Starting on September 1, 2019, I would like to transition to a different work schedule at Komodo.
I believe this will increase efficiency and available resources at Komodo, while maintaining and growing our available technical documentation content.
For my part, the schedule change will allow me to greater enhance my skill set in the computer sciences, and therefore this can increase my usefullness to Komodo.
There are no new costs associated with this proposal to Komodo, and it should even release several resources for other uses.
I love working for Komodo.
Komodo's vision for decentralization is exciting. I love discovering the Komodo landscape, led by JL777, and it is a pleasure and a rare life experience to be a part of something entirely new.
Anyone who knows me knows that I am primarily focused on putting together a life for my family -- specifically, for my children. I don't believe that a bright future will exist for our children if we simply wait and see what will happen. It is up to the current generation to build a better future for the next one.
Working for Komodo gives me an opportunity to be involved with decentralizing the world. Decentralization is a primary key to happiness, security, and access to opportunity for all of humanity as we look to the future. It is a natural check-and-balance on the power structures of humanity.
For these reasons, I hope to continue supporting and building Komodo for as long as I am able.
From my perspective, the relationship between myself and Komodo has a few bumps that we can smooth out.
My time at Komodo largely revolves around technical documentation, with some junior-web development tasks.
At the same time, I spend large amounts of time in meetings at Komodo that are, arguably, very unproductive. With the conversation happening in the background, there is very little I can accomplish in terms of writing and developing new content. The conversation is too distracting to maintain the concentrated focus that I need.
Meanwhile, the number of instances wherein I am needed in the meeting is either one or zero. I have very little to say, there's almost nothing to be said between myself and IBN/Wachsman, and sometimes I feel pressured to try to say something just to offer something to the table.
The amount of time I spend in meetings is around 12 hours per week, on average.
I almost always charge for 40 hours per week (whether or not the week's work involved overtime).
From Komodo's perspective, this means that you're only getting about 28 hours of actual productive work from me, despite paying for 40. (Although, we should add here that I often work overtime, at no charge to Komodo.)
We live in times of great change, and I am responsible for children. My son is 1.5 years old, and I will need to be a financial support to him for around 30 more years. Also, my wife is now pregnant, and we are expecting in February of 2020.
Technical documentation is not a long-term career path.
Microsoft has secretly used the Word software privacy terms and agreements for the last several years to gather data from user documents and feed this information to their new AI writing machine. Within the next ten years (likely within the next five), I fully expect that my skills as a technical-documentation writer will become entirely obsolete.
Developers will be able to have a back-and-forth conversation with an AI bot to figure out how to appropriately explain the technology that they built, and the technical-documentation result will be dramatically superior to those that I currently produce.
For the well-being of my family, I cannot be caught unawares. I must adapt, or I will not be safely able to provide for my family.
I need to improve my skills, and I need to become a master of computer science.
The challenge is that my time at Komodo writing technical documentation does not allow me enough time to gain these skills. While I do try to write scripts and learn new things when possible, it is not nearly enough.
I need more time, and under our current circumstances, I cannot find it.
My local university, the University of Alaska - Fairbanks, has a program that offers both a Bachelor's Degree and Master's Degree in one curriculum.
Because I already have a Bachelor's degree, I do not have to take any core-level classes, and can focus only on classes specifically related to computer science. This means that I do not need to attend the university full-time, but rather can attend part-time only.
I have spoken with the faculty on a few occasions over the last few months
They are primarily focused on artificial intelligence, due to the fact that AI is taking over the world. They are also interested in supporting me in exploring blockchain technology as well.
This is a great opportunity to gain the skills necessary to master both blockchain technology, and artificial intelligence. In the long term, this can make me more useful to Komodo, and it can provide greater long-term stability to my ability to provide for my family.
What I would propose is that starting September 1, 2019 (this is the approximate start time of the semester), my hours at Komodo drop to 20 hours per week.
Between now and September 1st, I will get as much of the advanced technical documentation finished as possible.
The technical documentation that I focus on are those documents that are meant to entice and attract newcomers to our ecosystem. This is where my current skill set lies, and it is a skill that, as far as I can tell, I uniquely bring to the team.
As time progresses and we are able to get our technical documentation into a more complete form, I will shift my focus to writing scripts for Udemy courses, and potentially assembling everything we have learned into a full "Mastering Komodo" eBook that would parallel industry equivalents, such as "Mastering Bitcoin" and "Mastering Ethereum."
In the meantime, with my newfound free time, I will start part-time school at my local university.
I have already worked out a course schedule with them that is cooperative with a part-time Komodo scenario.
Komodo would stop paying me to spend many hours in meetings that are arguably a waste of time.
Between now and September 1st, I would focus full-time on getting our current technical documentation into shape for the rebrand. There is so much to be done here, I am quite confident I will be loaded with work until the very last moment.
Come September 1st, Komodo will have a reduced financial commitment to me. This frees up Komodo to either save those funds and reduce overhead, or reallocate those funds for the hiring of another resource.
Komodo will also keep access to my skill set, wherein I am able to use my 10-15 years of professional writing and design experience to make technical documentation that has the eye of an artist and is pleasing to newcomers.
This also prevents Komodo from having to retrain someone to take my place, were I to otherwise go back to school full-time. Trying to find someone to replace my skill set has proved fruitless in past hiring attempts, and even once we do find someone, they could require three or four months to come up to speed.
Come September 1st, I would attain a position in the company similar to the position of @808 right now. I would not attend meetings. Changes to terminology and technical-documentation/marketing-related content would need to be communicated to me separately.
The amount of content I can produce in a week would be reduced by half.
For normal technical content (i.e. not for advanced Antara C/C++ developers), I don't forsee this being a significant drawback. (You may not notice a large difference for simple technical docs content and editing.) But for the highly advanced content, this might increase the time necessary to complete a task, and the time to complete a task in this specific area is already very high and challenging. (Seeing that James does not want to focus heavily on writing content for highly advanced developers anyway, this is already not a significant drawback.)
I would be able to stay associated with Komodo. This will allow me to continue my life goals of decentralizing the world to make it a safer place for my children, while also retaining a source of income that allows me to provide for them.
This plan will also allow me to dedicate more of my time to improving my skill set in the computer sciences, and eventually obtain a Master's Degree. This can provide me with an improved ability to provide stability for my family for the next 30 years, as the world changes and we approach an A.I. driven society.
The amount I earn per week will be reduced to half as much.
I won't be able to spend as much time in conversation with team members, and I already sometimes feel like my duties take me into areas of Komodo development that are rather isolated.
All in all, to me, this seems like a good path forward for my relationship with Komodo. I love working with Komodo. I am very passionate about Komodo and would like to give at least five years of my life to seeing to its success.
I want a success story from my time at Komodo, and this enables me to continue pushing towards this end. I would very much like to be able to tell people 10 years from now that I was with Komodo essentially from the beginning, and to show them that it is now a successful and functioning company, with future prospects stretching long into the horizon.
I hope that your feelings are the same, and that we can make this work together. Please let me know what your thoughts are at your earliest convenience. Thank you.