This spring comes with change. On May 14th I started working for Level Level, a Dutch WordPress Agency in Rotterdam.
I left Human Made. And that was a painful decision. But I believe it was the right decision for me to take. Remote working is not for everyone. And I realised, it is also not for me.
Human Made is an absolute wonderful company, my HM colleagues are talented and kind. I did development and a11y reviews for client projects. Human Made gave me time to work on WordPress core, lead the accessibility team, speak at WordCamps, publish research. A true dream job.
But in my heart I was very alone and tired. All the communication in English, working with different time zones, asynchronous communication in Slack, it wore me out. This is me by nature, not the fault of anyone here. Other people thrive on remote working.
The Dutch WordPress community is very close. I always feel at home and between friends in a local WordCamp or Meetup. I realised: this is where I belong. So when Taeke Reijenga, the CEO of Level Level, asked me to work for him in Rotterdam, I said yes.
With Level Level I’m going to join the developers team, teach web accessibility and do reviews. In Rotterdam, not far from where I live.
Besides that I can spend time on the WordPress Accessibility Team; I will continue to work with the Accessibility Team; speak and work at WordCamps and meetups, that will not change.
I’m very grateful for what I’ve learned in my time with Human Made. I’ve made some good friends and I hope to hug and work with them in future WordCamps.
Entering a new chapter in my career now. Feeling good 🙂
Do what you like to do, where you want to do it. Tough decision, but good you took it.
Enjoy!
Thanks Marcel 🙂
Basically, good luck and I hope it works out.
Thanks Graham, I hope so too 🙂
We’ll miss you Rian. I hope there are more hugs in my future!
Hey Siobhan, I’ll miss you all too and defensively will collect my Human Made hugs at WCEU 🙂
Best wishes to you, Rian. Happy you will continue on the Accessiblity team. 🙂
As a remote employee myself, I can totally understand the strugle. Wishing you all the best and new levels of personal and career growth.
Thank you!
Good for you, Rian!
Distributed teams are seemingly getting more popular all the time but very few people talk about the isolation of it. I think lots of people are sort of forced into that lifestyle because they want the opportunity to thrive and working remotely may be the only feasible way to accomplish that. Good for you finding that elusive best-of-both-worlds opportunity in your own backyard. Looking forward to this next chapter in your career! ☺️
Thanks Drew, yeah, I’m very lucky to have such a good WP company close by. We’ll see what the future brings now.
Congrats on making what must’ve been a tough decision!
I thought Siobhan’s book was quite a good read on the important nuances of working remotely.
Thanks Daniel 🙂
Thank you for all that you do – great to be home! ??
Thanks Cathi!