I purposely held off until today to break this news as I didn’t think anyone would believe it if I posted it on April 1.
After 5 1/2 years with Infrared5, I am moving on to new endeavors. Specifically, I’ve signed on with Playdom, which is part of Disney Interactive. The position is a principal engineer / senior architect type of role. I’m still getting my head around the structure, but basically Playdom oversees a dozenish semi-independent game studios. I’ll be in the core technology unit, architecting, coordinating, building libraries, etc. I’m excited to get started next week. The offices are in Palo Alto, but I’ll continue to live in the Boston area, work remotely from home, and fly out west every once in a while.
I leave Infrared5 on good terms. Everyone there is great. Several were good friends before they were coworkers, and I’m sure those friendships will continue. There are actually a lot of exciting changes going on there and I wish everyone there all the best. But professionally, although it was a very tough decision to leave, it was time to move on and try something new. As I wrapped up my last project yesterday, I made that my last day and am enjoying the rest of the week as a mini-vacation before starting up the new gig next Monday.
As for how I wound up at Playdom, it all started back in 2004 when I met this guy named Jago McLeod at Flash Forward in San Francisco. A year or so later he contacted me about working for this company called Flash Composer out in Santa Cruz, which I wound up doing. Although management of the company was not the best and it went under a couple of years later, I really enjoyed working with Jago. He’s brilliant, funny, very organized, and just all around a great guy. We’ve stayed in touch off and on since then, and recently we bumped into each other on line. He told me he had become the VP of Engineering at Playdom and once again offered me a job on the other side of the country. And once again, I accepted.
So there you have it. I’m sure there will be more to talk about in a few weeks once I’ve settled in.
Very cool, congrats. That sounds very exciting.
Good idea on not posting yesterday. I remember your joke about doing less Flash and doing more Microsoft dev. Funny how that actually happened 🙂
Congrats! I’m sure you’ll do awesome “guru” work there.
That’s great news, congratulations. Will you primarily be working back with Flash?
Congrats! Good luck on the new journey!
Good luck Keith. btw – James Gauthier works there.
Congrats Keith! Wish you the best…
Hey! That is fantastic news. Wishing you just the best, Keith.
Well done Keith!
Awesome news Keith! As they say, have a magical start!
Congrats!!! That’s great news. I worked for Playdom a well, although very briefly a few years ago. They are great and even better for having you.
Congrats!
Many congrats and good luck 🙂
Keith,
I’ve followed your blog since the days of Flash when your first book came out. It’s good to see you move on to new and bigger things time and time again.
As they say, happy coding. Oh, and happy running as well. I’m doing a 5K “color run” tomorrow. I know…not even close!
Congrats on the new gig, Keith!
Congratulations! its great to see Disney committing to innovative artistic expression by hiring you. Good luck!