How I landed a dev job that didn't exist

John Sonmez describes getting back into HP after being told there were no development openings. He takes a QA lead role he did not want, then uses the position to work with developers every day until they convince management that they cannot meet deadlines without him.

Reading notes

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• After rejection from HP development openings, he calls his old boss and hears there is no development job, only a QA lead role.
• He says the QA work paid less and was far from what he wanted.
• He rejects the idea that careers follow fixed rules and says business is shaped by people and deals.
• He accepts the QA lead role as a chance to get inside the team.
• He spends mornings on test plans and afternoons with developers, pair programming, mentoring, and discussing design.
• Developers later tell the boss they need him to meet deadlines.
• He says he becomes a developer again in a position that did not exist until he made it exist.
• He argues that developers should not accept limits just because others treat them as fixed.