A Quantum Immortal

After 3 years at Delver (and then Sears Israel), I’ve decided that I need to “see other people”.

I joined Delver 3 years ago, fresh out of IDF and Technion. I still remember how proud and full of myself I was back then. Well, these last three years just served to show me how much more I don’t know!

In Delver Mark I, I worked under the amazing Bogen, learning what Web 2.0 and startups are all about. Is was a great year with its ups and downs, which ended with us being acquired by Sears.

Under Sears, we maintained the startup spirit and relaunched Delver.com as a social shopping site. It is intended to be a cross between Amazon & Facebook, somewhere you can discover interesting products, find trusted reviews and ratings from your friends, and leverage your social network in helping you choose your next LCD TV. We had an wonderful growth from 16 people to 60, including some amazing new talents. I started to lead a small infrastructure team, and together all of us contributed to Delver’s buildup and launch.

At the end, it all comes down to Choice. After three years at the same place, and a few months of deliberations, I made the difficult choice that I had to move on. I feel that my personal career’s growth will be better served by having more experience working with people I don’t know, and expanding the limits of my comfort zone. I feel the burning need to “be all that I can be”, and I feel that the best way for me to achieve this goal outside of Delver.

So … what’s next for me?

I don’t have a specific job offer yet. My top priority right now is continuing my growth and education, in both technical and product aspects. I have a few candidates already on my list, in no particular order:

• Google
• TypeMock
• Soluto
• Waze
• And a few more…

I would love to hear your opinions on these companies, and of course if you have other ideas on cool startups or places where I can learn about B2C websites, scalability, product design – and most importantly, work together with amazing people.

What do you think – should programming language carry any weight in deciding where to work next? Should my next programming gig be in Java, C#, Ruby or perhaps the language doesn’t matter at all? For reference, I’m attaching this chart from langpop (although according to it, the market leader in C. Even if I’m paid double my current salary, I won’t program in C for a living.)

And to all the great people I’m leaving behind in Delver – I wish you all the best, and hope to read that TechCrunch or HighScalability article about how you scaled Social Commerce to 100,000,000 active users. Best of luck, until we meet again…