Got laid off upon returning from vacation, 1 Sept. Getting back pay at least.
Then the client seems to be hiring my old position, but in talking to them they don't seem to have a clue that hiring the person who built the thing is probably a good idea. The ramp-up time will be substantial: 11 boards, 36 cables. Probably 100 C 'classes', 500KB of ARM7 code compiled. Two years of development (with other related projects, including PIC 16F programming, test fixtures, acceptance test procedure coding, documentation, etc.)
The project still has work to be done, I was being pushed to add features to hit milestones. The project was originally fixed bid but massively underestimated; perhaps the CEO who can code thought he could contribute more time than he could.
Business wise, its interesting to recognize classic problems. Expanding and moving to expensive space. Underestimating complexity. Fixed bid. Client had never built electronics of any kind, much less for FDA approval, much less with 5 CPUs in it.
Nine of ten startups fail.
It used to bug me more, getting laid off. I got laid off in '02 for the first time in my life, my employer IDT sold to Cisco and the Net bubble burst. At Cardiac Science, the company was acquired by Burdick and laid off most of the software staff on our project. (Amusingly, being a Washington state co, they had to publish a list of the laid-off folks' ages, from which I was able to figure out everyone's age. An obvious privacy violation forced by another state's law.) At Zetera, they ran out of Venture Capital and folded. And my most recent employer had payroll problems, as they did last year, when there was a period of nonpayment and then laying off everyone (then rehiring). They renegotiated the building and the major project (to include time and materials now). But now they have tax problems. Thank you, California.
Anyway, good engineers work on bleeding edge problems, and business entities solving them often fail.
I'm just looking for stability, a place to work on interesting problems, with smart people. Let others find the jobs, buffer the work and salaries, schmooz.
I should read some Dilbert, which I haven't in a while.
