It was the best job I could have had. The company was small, so I was able to wear lots of hats. I was finally doing embedded-systems development again after a long hiatus from that type of programming. The product served a real need and was not just a neat solution looking for a problem.

After three years in business, however, the company still couldn't make it on its own. There was always the promise of a check from another robot that Sales knew it had sold, but for one reason or another the promises didn't pan out.

I've been unemployed for about six months. It's hard to pinpoint when my unemployment started because I didn't experience a typical layoff.

When the company could no longer pay me a salary, I started looking for side jobs. I was already out a month's worth of salary and living off my home equity line when I officially requested to be laid off so that I could collect state unemployment benefits. I had hope-and still have hope-for the company, but I also had to consider my responsibilities: three children, ages six and under; my wife, whose full-time job is caring for them; a mortgage; health insurance; utility bills . . .

How did I end up where I did? I had seen the writing on the wall, yet I loved what I was doing and saw a long-term future at the company, if we could just get through the short term. Also, I had finally zeroed in on my best career choice after 10 years of working all different types of software-engineering jobs trying to figure out where I fit best. Hanging on seemed worth it.

I had grown up determined to be an architect, but wise guidance from my parents steered me to a BSEE from the University of Iowa with a minor in computer science. Though I loved programming, my dad encouraged me to stick with engineering. "You can train an engineer to be a computer scientist, but you can't train a computer scientist to be an engineer," he told me.

While in college, I was a summer intern at Rockwell Collins and had a terrific experience writing firmware for avionics products. That was my first taste of embedded-systems programming. I found it thrilling to be as close to the hardware as possible while staying on the software side.

As my graduation approached in 1990, the job market was weak, but better than it is today. After two dozen interviews, I got one offer-which was one more than most of my graduating class received-and took it. It wasn't at all what I thought I would be doing-writing simulation software for a nuclear power plant-but the pay was good, and I had my whole life ahead of me to make changes if needed. I also picked up some skills there that would serve me well later, including Unix system administration and software development for Apple Macintosh computers.

Over the next 10 years, I changed jobs based on my professional and personal interests-never because I had to. From 1995 on, I was able to make job changes based on whom I knew rather than solely what I knew. I had learned the importance of relationships.

I have been an employee of five companies, ranging in size from more than 20,000 employees to fewer than 10. I've stayed for as long as four-and-a-half years and as short as four months. I've worked in such varied fields as robotics, medical imaging, avionics, nuclear power and information technology.

Today, though, the job opportunities are scarce-even with my diverse background.

Back in the summer of 2000, to take the pulse of the industry, I posted my resume on Monster.com. In the one month it was posted, 350 people viewed my resume, and I received dozens of inquiries. In late 2002 I posted it again. After three months, six people had viewed it.

What was I going to do? My company wasn't making it, yet I was haunted by the maxim that says, Never leave a job until you have another lined up.

I now had to rely on my faith in God more than ever and do what my head told me was wrong but my heart said was right.

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A PERSONAL PROFILE

Name: David Knuth

Age: 36

Last job: Director of software engineering, Intellibot LLC

Home: Richmond, Va.

Family: Wife, Wendy, and three children, Josiah, Benjamin and Ava

Education: BSEE, University of Iowa, 1990

Hobbies: Playing with his children; reading, especially O'Reilly technical books; writing software for Mac OS X; restoring his home.

E-mail: dknuth@inter-stitial.com