Last November I handed in my notice at Daxtra Technologies. I didn't have anything else lined up, but after three and a quarter years I felt I needed to move on, largely because I didn't see any opportunity to move my career in the direction I wanted. I want to be working on awesome scaling technologies, finding out how much infrastructure you can automate before it becomes sentient and kills you, and learning software development using modern languages, frameworks, and practices. Daxtra was an experience, but the products I supported there aren't going to provide me with the experience I want.
In the end it's worked out quite well: I accepted a position with SourceRail in the week before Christmas and I've spent the last two weeks getting stuck right into working on building out the awesome stuff we've got planned. It's been an enormous change for me, but I'm adapting and it's awesome to be working with good technology on an interesting problem with excellent people.
I'm also pushing myself to work more on my side/personal projects - in fact, you can expect a follow-up post on that shortly - and I'm making a point of getting out to the various meet-ups in Edinburgh. Since I'm working from home now, I think it's all the more important to go out and socialise like a normal human being. I'm looking forward to Scottish Ruby Conference later this year, for similar reasons.
From a professional/career point of view, things are pretty fucking awesome, and this year looks like it's going to be an excellent one. And hopefully one where I actually follow-up on my claims to write more blog posts.