It’s been over a month now, and I thought I would officially announce that I’ve quit my job at Dolby and have joined the team at Scribd. The decision was decidedly bittersweet, since I’ll be leaving a rockstar team at Dolby. But, in the end, I realized that I already made the decision to be in the web industry the day I got into web design, blogging, and the social web phenomenon.
Since Scribd’s team is small (7 people at the moment), I’ve been keen on helping out wherever my skill set is valuable, ranging from coding, designing, and product developing. The role that I see myself playing in the long term is product development, which is something I’ve been wanting to get into for a long time.
I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on my aspirations in the past few months. I started my college life as a traditional electrical engineer–or, transistor jockey. After a short stint at Intel, I realized that placing transistors on a silicon wafer bored me to death. So, I decided to shift my focus to signal processing, which eventually led me down the road as an audio codec engineer. At the same time, I was also getting heavily involved in web design, blogging, and graphic design.
There was a phase when I was hot on pursuing a career as a professor–a life of research. Now, I’m doing product development at a consumer focused startup. How did I get from there to here? Obviously, each step in the progression was gradual, but, thinking about it all at once, I’m still bewildered about the magnitude of the change. Early in my college career, I naively thought that what I was learning at that point was going to be my final intellectual destination. Boy, was I wrong.
In any case, I’m very happy with the changes that are happening. The best thing about it is that I’m being exposed to so many different elements of business and technical skills that I’ve never touched on before. Switching gears is a good thing.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
James, I have been following your blog and photography for years quietly. I admire your knowledge and loved your website. Liked your earlier ones with cool information. Liked less on recent ones where there are mostly youtube links.
I’m a software engineer in a small team for many years and happy to see your change. I know that at a bigger organization, you are only allowed to touch a small part of the whole business, unless, of course, if you are a big fish in a big pond.
September 25th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Wow, I’m simply floored. Much thanks for your readership, Paul!
This is exactly what the web is about. I had no idea that someone would actually be following my blog throughout the years, and throughout all the design changes
I definitely agree with you on the big fish in big corporations. I doubt I will go back to large companies again, unless I’m very passionate about their product and work.
In way, this post demarcates a pretty significant era of my life. And I’m glad someone out there notices.
October 3rd, 2007 at 11:22 am
Lots of us noticed, James
I’m very happy that you were able to find something new that is so well aligned with what you’re really interested in.
In any case, audio will always be here if you want to come back.
-g