Two years of working away from home

I’m currently sitting in Melbourne enjoying the Australian summer and a well deserved break from work. I can barely remember the northern hemisphere winter I left behind a few weeks ago.

I’ve only briefly mentioned working away from home before but January past marked two years since I last worked in Belfast. The pace has been hectic at times and I’ve spent more nights in hotels than I care to recall but from my first contract in Dublin to my last in the south of England I’ve found a consistant theme: being treated with more respect, working on more interesting problems and for higher pay. Not a bad combination!

RubyConf Australia

Coinciding with my trip to Melbourne was the first ever RubyConf Australia where I was able to shake hands and speak with some of the known names in the Ruby world. I’ve also been able to attend a Ruby Australia meetup and a Travis CI coffee morning so there’s been plenty of opportunities to geek it up along with soaking up the sun.

Adventure

In recent times I’ve done more and more travelling with the last 12 months seeing me in Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Barcelona and now Melbourne. My taste for adventure has grown, I’ve a hunger to be where the action is and a part of the world where people are arguing over a flag is just not where it’s happening.

There’s no contract market for Ruby in Belfast though so in order to continue contracting, working with Ruby and living in Belfast the first flight out of town on a Monday morning seems unavoidable.

Where to next?

There’s no two ways about it, living out of a suitcase sucks. The alternatives seem to be to leave Belfast, start up my own product company or take on a remote working permanent position. Needless to say there’s drawbacks to all of these and most of the time it’s seems best to just suck up the drawbacks of working away from home.

Considering the strength of the contract market in London I’ve often thought I’d end up there for a stint and after a recent conversation with Tim I’m also quite interested about contracting in Berlin.

The day I booked my flight to Oz was the final day of my last contract and I’d chosen not to put any effort into lining up the next piece of work. Within a fortnight I’ll be back in the UK and dealing with jetlag. Will something turn up by then? If if does where will it be, what will it be doing and how much will it pay? The usual uncertainties associated with contracting.

Whatever happens, the next few weeks should be interesting!