Hello, World

I’ve tried to start this blog exactly 3 times, so bear with me as I ramble a bit, but first: take a look at this picture of me (hint: guy in orange) running the NYC Half last month, feat: Nuts 4 Nuts cart ☝🏻The first was back in January of 2016 when I was wrapping up my short stint at Ernst & Young and was getting ready to transition into a role that I thought would send me on the path towards medical school (more on this another time). I was excited, bright-eyed, still very new to NYC, and – at least at the time – thought I was passionate enough to make med school happen. I was about to embark on a career journey that would take me places and give me experiences I couldn’t have imagined. That being said, nothing happened with that “blog post” write-up that I did.About a year and a half later, I had learned a lot about a very nuanced industry (neurosurgical navigation) that is unknown to most, but found myself: 1) with absolutely no desire to pursue a career as a doctor (read: I took this job because I wanted to go to med school, but realized that becoming a physician was not at all for me, sooo now what?) and 2) was completely lost on where I wanted to go next. I had spent the last 18 months with some of the most demanding, fast-paced, and innovative neurosurgical medical centers of the world and had amassed a ton of knowledge about our platform, it’s nuances, and how to best implement and service them for our accounts. I had also begun interviewing around at various NYC start-ups with minimal luck. I was getting far in the process for a majority of them, but wasn’t able to get over the line in final interviews. I was pretty deflated, wasn’t sure where I was supposed to be, and wanted a change from what I was doing in the medical device industry. Looking back on what I wrote that time around is pretty interesting, as my current perspective on life is pretty different from what it was back then (yes…I’m aware that a 9-month complete transformation of thought sounds pretty ridiculous).After blog post attempt #2 my new career prospects started to stagnate a bit. I wasn’t able to find the right product or integration roles that I was looking for and – for the job apps that I was getting out there – wasn’t getting any bites. I took this slow-down in my search as an opportunity to focus more of my time on teaching myself new things; I worked through a self-paced online web development bootcamp through Udemy, educated myself on product management, and started reading a lot more. My medical device role also had pretty non-traditional working hours, which afforded me a lot of flexibility in how I chose to use my free time. When late-September came around, however, my role – as Drake once said – [su_quote]  went from 0 to 100, real quick[/su_quote]A suite of brand new platform integrations were sold at one of my relatively quiet accounts, which quickly turned into my most busy and demanding account. Due to the nature of how our teams were structured, I was the primary resource for all coordination, integration, testing, and training required for these projects. There were also several new challenging projects that I was tasked with handling at one of my other high-profile accounts, which added a completely different logistical challenge to the already difficult task that I had in front of me at this quiet-turned-loud account. My days were (very) long and I was basically in a constant state of exhaustion for 4 straight months, but I learned a lot about project management, technical integrations, and professional relationship building during that short period of time.My job search also started to pick up quite a bit, which gave me the opportunity to leverage my more recent integration experiences along with my “teach myself tech stuff” efforts. I became really good at writing targeted cover letters and was starting to secure interviews at more than half of the startups I was applying to – all of which were blind applications except for one (i.e. I was just submitting my apps into the infamous black-resume-hole, along with the occasional cold LinkedIn message). I felt like I was finally hitting my stride and, by the week after Thanksgiving, had 3 really promising job prospects on the table at some pretty cool start-ups.The offers finally started to materialize after Christmastime, which is when I ultimately decided to join the Solutions Architecture team at CrowdTwist! I’m just over 2 months in at this point and it’s been a pretty sweet ride so far. Here’s a picture of one of our resident dino’s, Kiefer (Insta: @kieferthenycnorwich).My months of hard work, exhaustion, and drive to enter the NYC start-up scene – a.k.a. “Silicon Alley” – finally materialized, which brings us to Blog Writing Attempt #3 on April 7^th, 2018 (published a bit later...). Some call it National Beer Day. I call it National Beer Day with a dose of a new and exciting purpose in life (feat. an empty Blue Bottle cappuccino cup, construction barriers in front of the World Trade Center Memorial, and no beer).I don’t have any specific purpose or direction for this blog, but am hoping to talk about what interests me, things I have on my mind, projects I’m working on, and other random musings about life in and around NYC. Writing is something I find very cathartic (and something I don’t do enough of anymore), so I hope you enjoy what I have to say.Or don’t. That’s totally ok too.-Nick