My deviantART Story

In late 2011, I was looking for a job and being really picky about it.

• I wanted to be passionate about the product I was building.
  
• I wanted the users of the product to be passionate about it.
  
• I wanted my employers to be passionate about the product for reasons other than its ability to generate revenue.

When I saw that deviantART was hiring developers, this is what I felt like:



deviantART was an amazing product that I could get really passionate about!
It had millions of great users who actively tried to make the site better.

So I submitted my resume..



The hiring process dragged on.. and on.. for 3 months.
Finally, in January 2012, mccann called to offer me the position.
My brain exploded into a bloodbath of rainbows and bunnies:



The first few months were challenging.
This job was totally outside my comfort zone and I loved every anxiety-ridden minute of it.



The product was amazing too: complex, creative, original, beautiful, and strange, all at the same time.



It was easy to be passionate about providing a medium to artists from all over the world.
My coworkers were passionate, too.
There was - and still is - a heart-felt investment at deviantART that runs deeper than the paycheck.

I'm not great with traditional art. I love browsing deviantART and seeing the beautiful things you guys create, and maybe someday I'll be able to express myself in lines and ink.
On the other hand, it's not all bad - my creative expression comes in the form of writing code.
Some think that coding is all logic and science... but it's not.

It's an artform, and the beauty is both subjective and open to interpretation.



That is my deviantART story. What's yours?

Happy 14th birthday, deviantART!!