I’m more than little bit shocked to be writing this post, as Michelle Chua is so demonstrably gifted, accomplished, and charming that it’s inconceivable to me that she’d be hitting the job market as a free agent.

But unbelievable as it seems, she is available. I don’t know too many people that are brilliant visual designers, solid coders, ridiculously conscientious, obsessively savvy on web culture, supple and expressive writers, hilarious, and loaded to bear with indie-rocker cred.

Michelle first came to work on a student position for my office about four years ago, and we brought her back for many subsequent projects. She did an outstanding job of everything we asked of her, and usually did much more…

One small but illustrative anecdote. A little over three years ago was my darkest hour at UBC. In the middle of Christmas holidays we had a total server meltdown that incapacitated decapitated our weblog and wiki services, and things were grim. A number of people came through for me then, but Michelle stands out in my mind for her willingness to put off her New Year’s Eve revelry to make a personal visit to the IT server room and to gather information that put the whole debacle into clear perspective. She also got the ball rolling for a process that restored what seemed like irretrievable data.

Most of all, I’m grateful for the time I spent hanging out and talking trash with her, and having her as a partner when a fledgling and seemingly fringe project was just getting off the ground. It would gratify my ego immensely to describe her as a protégé of mine, but when I think it through honestly it might have worked the other way round…