Twitter was

• a place where my shitposts started conversations (or at least joke threads), and where I could participate in conversations (or at least joke threads) on other people’s shitposts

• a comments section for my blog that wasn’t on my blog, and a comments section for others’ blogs even if they don’t have one on their blog

• a place to learn about other cool people and projects through the people I already know, and a place for other people to learn about me and my projects through the people they already know

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In the general interest of pay transparency, here’s a table showing how much I made at Apple (a Big Company that’s nonetheless not known for particularly high compensation in the tech industry), vs Signal (a nonprofit that nonetheless understands that it has to be in Tech Salary Range to be competitive).

(Why “#TalkPay”? It’s a Twitter hashtag that seems to have originally come from 2013’s conversation around the gender wage gap…but I first heard it in the context of openly sharing your name, location, role, and salary, so that others in similar positions could check if they were being paid a fair amount. Lauren Voswinkel, who put out the original call for action in 2015, has a good rundown.)

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As you probably know, I joined Signal after nearly a year between jobs. Signal’s a nonprofit whose goal is to make communication secure and private for everyone, mainly through their open-source messaging app. I feel good about being there.

One of the things I kept in mind, though, was that the interview process isn’t a one-sided thing for us software developers. In particular, if you get an offer, you have some say over the terms of the offer.

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