I've been talked into putting myself in the market again as a software consultant.

I've been writing software professionally since 1988, and have been consulting since 1995, until I took a job as an employee, in part as a favor to a friend. I offered my services as a consultant to the company, but they countered with a very flexible employment offer. The plan was to work thus for six months and reevaluate, but that never happened. Here it is, twenty-ish months later, and I'm ready to move on.

As a favor to another pal, I accepted an interview through a firm at which he'd recently accepted employment. The firm wanted to present me to a client who had rejected all of the previous submissions. I've a strong background in all things software, and suggested that they give it a whirl.

After a couple of weeks they responded and wanted me to participate in a brief telephone interview. I've had many of these interviews, usually intended to filter out the wanna-bes from the can-dos. I'm a definite can-do, and I agreed. The interview was with a technical resource already at the client (an employee, I believe, but that was not certain, and is really irrelevant). Regardless, he started with a brief introduction and explained that he had sixteen standard questions that he wanted to ask, and verified I had time.

I jotted down the questions for later review and evaluation should I find myself unable to answer one of them satisfactorily. I found, to toot my own horn, that I answered the questions to his satisfaction, and, to bash myself, that my notes don't help me remember enough information about some of the questions to look 'em up again.

It's all about Java development. All generic Java stuff, too, not anything related to specific development. I answered conversationally, and in the background heard him typing my responses, no doubt for later review with colleagues on his end. Part way through I joked asking if I was helping him pass a certification exam, to which he chuckled a "no" in response, and continued still in stride. At the end of the questionnaire, he commented that someone would be in touch about a formal interview. I quipped that I must have gotten a "B" or better, and he simply commented "yes."

Today I had the formal interview following that interview. The only specific information I garnered about the phone interview was that I had answered more questions correctly than anyone else. I took that as a good sign.

The formal interview hit a lot on one of my weaknesses; I can't remember names very well. One would think that as a software developer, with all of the associated projects, libraries, function names, theories, and whatnot that I'd be better at it. I try to be fairly abstract. Detailed when it comes down to it, but outside of "the moment," I tend to let things slide a little. I figured this was some of the art to the science of software development, but it seemed that they wanted a little more sticking to the verbiage.

We'll see how it all turns out.