Joaquim Rocha
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Winds of Change

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    Name
    Joaquim Rocha
    Twitter
  • Principal Software Engineering Manager at Microsoft

In my previous post I mentioned that 2013 would be a year of change. Well, here is the moment to say why that will be so: I have quit Igalia.

Igalia is a very special company to me, I joined it in December 2008. These were 4 intense years where I saw how the company evolved, how it moved to a cool new office, how it grew and I learned a lot in there. I had the chance to participate in several important projects like Maemo or Meego and also to create others. I could even tell the world about them in the many conferences I spoke at and I am also proud to have accomplished things such as putting the company’s name for the first time in the highlights of online media like ArsTechnica.

So the question people always ask is: why did I leave!? As some of you may know, Igalia is organized in a flat structure where we take more responsibilities than just coding and the ultimate part of a career in the company is to become a partner. I knew this when I joined and I think this is a wonderful thing. Being at the end of my 4th year, the next stage would be to become a partner, however, for a while now I have been feeling the need of a change, of trying something different. I take my responsibilities seriously so joining as a partner would 1) only perpetuate these feelings and 2) not be fair to my colleagues. This and other factors led me to make the very difficult decision of leaving.

The future

My wife and I moved to A Coruña (Galicia, Spain) shortly after I joined Igalia. We like the city and its people but moving is part of that change I was talking about and the truth is that we were only here for Igalia in the first place. (I will probably write a few more words about this beautiful city when we actually leave) The most difficult part of it is definitely leaving our friends. We met very nice people during these 4 years in Coruña and we consider some of them good friends rather than simply coworkers. But life is like this and I am sure we’ll stay in touch. On the other hand, the good thing of working in a Free Software company is that you can keep contributing to the projects you worked on in there if you want, so I hope I will keep doing that.

Since I have only started looking for a new job after I notified Igalia of my decision, I still do not know where we will move to but we are open to many places.

If you are interested in what I can do for your project or company, be sure to contact me through email or LinkedIn so I can send you my CV.

That is all. I am already in touch with some companies so wish me luck!