Joining Mozilla Firefox

A New Chapter

I am now three months into my new job (much more then a "job") at Mozilla Firefox and it is pretty much a dream come true. I had an amazing three year stint at Penn State AgSci where we went from hundreds of disparate websites to a much more cohesive web presence. While it was hard to leave my old team and my home state, this was an opportunity I could not turn down. I have always been a fan of Mozilla from an innovative perspective and also their philosophical position on the "Open Web". Regardless if you use Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, or Safari, you have to give it to Mozilla for staying true to their roots and putting users first.

I am now based out of Palo Alto, California, which is thousands of miles away from Pennsylvania -- the only state I have previously lived in. While I will miss my friends and family, I already feel more connected to the community and culture than I ever did in Pennsylvania. I don't know if it is the weather, opportunities, free spirit, or all of the above, but everyone just seems happy here. Regardless if you are in the service industry, programming web applications, or running a company, everyone gives 100% and maintains a positive attitude. It is rock stars galore in Silicon Valley!

What Am I doing At Mozilla?

This is actually more complicated, because my title is not very explicit or well known. My official title is "Sr. Web Product Engineer", but let's break it down:

• Sr: I've been around the block a few times....
• Web: The Web will be the heart of all my projects.
• Product: Everything I work will be made up of many pieces that are turned into a single deliverable.
• Engineer: A methodical approach will be used ensure high success rates.

Still unclear? Basically, think about the word "engineer", but from a project perspective. I will be engineering technical projects to make sure I have the right people, good requirements, and a solid process to keep the ball rolling. Removing roadblocks, meeting with stakeholders, and keeping momentum behind multiple projects will be the core of this position. This is a pretty long explication, so I usually just say "I manage technical projects on Mozilla's WebDev team." and leave it at that. :-)

Want to learn more about the team and how we are going to manage Web projects? Check out Ryan Snyder's blog and video from our team's presentation on April 29th, 2011.

Want To Change The World?

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