Life update on BJ

Some of you probably heard a while ago that I was accepted to the PhD program in BYU's Computer Science department, and that I would be starting in the fall. In the meantime, I took an internship with Mozy in Pleasant Grove, Utah, working on their Mac Client. (It's true, guys! I got a job writing Mac software!) Even before I was hired, they were trying to convince me to stay on after the summer, even if it were part-time. My boss mentioned it again my first week at work, and it was probably mentioned three or four times within the first two weeks. I told them, though, that since BYU's PhD program essentially forbids students from working outside the department, it really just wasn't an option.

The summer went on, and I really enjoyed my job. Within two weeks, I was a core part of the team, taking on major tasks and making major contributions. This was a big contrast to previous internships, where it took three or four weeks before I even felt like I'd done anything, and I'd never really felt like an essential part of the team. My coworkers at Mozy were young, charismatic, and good at their jobs. And above all, I felt like I was making a contribution. I was still doing some work with a BYU research lab, but nothing there got me excited like work at Mozy did.

Near the end of the summer, I started really considering my options. My dad was asking if I'd considered forgoing grad school and staying at Mozy full-time. Asking a lot, actually. I could tell he thought it was a good idea. Tianna was willing to support me in whatever I chose, but I could tell she liked me coming home excited about my job better than coming home with nothing much to say. (She didn't mind the bigger paychecks either.)

To tell the truth, I wanted to stay at Mozy too. They even made me a full-time offer. My only hesitation was that last year, I'd already turned down a job offer from Amazon because when I prayed about it, I felt like going to school was the right option. (A much more lucrative offer than Mozy's, at that.) If school was right back then, why would it be different now? But I prayed about it, and felt like this one was really up to me; either way would be acceptable. Maybe staying in Utah was the most important issue, and it didn't matter so much what I did so long as I was here? I don't really know, but regardless, I felt okay about staying at Mozy.

So I did! I'm now employed full-time, loving my job, and making big contributions. We recently released Mozy for Mac v1.5, and it's definitely our best version yet. We're making some more big improvements in v1.6 that I've been working on for a couple weeks now, which should make it even snappier. I've always told people that I really want to work on the kind of software that mom and pop can use, something that's intended for the mass market. This is definitely it, and I'm loving it.