I thought I was spoiled when I worked for Gowalla, but Heroku appeals to my true inner Geek. The people, the building, and the oh-so-delicious food have blown my mind. It’s impossible to turn the corner without bumping into some of the best minds in the community. Where else are you going to find yourself walking to work with @hone02, a maintainer of Bundler, and playing pingpong after lunch with @bmizerany, the creator of Sinatra. The knowledge isn’t just Ruby, there’s all sorts of Java, Python, and even a little Erlang getting thrown around. You can tell everyone loves working on the Heroku platform by the way they talk about it, and the passion they have for their jobs. I haven’t run into Matz, the creator of Ruby, since he joined heroku, but I can’t wait to give him the super-secret Heroku staff handshake (it’s just a regular handshake).

While I’ve been working for Heroku for a week now, today was my first day working out of SF. The offices are great: fully stocked fridges, catered lunch, a games room, and Mac power adapters all over the place. It almost makes me wish I wasn’t working out of Austin (almost).

The building is old fashioned brick, with massive steel girders and origami all over the place. Seeing how intimate and friendly the lunches are it’s hard to remember just how many people work here. Getting to put faces to names has been great, and it’s one of the reasons I enjoy going out to events and attending conferences.

Before I flew out to the office, I got to attend my first event as a Heroku employee. On Saturday I helped out with APIHackDay Austin. It was a great reminder of why I started programming and took this job in the first place. Seeing a small team or lone developer toiling on some crazy app is really a thing of beauty. I can’t wait to help out with more events.

We have a ton of great things coming out of Heroku in the future that I can’t wait to talk about. If you catch me at a user group or conference, say “hi” and you might just get a sneak preview. If not, I’m at least good for a cup of coffee or a cold pint.

^_^