Their process and approach had all the qualities that I've become accustomed to over the past few years—it let me feel comfortable with a lot of the tools they use, yet still had areas where I could grow into.
The biggest surprise for me has been how awesome the culture here is at Vodori. I never expected to have so much interaction outside of work with co-workers at social events, sporting events, etc. It really builds a sense of camaraderie.
When it's warm outside I spend a lot of my time outside of work swimming, running, and biking. We have a large contingent of bikers here at Vodori so some of my time biking is with co-workers. I also play social league soccer with a few fellow Vodorians.
I have the nicest workstation at Vodori ;). 2x27" monitors, 6 Core 2.2ghz processor with 12 gigs of RAM, and an SSD running Ubuntu to nicely bring everything together! I am the president and only member of the Vodori Linux users group.
Chicago is probably the best city in the world, even when you consider the weather. The cost of living is reasonable and there are lots of great social events throughout the year. I take the bus to work and the train home, and never have any issues with the public transportation. I don't even miss my car.
My typical day is eight hours, usually arriving in the office between 8:30–9 a.m. I spend most of my time working directly on software for our clients. Occasionally I spend time meeting with project managers to talk about about technical requirements and problems that we may need to consider for those requirements. I also spend some time working directly with younger colleagues to help them with technical challenges.
For the past few years, I had been working at web-based startups, so I was primarily working on one product all time time. Here at Vodori I may be involved in three projects in one day, which is a nice, refreshing change of pace.
While my role is primarily software development, I am heavily involved in the security process here at Vodori. That means I spend some time making sure our production and development machines are secure, as well as helping shape the security policies we have in place. I also get to spend a lot of time mentoring some of the younger people here which I enjoy very much.
My love of documentation and testing, the defense of my relay triathalon "championship," or how a possibly faulty motherboard probably ruined building your own work machine for all future Vodorians. As well as why I wake up at 4 a.m. 18 Sundays per year.
You can email me: jeremy.arnold@vodori.com