New Job

Well, it's official. I gots me a job at Intel, doing security evaluation and verification for their desktop products. I should be starting in 2-3 weeks, at which point I suppose I will have finally crossed over into the realm of middle-class white-collar America. Oof.

I'm excited actually, having worked as a contractor at Intel for a year I know somewhat what is happening within the company looking forward for the next year or so. I think they are overcoming some of the problems they had in 2004 (cancelled products, losing ground in the server market to AMD, etc.), and the technology I'll be working on is cutting edge stuff, so that's neat. The position is not unrelated to Linux either, since Intel hardware products are for the most part operating-system independent and Linux gives you good low-level control over a system. Also, as I understand it, Intel encourages their employees to move around every few years (internally) so you don't get too saturated in a single project.

I suppose on the downside is the added responsibility that comes with a full-time engineering position at the 53rd company on the Fortune 500. Being an hourly contractor has its own benefits, the main one of which is being able to take time off (almost) whenever you want with the only consequence being not getting paid. The working philosophy at Intel seems to be "Work hard, play hard," so I think they know how to take it easy.

We'll see how it goes :-)