New Job. New Blog. New Life(?)
A lot is changing in my life. I’m getting older, I’m getting wiser, I’m getting “stupider” (like it was even possible :-P ).
New Job
Last Friday () I left Orange Labs UK. After 2 years and 2 months, my work at this the UK branch of France Telecom R&D is over.
I have been involved in a number of projects with various degrees of commitment: some full time, some to land a hand, some to just criticise and make fun of colleagues (just kidding: it was more like trying to shutdown wasteful project branching and focusing on the good targets :-P ).
I had the possibility to work on multiple platforms, technologies, layers of the OSI Stack. This made it possible to mix and match a lot of technologies. And that was fun!
To people that asked what I was, I always defined myself as “Mobile and Web Software Engineer”: I think it synthesised well what was my expertise area. Something that fitted well was also “C++ Developer with a thing for Web technologies”.
I’ll miss the Lab (or, better, some people in it): in 2 years a lot of connections have been created. Some flourished into friendship. Some into a really solid respect and admiration. I hope is reciprocal.
What happened then? Well, I realised that the part about “… a thing for Web technologies” is the most important for me. The one that brings the most of the fun.
Then, a good friend of mine, John Bower, that just moved to splendid Mexico City, said that his (ex)employer, Betfair.com, was looking for Front-End Web Developers. He insisted for me to try to get the job: it’s true that I’ve been focusing on Mobile for the last >3 years, but I should give it a go anyway. What was the worst that could have happened?
Well, long story cut short, now I’m a Betfair employee. I’m eager to do my part in one of the biggest transactional webapp in the world:
Across all its products, Betfair processes more than 6 million transactions on an average day - more than all the European stock exchanges combined. It is a two-time winner of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise - the only betting company in the world ever to achieve this level of recognition.
No, I’m not turning into a gambler. I’m not into gambling at all. What is really fascinating, is the challenge that this service faces every day. And I’m eager to be part of something this big and with this demanding level of quality.
Yes, you will see much more web stuff on this blog from now on.
Oh yes, what about this blog?
New Blog
I already wrote about this new blog in this older post. I decided that I wanted to change hosting and technology, and have a blog that I run myself. A blog where the code base is small enough that I can actually implement functionalities that I need myself.
Plus, I wanted to learn more about Google Appengine: the work on the txty.mobi webapp made me love it - now I want to really become an expert. When I started to look at Nick Johnson’s Bloggart, the choice was easy.
I’m still working on a (decently) smooth transition from www.detronizator.org, and there is lot still to add (i.e. the concept of “static pages” - bloggart is built mainly around the concept “posts”), but most of the ground is covered. The biggest part, migrating >6 years worth of Blogging, is done and fully imported (I’ll write about that in a series of posts I’m preparing).
Theme wise I’ll stick with Nick’s default theme for now: later on I’ll work on a new, personal theme.
So, go ahead and subscribe to my atom feed. For the “early adopters”, I also have my feed published on the pubsubhubbub server. How cool is that! ;-)
New Life(?)
Maybe. Stuff have changed, and is still changing. People that once were important and focal, are now fading away. I guess it’s how things work when you grow and your “mental paths” and “desires” don’t match anymore. Too much has been tried to “make it work”: I think now we miss the will to stretch a bit more.
It’s very sad, but also teaches that nothing is forever. At least, if both parties don’t want it at the same extent.
But there are also things that are changing for the better. It’s now a year that I share my house with my soul mate, and has been quite a year. I don’t think I could ask for anything better on that side. I know, I got lucky: she still didn’t understand what a mistake she is making ;-) . Given my past in Italy, and all the bad (and worse) things I had to go through, I think I’m happy now. I hope I deserve it, and that my luck lasts enough to cover bad memories with much better ones.
I don’t know if you can name it “a new life”. For sure it’s quite a collection of changes for me.
Stay tuned. My “online ranting” is far from being over.