Change is in the air…
Dear Reader,
Wow, what a day today was!
I’m going to cover a lot of ground in this post so unless you are friend or family, you may just want to read the next summary and skip the rest.
For those in a hurry
For those who have not heard, yes, I will soon be leaving Zend and moving to Ibuildings. Yes, that means I am also leaving Nashville, TN-US for Utrecht, Netherlands. No, the lovely and talented Kathy will not be going with me immediately but will be joining me after my son graduates high school. Yes we are both very excited about it.
Why
The first question most people ask me is why? I mean a lot of people asked me that. As I’ve said to just about anyone who would listen, I have a great job! Zend is a great company to work for, they provide for their people, and I have absolutely no complaints about my time at Zend. This will come as a surprise to a few Zenders as all they have ever seen me do is complain. I’ve been allowed to create my role at Zend and that is a rare thing at any company.
I was originally hired at Zend to be an editor for DevZone and I was just supposed to write articles and code. (those of you who have seen my spelling and grammar gaffes can stop laughing now) Over the course of 2.5 years, Mark de Visser, with the backing of Andi, Harold and the rest of this awesome company, put up with my antics. They paid me to work with the PHP community. I got to travel to conferences, hang out in IRC, they even let me be the Master of Ceremonies of ZendCon. This truly is a dream job. It is so great that in the 2.5 years, I’ve turned down most offers to interview and the few serious offers that came my way. This was were I felt at home.
So back to the question, why leave a dream job at a great company? The only answer I have is “opportunity“. Most of you have never read my article “Nerd Herding” (and I don’t recommend you bother now) but in it I talk about the fact that for developers, interesting projects are just as important as a good salary. While I still love what I do at Zend, the opportunity offered to me by Ibuildings was just too great to pass up. So that is why, after over a month of thinking about it and discussing it with the lovely and talented Kathy, we decided that this was a chance I couldn’t pass up.
/me <3 PHPC
One of the great things about my job, both at Zend and at Ibuildings is that I get paid to work with the PHP community. I told someone this at ZendCon but it bears repeating here.
PHP is my fifth programming language, that means I’ve been a part of 5 programming communities. None of those communities have come close to being as vibrant, fun and welcoming as the PHP community. PHP developers should not take this community for granted, it is something special.
It is to this awesome group of mixed nuts that we call the PHP community, that I give a big hug and say thank you. Thank you for all the tweets, blog posts, IMs and irc well wishes today. Thank you for your friendship. Thanks you for welcoming me in even when you didn’t have to. You guys and gals are teh awesome and I wish I could call each of you by name and say thank you. (if I tried, we’d be here a while an even then, I know I’d leave someone out so I’m not going to try) It has been a blast working with you while at Zend and I look forward to working with you at Ibuildings!
Looking Forward
I’ve talked a lot about Zend in this post but I can’t close without saying a big hello to my new Ibuildings family. Thank you for welcoming me in such a warm fashion. I’ve never had this much attention paid to me coming to a new company. Honestly, it humbles me to think that I’m moving to a new company and country and yet I already have good friends in both. I am looking forward to working with each of you!
I am positive that Zend will be hiring someone to take over DevZone and my other duties. I know that phpc will embrace them as you did me. (because again, you guys and gals rock!) DevZone has become a regular daily stop of a lot of PHP developers and I am sure it will only get better.
As for me? well, I’m not going anywhere. (figuratively speaking) I’ll still be hanging around on Skype, IRC and IM. If you need to contact me, my contact info is always on my EPK. I encourage you to ping me if I can help you.
It’s been an awesome 2.5 years at Zend and I look forward to a number of awesome years at Ibuildings!
Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=
September 25th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
All the best for you and your new job!
September 25th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Congrats, wishing you the best in your new job!
September 25th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Congratulations to you and your family, Cal. When opportunity comes a-knocking… Well, you obviously have the rest of this sentence well figured out. Best of luck, as if you needed it. :)
September 25th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Cal, Congratz! I hope you enjoy your new job, and I know there will be a hole in Nashville that will never be filled.
