Thread: Brian's Quest for Airline Employment

And the saga continues...

Today, I told my manager that my last day would be Thursday, May 3rd (last day of our current schedule). It was supposed to be today (technically yesterday since I'm posting this just after midnight... April 25) but then things changed a bit. While I'll miss SkyWest and working the ramp, it's for the better. Why, you ask? Well, I graduated in December with a bachelors degree, majoring in software engineering and geography, with a minor in Spanish business. With something like that, I can't really survive working 12 hours a week making $9/hour much longer, so I set out for a real job with computer programming. Of course, I still have a lot of traveling left to do, and don't want to have to pay for an airline ticket, you know? I figured I would see if I could combine a computer programming job with something in the airline industry. A bit of a pipe dream, perhaps, but just imagine how awesome that could be.

About a month after graduation, I looked around at job options. It just so happened that UA had a TON of IT positions open - developers, associate developers, and even a couple analyst jobs. I ended up applying for about 15 positions. Long story short, I had 2 interviews for 3 positions, one of which I didn't even apply for (one position was very similar to one I did apply for, so they shared my resume and had one interview for both positions). Those were with crew bidding (writing customizations to software to help generate crew trips) and another with crew services (other things in-flight crews would use), to be in my choice of IAH or ORD. The third position is in DEN, and basically involves programming things that involve the reservations system. This is the kind of thing I always dreamed of doing, and I thought the salary would be a little higher as well.

Few weeks after the interviews, I start following up. DEN didn't respond to my calls or emails. I heard back from IAH/ORD, and was told that I would be receiving an offer after a bit. I would have to be in IAH for the first couple years, however. The offer came, and the salary was a lot higher than I expected, to be honest. I was all set to sign, then I got a response that evening from the guy I interviewed in DEN. They were interested in making me an offer, but had to go through HR. Go figure. Thankfully, I was able to wait to sign IAH until I had both offers. Turns out that the second position had a lower salary than IAH, though pretty close to what I had expected in the beginning.

While the money would be nice, the housing options in Denver are a lot nicer than Houston, and the commute should be a lot nicer (rather than going to downtown Houston, I'll be traveling to the old Stapleton area). Plus, as far as the cities' personalities go, Denver just seems to fit me a lot better. I felt bad calling my would-be boss in Houston to let him know that I would not be taking his position (he seemed really excited to hire me, and I really liked him a lot) but overall I'm pretty excited to have a real job, living in an apartment that's NOT a college living kind of place, and soon to be getting married (that's happening this summer). Starting to slowly pack my stuff up now!

Welcome to my world .. well sort of ... just a different airline and city !!

So Brian you’ve landed your dream job, you’ll be living in Denver and you’re getting married this summer;congratulations
I think you owe us a party.


BTW Denver - great omelets, lots of one-way streets downtown and it’s impossible to talk your way out of ticket,
oh yeah, im-pos-si-ble!

Hot damn!!!

Thanks Palms and everyone else!

Britski, you got me curious about the exact type of position you have, if you don't mind going into details a little bit

Mig, if any of you guys are in town (for an extended layover or otherwise) I'm always happy to pick you up at the airport and go out for a bite to eat, as long as I'm not at work or something

Thanks Brian, I may just take you up on that. Gonna be using DEN instead on DFW for my connections this summer. A little wind and rain in Dallas and that airport just shuts down.