The Secret Stuff

On the thirtieth of January I wrote that I got off the train, tagged in to BART, got my bike and then went to the elevator.  I had left my portfolio in the lockers but when I got there I found it.  I rode to 16^th and by then my friend had moved onto the Tradesmen where I met her with her coworkers.  I met her old boss’s dog out front and her neighbors from Clinton were there too.  I made jokes with all of them and was introduced to everyone and then we departed.  They had been celebrating the final preparations for an industry conference they had organized.

We went to my friend's sister’s then where they had prepared for us to take care of her child while they went for a date.  Then my friend left me for a bit to go to the store.  I cut up some apples while the baby was napping and when she returned she made a great meal and I ate all of the cheese.  She got a few texts from friends in Sonoma.  The dinner was great when the four of us sat down to eat spaghetti with big mushrooms.  I got to play with the cat and we had apple crisp.  There was a lot of nice beer too.  We discussed the snow trip that they had been planning.  I eventually started feeling tired and that was when we left.  I was asleep pretty quick after that.

In the morning I was late getting up but I met her at Linea where she apparently knows everyone.  I tool a call from a recruiter there and said bye to go home.  I stopped by Swell on the way but they said that they couldn’t get to my bike until Monday so we made plans instead.  I looked at their step-throughs and sent some messages to my friend about them and then I went home and did some catch up.

Later I wrote that I entered a call with a big tech company for an interview.  I noted that there were two rather than one person on the call and realized that the recruiter had given me the wrong time.  He was interviewing a lady and she seemed competent but a bit older.  I also noted that the interviewer was a good contact to have and that made me sad since I didn’t want to commute to Silicon Valley for the job.

I noted that he talked about ArcInfo, Unix and Spark Station.  She then talked about UC, planning, HUD software.  She trained herself in using ESRI software.  She said stuff ArcGIS Server, SDEs and desktop.  She said she had worked with developers for software rollouts and had used ArcIMS.  She said some stuff about private sector work in insurance.  She said stuff about geocoding and the oil and gas industry.  She had set up stuff from scratch.

I quit around then and started over about an hour later.  I called in and the same guy answered then.  I noted that he just dove in without acknowledging the fact that I had called in at the wrong time.  He talked about his 40 years of experience and how he initially believed that raster data wasn’t spatial.  I discovered that he was an acquaintance's superior a long time ago when she was in drafting.  He was a consultant in DB systems and worked for a lot of pertinent firms.  He helped deliver the spatial components to a major brand.

He told me the job would entail preparing data for ingestion for in a big web based platform/API.  He said there would be some data editing and they used SAFE.  I noted that I was not expressly involved with the software but could make it work.  He told me about ETLs and SQL.  He gave an example with Tiger Files and FIPS codes with FME.  There were three types of software involved in his operation: FME, SQL and ESRI.  He thought that I would be familiar.  He then gave me some blog posts and websites like Geo-names to look at.  He also talked at length about spatial data types in SQL.

I told him about my core competencies and noted that FME was new to me.  He noted that initially we would be getting used to the job.  He noted also that I would be taking over some of the more routine jobs that he would do on a daily basis.  Then he told me about some of the things he had done for the project and how things were changing fast.  I told him about linear referencing and he noted that SQL didn’t have that.  Then we discussed SQL and how my skills were good.

He then talked about the secret stuff.  Machine Learning Scientists, Lidar, Terrestrial Lidar.  Sign reading and other stuff.  He told me about his commute and then opened the floor to questions.  I asked about leadership opportunities and training.  He noted that some companies were different from others in this regard.  Then we ended the call after he noted that I may talk to him in the future.

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.