New year, new job

It is a new business year here at Microsoft and for the first time in a number of years, I'm changing jobs ... from Architect Evangelist to Developer Evangelist.  Not a huge jump, in the grand scheme of things.  I stay on the same team, focus on the same customers and even focus on some of the same people.  However, with this change I'll be able to focus more on my first love - development - and move away from some of the more "wordy" world of architecture.

Why the change?  I was blown away with the introduction of Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio Team System last year.  Back when I did corporate development day in and day out, I longed for a set of tools like what I see in Visual Studio 2005 - and see coming in future versions of Visual Studio.  I had an opporutnity to start playing with the toolset and it resparked my interest in my first love - development.  We had an opening for a Developer Technology Specialist (someone who carries a quota for selling Visual Stuido and is responsible for removing the technical barriors to the sale) - a position I became very interested in for how close it would bring me back to the tools.  Then I interviewed a young lady who was perfect for the job and it made far more sense at the time to bring her on board than for me to make the switch.  Couple that with the start of FY07 and a reorganization for Developer & Platform Evangelism with in the United States and I found the Developer Evangelist position open and available.  So all in all, everything worked out for the direction in which I wanted to move and I now find myself digging back into code and working to share my passion around Visual Studio with my customers and their developers.

Hope to see you soon!