Boomerang Titans are Back

What would it take for you to go back to the last job you left? Try imagining Darin working somewhere (anywhere) else, for a good laugh. Seriously, it's not often that someone decides to leave a company and somehow makes their way back. We've affectionately nicknamed these people Boomerang Titans. We're deeply fortunate enough to have 3 boomerang Titans back with us. Cue horn tooting. From what we have heard, the people, environment and how we do work is hard to stay away from. Either that or they're drawn to the serious amount of green we have all over the office. Either way, we feel incredibly lucky to have these 3 back on the team.

Coincidentally, the 2022 hiring trend is turning out to be a surge in boomerang workers. The presence of employees who leave a company and return later is becoming more popular as companies struggle to fill open roles in the current job market. Guess we're just trend setters.

We spoke to our 3 Boomerang Titans, Josh Burns, Justin Schiltz and Max Kasel to hear what they had to say about their boomerang-ing experience. Heres what they have to say.

Walk us through the timeline (how long was your first stint at IT, your break, then your time here now).

• I started at Irish Titan bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in August of 2017. It wasn’t until December 2020 that I first left Irish Titan to explore my career options. I like to refer to this as my mid-life career crisis. Irish Titan was my first agency as well as my first job in ecommerce and I was curious about what else was out there. I ended up only being gone for a short stint (2 months) and returned to Irish Titan in March of 2021. - Justin

• I started at Irish Titan as a Frontend Developer back in February of 2014 and worked here until September 2018. I went out on my own for a while working as a freelancer and contractor for a few companies around the cities and upper midwest. Then towards the end of 2020, I reached back out to Darin about potentially coming back to work at Irish Titan and started again in late January of 2021 - Josh

• I spent three and half years at Irish Titan before moving on to Wunderman Thompson. During my first go-around with Irish Titan, I started as an intern, moved into the Associate Project Manager role, and finally leveled up to Project Manager. From there, I spent a year and a half at Wunderman Thompson. During my time at Wunderman Thompson, I spent a year working as a Project Manager and six months as a Business Analyst. I re-joined the Irish Titan team on May 11th as the Project Management Practice Lead (aka, the Project Manager Manager, aka Project Manager2). - Max

What made you think about coming back to Irish Titan?

• Honestly, the people. They say you don’t work for a company, you work for people, and after seeing a bit of what else is out there, I missed working with Titans. - Justin

• Shortly before the pandemic started my wife and I had our first kid and I decided to go back to working for an agency full time for a little more stability since we were both self-employed. I knew fairly quickly that the agency I started working at wasn’t going to be a good fit for me, and came to the realization that I felt the same way about all the agencies I had interacted with over the previous couple of years in that they just didn’t feel the same as working with Irish Titan… I guess you could say Irish Titan ruined working at other agencies for me (insert winking emoji). - Josh

• The opportunity to manage a team of people was the main impetus behind my return. In addition to that, I missed the energy and the collaboration that’s felt, heard, and seen at Irish Titan.The people, the work, the challenges, the successes, the stress, the fun - it’s all mixed into what makes Irish Titan unique in many ways and what drew me back in. - Max

What is something that you learned when you were away from Irish Titan?

• Since Irish Titan was my first job in ecommerce, I wasn’t aware of how unique it is to have all of our developers in-house and how much access I was used to having with them. I also learned a lot about marketplaces and how channel/partnerships are structured at software solution companies due to the demands of my new job which has been helpful now that I am back at Irish Titan. I also learned that fully remote work was not for me. - Justin

• I learned a lot about how different dev teams set up their projects and I had several crash courses in creating and setting up Docker containers. The big thing I learned is that wearing all the hats might be more profitable… but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be better. - Josh

• I was fully immersed in the world of Agile development during my time away. In terms of buzzwords, Agile is right up there with synergy as one of the most cringe-worthy generalizations for a complicated, nuanced topic. I was able to sit down, learn the philosophies (at least in terms of how we utilized them), and most importantly, use them every day in real-life scenarios. Being able to learn Agile concepts and apply them to the work I was actively managing using Scrum methods made me a much stronger, more well-rounded Project Manager. - Max

How has Irish Titan changed since your return?

• Irish Titan has evolved since I returned and my boomeranging was actually a great reset. Before I left I was dipping my toes in a lot of different roles and after coming back I was able to focus on account management solely. We hired a channel manager full-time and have since built out a full account management team. Beyond that, we have also become much more process-driven and it was great to come back and help shape that. Irish Titan is looking to continue growing and after I returned in March 2021 we started putting more processes in place to facilitate scaling our business. - Justin

• There have been several major changes that occurred after I left: There has been a lot of improvement in team organization and delivery processes and overall transparency of individual job expectations and career paths. When I left we were mostly a Magento shop with a few Shopify projects here and there and we were just beginning to explore partnering with BigCommerce. Since coming back Shopify and BigCommerce have been the main platforms I have been working on with all sorts of integrations and custom app builds. Some things never change though: even throughout the pandemic Irish Titan still has worked hard to maintain its culture and vibe while allowing people to work with what best suits their lifestyle. - Josh

• Our maturity as a digital strategy provider has grown steadily since my first stint at Irish Titan. Our digital strategy team handles work ranging from paid media management to creative initiatives such as designing and configuring websites using themes and page builders. Additionally, I’m seeing a strong investment into growing and operationalizing our delivery processes company-wide. This has always been a goal for Irish Titan and something that we’ve pushed forward in the past, but with the people, we have at Irish Titan right now, I think we're positioned extremely well to go far beyond what we’ve established thus far. - Max

A final word here, we're seriously honored to have these three Titans back with us. Their insider knowledge, expertise, and serious skills are a massive advantage for us. While we don't have a formal boomerang Titan program, if you're a past Titan thinking about how much you love the color green, we're always here.