Tomorrow, after 4 1/2 years, including 2 years with the ASP.NET Team I’m finally leaving Microsoft.
The reasons for leaving are varied, I am resigning, but the timing is not entirely my own choice. I’m looking at this as an opportunity, I’ve done a huge amount of thinking about the course my life should take next and this really is a positive step in that direction. I have no bitterness nor animosity towards Microsoft, they hung in longer than a lot of employers would and that led me to stay too long in a job I wasn’t suited for. They are a great company, the majority of the people I worked with are passionate, really smart people and I’ll miss them a lot. Some others are power hungry jerks and completely dissociated from the real world…but then every company has their share of those people.
I am at heart a developer, I love designing and building web applications and frankly I’m incredibly good at it and I especially love working with other people who are good at it too (or want to be). I posted some time ago about how I got to where I was (well, am until about midday tomorrow). Now I need to look for a job which gives me the same level of excitement which I’ve lost of late. I am really grateful to have had the chance to mature professionally, all the prima-donna shit which comes through lacking confidence in my own skills that I had previously has gone. I’ve seen what life is like in the place every developer using ASP.NET longs to go and well, it wasn’t for me.
Right now I plan to move back to my native Scotland and find a job where they need someone like me, someone who still has a passion for web technologies and the drive and knowledge to build pretty much anything.