Leaving Microsoft HQ
I was hired at Microsoft on Dec 07, 1998 as a Technology Specialist for developer tools in the Dallas, Texas office. It was very exciting because I always wanted to work at Microsoft and knew that the smartest people in the industry worked there. I was amazed at what we were doing at the time and loved talking to people about our technology.
A few months after that I went to the PDC and saw our vision for .NET. I thought to myself, “this is going to be a radical success or a glorious failure”, either way I wanted to be a part of it, so I packed up the family and moved to corporate to be one of the first .NET evangelists. I have been fortunate and just damn lucky to be a part of some pretty incredible things (e.g. HTML5, MIX Online, MIX, ASP.NET, .NET, etc.). I have also had the opportunity to meet some amazing, human, wicked-smart people that I will always appreciate getting to work with/know them.
Without further ado: My last day at Microsoft HQ is November 1st.
What’s next? Me and my family are moving to Vancouver, Canada!
So the first question you may have is, why are you going to Canada? Well, if you know me then you know that we go up there 4-5x a year on mini-vacations. We caught the “wouldn’t it be great to actually live here?” bug that many folks get. Having been a military kid growing up, I am used to moving around so staying somewhere for 10 years is definitely an anomaly. Also, the Tenderoni and I always talked about moving there and a rare thing happened that a role I wanted became available. So when an opportunity presented itself, we grabbed it!
Whoa! Are you leaving Microsoft? Sorry suckers, NO! I am going to be bringing it with HTML5 & CSS3 and other Microsoft greatness as a Developer & Designer evangelist working out of Vancouver for Microsoft!
I am totally stoked that I will be able to work for Microsoft, doing what I love in a country that we always talked about moving to. I will still be talking about and pontificating on the things you have seen on this blog (including pet pictures!), but will probably add a little Canadian flair.
You can follow my adventures on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tommylee. If you are Canadian, please say hi!
