Getting Closer to the CEV

The interview went extremely well. One of the recruiters said my cover letter was among the best he'd ever seen and that he was certain from it alone that Jacobs needs to find a place for me in the organization before someone else does. He almost didn't believe that a 25-year-old has both the depth and breadth of experience that I do.

We spent the entire hour chatting about my goals, my priorities, my thoughts on safety and people management, and what kind of work would interest me most. The recruiters asked me to go home, pick out the top 5 jobs that seemed most interesting to me, and email them that list so they could talk to the hiring managers and find my best fit.

To say that I was happy with the result would be the understatement of the year.

But it gets better.

Fast forward to yesterday, Saturday, night. The wifey returned home from a week visiting her family in East Texas. My monthly Firefly/Serenity gaming group also decided to meet yesterday. She was infinitely unselfish and insisted that I go see my friends, so long as she had my undivided attention once I got home.

A new couple joined the group this weekend and everyone chatted and caught up before the game started. I shared my good news about the interview and the wife, we'll call her "L" to protect the innocent, started asking me what my background was. It turns out that L works on systems engineering for Lockheed and is on the team that is designing the interfaces for the CEV with all the other modules.

I think everyone heard my jaw hit the floor and I know my eyes got as big as quarters. She smiled and asked me what my professional interests were. I said that I was interested in systems architecture and configuration evaluation. Then it was her turn to get excited. The design review is coming up in August and her division needs engineers to help with exactly what I want to do.

We exchanged information and chattered amongst ourselves while her husband looked on proudly and joked about Browncoats (Firefly fans) taking over NASA. Someone else in the group looked over and asked what we were doing. L beat me to it and said, "Trying to get him to come work for my division!"

I'm so happy I could bounce. I just sent my resume and cover letter to L at her work e-mail. Bounce, bounce, bounce. :)