As hinted in my last post, I have some news to share with you all. After sixteen and a half years with the ADN team (and for a reminder of my various jobs, check out this previous post or you might also watch the video on my about page), I’m moving on to pastures new. I have deeply loved my current role – working with an incredibly talented team and getting exposure to a broad range of issues experienced by development partners across our various products – so this was not an easy decision to make.
To answer some of the first questions that probably spring to mind: I’m staying with Autodesk and will continue to write this blog. With that out of the way, here are some further details…
I’ve accepted the position of Software Architect within our Platform Solutions and Emerging Business (PSEB) division, the one responsible for products such as AutoCAD and AutoCAD WS. I’ll be moving across officially on February 1st.
I’ll continue to be based in Switzerland, although I expect to spend more time in – and work more often with people in – the San Francisco Bay Area.
During the last few years I’ve been focusing a big chunk of my time on management activities, so this move is going to be quite a change for me. That said, I’m really excited about being in a position to really influence the direction of our platform products, especially in focusing on the needs of external developers (which is very much a part of my DNA). This feels like a really good direction for me to move in, career-wise.
I do expect there to be some impact on my blogging: hopefully not in terms of frequency, but I I do expect my role change to influence the type of content I post – mainly because a lot of my work will be focused on “futures”, rather than released functionality – and I expect to be using it to gather input from the community a lot more. Please be warned, though: just because I’m moving into Engineering, this doesn’t mean I’ll be in a position to just fix things for you (I will direct you towards the ADN team or the discussion groups if you make such requests, just as I do now).
And now for a special note to Scott M:
Sorry, Scott, but we’re promoting within the team to replace me. [Scott asked – very amusingly, and, of course, not at all seriously – during my Kinect class at AU if he could have my job, mainly because it’s clear I have a lot of fun fooling around with new technology.] If it’s any consolation, I expect to be taking the most fun part of my job along with me… ;-).
