in Dublin, CA and Walldorf, Germany so hence the source of the problem.

Fortunately for me, SAP made it pretty easy for me. They gave me some time to see if I could find another position with SAP (I didn't). Plus they did some other stuff (which I can't talk about) to help me in my transition. Overall, a stressful but not a very painful process. Bonus!

I really liked working at SAP. They treated me very well and I was very happy that I was able to work on software development tools (something that interested me greatly). I really enjoyed working with all of the smart people at SAP. As the Product Manager for what was essentially SAP's hybrid development SDK, I was in the unique position where my day job aligned with my hobby. As a writer about and contributor to the Apache Cordova project, owning some of the Cordova-based products from SAP was the perfect place for me.

When I joined SAP, I'd pretty much decided that I was going to stay there until I retired. It was a great job with a great company and I thought I could stay for the duration of my career. Unfortunately, being remote became a problem and I was unwilling to move to California (although I would have been interested in moving to Germany). Over the years, some opportunities presented themselves to me, but, because I wanted to stay at SAP, I didn't really consider them. Now that SAP forced the separation, it gave me some time to pursue some really good opportunities.

During this process, I confirmed that only a small percentage of people find jobs on Job Boards; most nowadays find jobs through their existing connections. Once I decided that I wasn't going to find a new position within SAP, I posted on LinkedIn that my position had been eliminated. It wasn't long before my inbox was filled with emails from my existing contact base offering to help me. I quickly updated my resume then responded to everyone. Before long, I'd been introduced to opportunities in about 10 companies and I began actively interviewing with many of them. Of course, nothing came of some of them, but I was able to begin actively working with 6 different companies on 11 different opportunities.

I only had a certain amount of time to find a job, so I set a deadline for myself and got to work. I was able to secure 2 job offers a few days past my deadline and had one more lined up, but not formally offered. Essentially, I had three opportunities to choose from. Unfortunately for me, I was really, really interested in all three of them. Sigh. I was hoping I'd have a choice to make (and I succeeded), but I wasn't expecting that I'd be solidly interested in all three of them. Sigh, the pressure increases.

For many years, I led custom development (consulting) and product development teams for different organizations. I really enjoyed leading teams. When I got into mobile, I obtained individual contributor roles and had those for the last 10 years or so. With this job…transition, I pursued some individual contributor roles, but also one where I'd be able to build and (someday) lead a team of technical people. At the end of the day, I had to choose between the three opportunities and I did.

I start my new job on Monday – and will tell you all about it once I start. Stay tuned.

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