Hard to say goodbye

Well yesterday was my final day at Wachovia.  It was really hard to say goodbye to all the wonderful friends and colleagues I have made there but it was time to move on.  It was really difficult to leave such a great team that has created so many wonderful applications over the last couple of years.  Their Agile mind sets have been cultivated to the point of self sustainability and only great things can come from this group in the future.

My future path has lead to Rackspace where I will take on the role of an Enterprise Application Architect.  This will be a challenge for me since I really have a distaste for the term Architect as most of the individuals I have met in the past have little to zero exposure in application development.  This lack of experience has resulted in maneuvering this position as more of a governance and standards body, encroaching and decapitating development groups from producing great software under the guise of strategic vision and corporate guidance.  (Can you tell I am a little bitter?)

My goal is to partner and help the application development groups ALL create great software.  Utilizing the agile and pragmatic tool box to find the best tool for any given job.  In the end, the standards and policies will reveal themselves through the result of working software and ONLY though working software.  Partnership, transparency and open communication will be the foundation of the architecture.  Well it is time to put my money where my mouth is and get er done!

If anyone has been considering a job in San Antonio, I highly recommend Rackspace.  Their culture and principle help to foster creativity which results in creating a leading IT hosting provider.