I lost both of my sources of income in early 2020 (the start of the pandemic). I worked full-time as a designer and contracted as a front-end engineer. My wife was 5 months pregnant and a stay at home mom, taking care of our then 2-year-old daughter.

I found it incredibly hard to find viable leads for junior-level remote work opportunities. So, I did the only logical thing-- and built a job board, tailored to junior remote opportunities, from the ground up!

That job board was Protege.

Since then, we've had over 1,000 commits pushed and 25+ contributors to the platform! I don't have metrics on who or how many people have gotten hired through it-- but, based on the numbers of unique visits it receives, it's at least giving people hope.

That's no supplement for a paycheck, which I'm sure they would rather have- but sometimes, it's enough to get them to next day.

It came to a point that I realized what Protege needed to truly succeed was something I was not equipped to give it.

I knew if I clung to it, that it would eventually fizzle and fade. I didn't want that. I couldn't allow that. In my mind, there are people depending on this platform, and for them, I could not let the ship sink.

After talking with a few prospective buyers, I found one that really understood the vision that started this whole madness to begin with and wanted to not inject their own into it, but stand behind and support and increase its velocity.

As of today, I am no longer the "owning" body of Protege. I'm staying on as a founding advisor- and still plan to contribute code and design.

I've taken Protege as far as I can take it. And by "I", I mean the 25+ contributors you can find here, on the contributors page.

I may have made the first commit, but everyone on that contributors page, following on twitter, visiting the site, created an account-- all of the above.. you're the reason it's persisted this long, and you're the reason we will continue forward. #protege