Starting the Fire

A few hours ago, I came across a role that immediately caught my attention. Of all places, it found me in my terminal, where I was scheming the next improvement to the custom Ghost theme I recently launched for this site.

One role in particular stood out right away. It lines up almost perfectly with the kind of problems I enjoy working on and the skills I’ve been building. A Platform Engineer role is my new goal.

To be clear, I’m not currently in a bad spot. I work as a consultant, and I’ve been fortunate to feel pretty successful doing so. When I started browsing job listings today, it was mostly out of curiosity — to see where the industry stands right now. But this role is at Ghost. It grabbed me.

Consulting gives me a lot of freedom to pursue continuous learning and growth independently, which I value. But there’s something uniquely powerful about growing alongside a team — especially a small, specialized one where everyone cares deeply about the craft and the standards behind the work.

There’s also some timing involved in the "why now" of it all. Last September, we moved into our first home, and after about six months, things finally feel settled. We're creeping out of the coldest days of the year and into a season of community building and rooting in.

One challenge, though, is that much of my experience with the responsibilities outlined in this role comes from proprietary systems and internal tools that I can’t access or share publicly, and explaining that on a resume only goes so far.

So instead, I’m going to build my way through it. Classic :)

This site is becoming the hub for that strategy! I’m treating this application like its own project — not a “submit and hope for the best” situation. I intend to learn something regardless of acceptance.

Over the next while, I’ll be expanding the custom theme, restructuring parts of the site's infrastructure, improving performance and reliability, and experimenting with new features — including an AI assistant to help explore all the content that's about to pop up here.

This post is the starting line. Now the work begins!