Pragmatic Dictator

Having worked as an independent contractor for a number of years, I’ve finally been tempted to take a permanent job by Betfair. My decision to join them was driven by several factors:

1. The size of the challenge – Betfair’s systems are big, getting bigger and doing serious numbers
2. Ability to influence – as a contractor you are often pulled in to fire-fight or work within what has already been done you don’t get to innovate or change
3. The tech team – I gotta get more of these guys to blog. For now, I’ll point you to Ewan Silver
4. The kind of challenge – it’s broad and not about Jini

Those of you who know my technical background might be able to guess at the sort of things I will be doing. I hope to provide more specifics over time but for now, speculate away!

Some of you may be wondering what this might mean for Apache River and/or Blitz. I think this change will benefit both projects:

1. Blitz will return to being a fun side project with I believe an attendant rise in my enthusiasm – which you can already see in 2.0alpha
2. Apache River could really do with real-world experience such as that which might be gained from working in the Betfair environment

All that remains for me to do is thank all those who have supported me one way or another during my “Lone Crusader” years. That would include Vertex, Tangosol, various at Sun Microsystems (including alumni) and a too-long-to-mention list of individuals – good relationships I plan to maintain.

Technorati Tags: betfair, personal, technology

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 15th, 2007 at 1:25 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.