I've held off writing this for a few weeks because it didn't really seem real yet, however the last week of international travel has changed that.

As of the end of August, I'm no longer a senior developer with Massive Interactive. Most of this year I've been working on a huge project which really hit home that I'm burnt out as a developer and in need of a change.

As luck would have it, such an opportunity arose and I went with it.

I've taken a position as a Solutions Architect with thePlatform, working on designing and managing integrations with thePlatform's Media Publishing System for Australian clients.

thePlatform is based in Seattle, so I've just spent a week there meeting everyone, getting some training, and finding out how everything works. It was a fun week, so much to learn in a short time.

When I started this blog, in my About page I wrote that I was very interested in where the music industry was headed with new technologies. Now I'll be very closely involved with some implementations of new technology for digital content delivery, it's exciting to be back on the cutting edge.

Over the last 18 months, with so many concurrent projects, I've not been vigilant enough about keeping my skills current. While I've been getting .NET 1.1 and SQL Server 2000 to jump through all sorts of hoops, I pretty much let the launch of the newer versions of these platforms pass me by. Two years ago I had all sorts of grand visions about being an early adopter of SQL 2005 and knowing lots about it before anyone else did. Unfortunately it just didn't work out that way, the projects I was working on didn't call for it, and with so much on I couldn't commit the time to diving in. While my new job isn't a coding job, I do have to be current with what people are using to develop solutions today so I finally have the mental bandwidth to start exploring the "new" stuff. I'm definitely looking forward to that. In fact, I've already started.

I am going to miss working at Massive. I made some great friends there and worked on some cool and high profile projects. It can be a fun environment to work in, unfortunately if you let it, it can also be draining. I let it.

Of course, I also can no longer call myself a bike commuter. I'll be working out of my house most of the time. But given the weird hours I'll have to keep to be in touch with the US, I am going to have some time in the day to go for a ride :)