Today I gave my 2 weeks notice at TechSmith. It was a tough choice to make but after lots of deliberation, I decided it was time to try something new.
When I was a senior in college 3 years ago, I never expected to take a job in Michigan. I didn’t think the kind of software job I wanted existed here. Then I found TechSmith. It’s a medium sized software company (just over 200 employees) located just outside of Lansing, Michigan. It’s really like finding a little piece of Silicon Valley in the heart of the state. It had everything I wanted except for one thing, location.
I’ve lived in Michigan my whole life. I grew up here. I went to school here. I don’t know what it’s like to live anywhere else. I’ve never had to call pop, soda and I’ve never had to deal with speed limits on the highway lower than 70. I want to live in a big city and be able to drive to the ocean. I want to be able to go skiing on real mountains that aren’t man made.
So I will be moving to Washington to work at Microsoft on the Windows Embedded team. To my friends, it might seem like an odd choice. I’ve never been the biggest supporter of Microsoft (I don’t even own a computer that runs Windows). For me, it makes sense. I’ve always wanted to work for a huge big name software company. Not just for the name, but also because at a company like Microsoft, the software I write can have an impact on millions of people. The code I write will affect the daily lives of so many people that I might actually be able to change the world. That’s pretty cool.
