Goodbye Microsoft

Today I resigned from Microsoft. While I’m leaving to take a big step in a new direction, I have to say, it’s with very mixed emotions.

Five and a half years ago, I started a journey that changed me forever. Not only was it the realization of a teenage dream (I still remember unwrapping the Visual Basic 3.0 box as an intern and thinking, one day I’ll ship a product for Microsoft), but it was also a graduation of sorts into the realm of industrial software engineering.

My time at Microsoft has been completely magical. Not only have I been fortunate to work with some of the most amazing professionals in my career (colleagues, partners, influences and students!), I’ve also had the opportunity to travel around the world, move from Australia to the United States, and fulfill a life-long dream and ambition, to ship a major product for Microsoft Corporation.

But, it’s time to move on.

Where am I going? I’m joining PricewaterhouseCoopers.

What am I going to do there? I’m taking a role as Director of Cloud Computing, focusing on how customers transform their businesses to take advantage of the cloud.

Why? Cloud is my passion, and while building one of the biggest and best at Microsoft was amazing from a geek and engineer perspective, I’m yearning to focus on the other aspects of what it takes for customers to truly use the cloud as a business transformer.

What will happen to my blog? I have a new one here.

So to all my Microsoft friends and family, thanks for five and a half years of being awesome!

Vale, lacerte!