A little more than 10 years ago I started working on transitioning from a career in the food service industry to one in tech; specifically as a software developer. At the time I decided that PHP¹ would be the language I'd try working in. I remember before I ever got my first position in the industry coming across Roave, seeing the level of talent they employed and thinking to myself, "Well, you'll never work here."

Fast-forward to 2021, I happen to come across a tweet where Roave is looking for new team members. I figure my resume has some solid work on it, though not much PHP, and there's a few repos on my GitHub profile that aren't complete shit, so I throw my hat in the ring. After all, what's the worst that can happen? They say no or just never respond?

They do wind up responding! I get to have an interview with some people I've always looked up to in the PHP world including @asgrim, @grmpyprogrammer, and @ocramius. Everything goes really well, but they chose to go with somebody else. It was disappointing, though I never expected to get the interview in the first place, so I see it as an opportunity to have a conversation with some neat people. Life moves on.

We're now in the spring of 2022, a little less than a year since I spoke with the people at Roave, and I notice that I have a Twitter DM. I never get Twitter DMs, I'm immediately curious. It turns out to be a Roave team member politely saying "Geez man, do you ever check your email? Come talk to us again!" I responded that I, in-fact, do not check my email very well, and I'd be happy to talk to the team again. I get to have another interesting conversation with some neat people. Everything goes really well. This time, however, they chose to bring me on to the team!

Y'all... I'm gonna be a team member at Roave!

I cannot tell you how excited I am! This is a great opportunity to work with some really talented individuals and get back to working with PHP again on a professional level. Working with a highly-respected software team that contributes back to open source has always been a career goal and to think I've made that step is kinda surreal. I'm sure at some point the impostor syndrome will kick in but for now I am just incredibly excited and grateful for this opportunity!

¹ Not here to debate PHP's merits as a language.