Job Goals

People ask me what kind of job I'm looking for. I don't have a simple answer.

Mostly I want my skills to be useful. My primary skills involve getting information into an appropriate form for a given audience -- that can include technical writing, training, interface design, requirements analysis, and lots of other stuff (technical writing is what I've done the most of, but it really isn't challenging for me anymore). I've had people recommend various titles in this vein -- "information architect", "truthseeker", "knowledge engineer", and so forth.

Also, I want responsibility for something larger than my own day-to-day workload, but don't want to be a manager. Leading a team is fine, as is coordinating several teams, but performance reviews and budgets and headcounts and that sort of thing don't excite me.

Other than that, I'm more interested in what the organization is like than in the specific job responsibilities. Here are some desired attributes of a potential Dave-hiring organization:

• Medium-sized.
  That is, large enough to have qualified people doing the most important jobs, small enough that there's always more to do than anyone can really get done. Large enough that you're not always in each other's heads, small enough that you know each other's faces. Large enough to have some momentum, small enough to change when necessary.
  If you must have numbers, I'd say something in the 50-200 range, but I've seen outliers in both directions that match the spirit and plenty of companies in that range that don't.

• Productive, but balanced.
  I want to work among competant people who get things done without wasting a lot of time on internal politics, ill-advised projects, or duplicated effort. But I also want to go home at the end of the day, have dinner with my SO, and generally have a life without feeling like I have to be at work all the time.
  I also want the organization I'm devoting my energies to to produce a useful product or provide a useful service. If you primarily develop entertainment or advertising, or rebrand other people's content, or something like that, I'm probably not interested.

• Informal.
  I'm a jeans-and-Tshirt sorta guy. Not being the most underdressed person in the room would be nice. More important is being able to have fun at work and with my coworkers, and feeling like the company as a whole has a sense of humor and can indulge a bit of whimsy.

• Boston-area commuter accessible, either on the T or somewhere that can be gotten to without bucking painful rush-hour traffic.

• Offices rather than cubes or open-plan spaces. I don't do it much, but I like being able to close my door and just get stuff done.

• Actually paying a salary. Stock options and such are wonderful, but they don't pay the rent.