Friday was the first day I was able to let everybody know that I am leaving my position of Director of Software Architecture at CFI/Westgate Resorts to join Highwinds as their Flex Team Lead. I'll be reporting to Highwinds CTO Josh Gagliardi, and my team will be working on building out StrikeTracker to its full potential (FYI, the quality of the web site and marketing materials don't do justice to either the company or their products, as I found out when I interviewed with them). My last day at CFI will be Thursday April 10th, and I'll be starting at Highwinds on Monday April 14th.

I stumbled across this opportunity while considering moving out to the west coast to work for a tech firm. I've had great fun these last seven years in corporate IT, but I miss coding awfully, and just don't have enough time to slake my codelust on projects at home. Additionally, my personality and interests have felt increasingly mismatched in the corporate environment the longer I have stayed there: it just takes too darn long to get everybody to agree to go in the same direction, and the politics does nothing but hamper the ability of a technical team to work fast and be creative. I understand that this is a necessary evil for certain larger companies, but at the moment I'm dying to get in to a small shop where I can work rapidly with brilliant people on cutting edge products, wear jeans to work, and use a Mac without others looking at me like I'm "one of those people." (The fact that Highwinds is also on AT&T and I can get an iPhone is just icing on the cake :) ).

I'm not fully on board at Highwinds yet, so I'm not sure how much or how little I'll be able to blog about - but I do know that I will be able to blog. Working for a company that relies on its software as its revenue stream obviously raises concerns with regard to distribution of intellectual property, and as a result I'll need to run anything work-related by the boss before I talk about it here. I'll do my best for all three of my readers, since I enjoy blogging about what I'm doing when I can, and a lot of the stuff I will be working on will be right on the leading edge of where RIA development is going.

CFI has been wonderful to me in many ways. They had no issues promoting me through the ranks regardless of my youth, gave me the autonomy to do great things during my tenure, and suffered my often rebellious and stubborn antics because they knew I had their best intentions at heart. The experience I gained there is launching me in to the next phase of my career, and I can't thank everybody at the company enough. I have been both greatly humbled and flattered by the things people on my team have told me my contributions have done for them personally and for the company as a whole; it makes me glad that the good mojo has flowed in both directions.

With my departure, CFI is looking for a new technology visionary, and I have two open Flex/AIR developer positions on my new team at Highwinds. If you are interested in either job, please contact the HR department at CFI (for the visionary position) or me at maxim[dot]porges[at]highwinds.com for the Flex/AIR spots. I'll be posting more info about Highwinds and the opportunities there as I get on board next week, so watch this space.

CFI was my first career experience, so leaving there was also a first for me. For anybody leaving and/or joining a company (which usually happen around the same time), here are two articles I found really useful in getting my head around what to expect (at the very least, the resignation checklist has served me very well so far!).

For the leavers: Your Resignation/Layoff Checklist

For the joiners: Your First 90 Days