September 25th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Cal, what can I say? Took me long enough to finally meet you, but it seems I met you ate the best of times, the legendary “Last ZendCon presented By Cal”
Must say this sounds very exciting, and I can relate as i just moved to pickup on an incredible oportunity (which led to ZendCon as well), i havent regreted it for a second, neither my wife!
All the best luck to you, and i guess now i should stop bothering Zend to send you to Brasil… and start bothering IBuildings! We need Herding! :P
Cheers.. and best of luck, if I can help with anything… well you know where to find me.
September 25th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Good luck at Ibuildings. :-)
September 26th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Cal, welcome on board! Really looking forward to meeting you and work with you. I’m sure you’ll feel at home in our little country by the sea :-).
September 26th, 2008 at 1:04 am
Congratulations Cal,
Community building is a skill you are very well suited for and I am confident that Ibuildings will provide what you need to ensure that the PHP Centre of Excellence fulfills your dreams for it.
Rob…
September 26th, 2008 at 1:32 am
Hi Cal, we are all very excited that you joined Ibuildings! I’m looking forward to meeting you and hope that Ibuildings and Utrecht will feel like a new home real soon.
September 26th, 2008 at 2:12 am
Hi Cal, Great post & a very warm welcome to Ibuildings!
Tom
September 26th, 2008 at 2:22 am
Welcome to Ibuildings! I think I can speak for everyone when I say how much we’re looking forward to working with you :)
Lorna
September 26th, 2008 at 2:34 am
Cal, congrats on the decision you made! You working together with Ibuildings promises very nice things, I can only see PHP and the community around it grow because of that. I look forward to meet you and I’m sure you’ll feel right at home in Utrecht, feel free to take a tour around Belgium too ;-)
September 26th, 2008 at 2:44 am
Awesome news and couldn’t happen to a better guy.
Congratulations on the new role.
Nigel
September 26th, 2008 at 6:55 am
Congrats again, Cal. I’m looking forward to seeing what this new expertise center builds itself into, especially with you herding it into shape ;)
Make sure you blog some about the transition to the new home life over there. Those of us that have never left the U.S. (but have been looking abroad if the upcoming election goes sour) could use a Nashviller’s impressions and opinions on the change.
September 26th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Congrats, Jerry! I am surely going to miss the DevZone podcasts, but I am sure you are going to come up with something really interesting for the PHP community at your new job at Ibuildings too ;)
September 26th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Welcome to Ibuildings. I’m very proud to have you on board!
September 27th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Hi Cal,
A very warm welcome to Ibuildings. I am already looking forward to having you “around”. Even though I work from home, you’ll be living in a town I love. I don’t know if you’re into football (soccer for those weird americans ;)) but if you are, I’ll take you over to the pride of Utrecht on a sunday in the near future :)
It is good news for Ibuildings that you come over, but it’s even better for the community. I mean, think of it, instead of having one Cal at Zend, we will now have one Cal at Ibuildings, and another at Zend (assuming your position indeed gets a new face to do the same job). The community as a whole can only benefit of that!
I’ll see you soon!
Stefan
September 29th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Hey Cal,
I only can say, welcome in The Netherlands :). Maybe I can met persons like you now on PHP conferences nearby.
Good luck with your new job!
Your sincerely,
Marten van Urk
October 1st, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Congratulations on the exciting opportunity, and best wishes to you and yours! :)
October 14th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Congrats sunshine! don’t go far or I will miss my daily dose of my cal!
October 15th, 2008 at 4:11 am
Congratulation Cal on your great opportunity joining iBuildings along with Ivo Jansch and iBuilding’s team.
Nico F. Sanjaya
Rynet Cipta Teknologi.
Indonesia
November 9th, 2008 at 9:18 am
[...] Cal Evans: “Good morning twitterverse! Today is an AWESOME day for the chicken to cross the road! But if it doesn’t cross the road in 60 seconds, I’ll move to Holland.” * * * [...]
November 22nd, 2008 at 9:07 am
[...] Cal Evans: “Good morning twitterverse! Today is an AWESOME day for the chicken to cross the road! But if it doesn’t cross the road in 60 seconds, I’ll move to Holland.” * * * [...]