New Job
Well the title pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the direction of this blog post, if that doesn't interest you then stop reading now!
I have loved the Philadelphia region since I took my first interview trip down here in May of 2003, right after I graduated from Penn State. And I never thought I would be leaving, but 11 years after that first interview trip back in 2003 I found myself facing a very difficult decision.
Philadelphia has given so much to me, I received my first professional job here, met my wife here, bought my first house here, had my two kids here, bought my second house here, received my Microsoft MVP here, had tons of support from friends, family, and especially professional support from Bill Wolff and everybody at PhillyDotNet. Given these roots I had put down, and the great admiration I have for the city, the people, and the friends I have made here. The job just proved to alluring to pass up.
At this point in this post you are probably saying "stop babbling and tell us what the job is." Well the job that I am going to be taking on and moving to Seattle to pursue is a job with Amazon.com as a Software Development Manager in charge of the Windows and Mac Desktop applications for Amazon Cloud Drive.
If you don't know what the Amazon Cloud Drive is, it can best be described as a hard drive in the cloud that allows users to enjoy, save and share their most cherished digital assets. It is in the same class of applications as Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, or the recently announced Apple iCloud Drive. It is currently a very hot area of tech to be in right now.
To me the most alluring part of this wasn't working at Amazon.com, it was working on a product that operated at the scale of Amazon, and will reach millions of users across all their devices, Kindle, Fire TV, Fire Phone, iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac, and Windows desktops.
Me finding and then getting this job, is essentially like finding my personal Holy Grail. It is an exciting time, with an exciting opportunity to create an application that will help millions of users around the world share their most presious pictures with their loved ones, access there music collection from any computer, and even share a file or two with anybody they want.
It is also going to be a crazy time, because I have to move 2 young kids, 2 cats, and my wife to Seattle. Buy a new house, try to sell my current houses in Philly, and make sure this all goes off as smoothly as possible while starting a new job.
If the next time you see me and all my hair has turned grey and fallen out you will know why.
Note: Any helpful tips about Seattle and the best place to live are going to be greatly appreciated by me and my family. Assuming the market price is reasonable of course.