Steve Kondik Not Purchased by Samsung, Will Maintain a Leadership Role at CyanogenMod
We were hit with some pretty substantial Android news this evening as we were prepping to go live with our latest podcast. If you were awake last Monday night you probably saw the rumors pouring out that Samsung had agreed to purchase Steve ‘Cyanogen’ Kondik. Twitter and other social networks were abuzz with the idea that Samsung might be working on a Cyanogenmod phone or that Steve had walked away from the very project he helped create. What really happened? Not as much as you’d think or would like to imagine. The guy got a job working with a reputable company in an industry he was already familiar with.
We reached out to Steve to see if we could get a quote or two and, as it turns out, he seems rather happy with his new opportunity. What’s more, this should have no impact on how things are run within the modding team he heads today.
…it’s a job and I’m glad that I can use what I learned from all this to do something cool in the real world :) I’ll still be doing code review and some leadership for CM, but I’ll be keeping it legit like always…I think we really broke away from the modding community. Most of us are professional engineers or in the field some way or another.
Don’t worry about your favorite custom Android ROM, it isn’t going anywhere and Steve is not disappearing from the scene. He’s got a “real” job as a software engineer with a major handset manufacturer now and he’s going to balance that with his hobby. The guy has a track record of being able to keep things in line where they need to be and we see no reason he shouldn’t do the same now that he’s with Samsung.
Congratulations to Steve and all the other guys in the development and modding community who have been able to turn a passion into a career.
