Spreading My Wings

There are moments in a career that you can see coming from a mile away: a promotion, a new opportunity, a planned transition, or a decision you’ve spent weeks or months considering.

And then there are moments that arrive without warning.

Recently, I learned that my role at Perficient was being eliminated as part of a workforce reduction. After more than seven years with the company, the news was abrupt. One moment, I was thinking about projects, teams, problems to solve, and what came next. The next, I was suddenly facing an entirely different version of that question.

There’s no perfect way to prepare for something like that. The first reaction is shock, followed by questions and the strange feeling of having something that occupied such a significant part of your daily life suddenly stop.

As that initial shock has faded, though, another feeling has started to take its place: excitement.

Not because I wanted this chapter to end the way it did. I didn’t. But for the first time in a long time, the next chapter is completely unwritten, and there’s something energizing about that.

An Opportunity to Spread My Wings

Over the course of my career, I’ve had the opportunity to work across a lot of different areas. I’ve been a developer, led frontend and full-stack engineering teams, designed technical solutions and architectures, and worked directly with clients to turn complicated business problems into technology that actually solves them.

I’ve also spent a lot of time mentoring engineers, improving development processes, establishing patterns and standards, and helping teams navigate complex enterprise platforms. More recently, I’ve become increasingly interested in how AI is changing software development. Not just how quickly we can generate code, but how better tooling and automation can improve quality, decision-making, developer experience, and the overall engineering lifecycle.

At some point, my career stopped fitting neatly into a single box, and I’ve come to see that as a strength.

I still love building software and solving hard technical problems, but I’m equally energized by leadership, architecture, process improvement, product thinking, and helping teams find a clear direction. This transition gives me a rare opportunity to think more intentionally about how those pieces should come together in my next role.

Maybe that means engineering leadership. Maybe it means solutions architecture. Maybe it means moving closer to product strategy while continuing to bring a strong technical perspective. It could also mean finding a role I haven’t considered yet.

For once, I don’t feel like I need to have the answer immediately. I’m excited to explore it.

More Motivated Than Ever

One of the biggest surprises of the past several days has been realizing how motivated I feel.

I’m not burned out, and I’m not looking for an opportunity to coast. I want to build, lead, solve difficult problems, work with talented people, and continue experimenting with new technologies. I want to help a company create something meaningful and be able to look back later and clearly see the value I helped create.

When you’re busy with the responsibilities of a job, it’s easy to move from one project to the next without spending much time thinking about the collection of experiences you’ve built along the way. Being forced into a transition has given me a reason to reflect on that.

I’ve thought about the engineers I’ve worked with and mentored, the systems I’ve helped design, the projects that looked impossible at the beginning, the architectural debates, the difficult client conversations, the production issues, the launches, the mistakes, and the lessons that came from all of it.

Those experiences don’t disappear because a role ended. They come with me into whatever happens next.

Building in Public

This website is part of that next chapter.

I’ve wanted for a long time to create a place where I could write more consistently about the things I’m learning, building, and thinking about, and this feels like the right time to finally do it.

I plan to write about software engineering, architecture, AI-enabled development, technical leadership, product thinking, developer experience, and probably a few lessons I’ve learned the hard way. Some posts will be deeply technical. Others will be more reflective or focused on leadership and building effective teams.

I don’t expect every post to contain a perfectly formed answer. In many cases, I’d rather use this space to think through ideas, share what I’m learning, and contribute something useful to the broader conversation.

What Comes Next

I don’t know exactly what comes next yet, and I’m increasingly comfortable with that.

What I do know is that I’m ready for the challenge. I’m ready to meet new people, explore different industries, learn new technologies, and have conversations about problems I haven’t encountered before. I’m ready to bring everything I’ve learned as a developer, architect, consultant, and leader into a new environment.

Most importantly, I’m ready to make an impact.

Having a chapter of your career end unexpectedly is uncomfortable, but an empty page isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it’s an invitation to think bigger about what comes next.

I plan to take that opportunity, spread my wings a little, and see where the next chapter takes me.