On June 19th, I announced to the Calgary .NET User Group that I am stepping down as President of the group because I am leaving the city. I have served on the executive team for over 5 years: 2 years as Speaker Coordinator and over 3 years as President. While leading the group has been challenging and time consuming, I do not in any way regret taking on the role. The experience has allowed me to meet great people from all over North America and has definitely helped me to keep my .NET skills as current as possible.
I want to extend a thank you to all the Calgary .NET User Group members for helping make our group so successful over the last 5 years. The group is 10 years old now and still going strong. The number of talented software developers in Calgary is astounding, and I think the most talented developers are members of the .NET community (although I may be biased).
I also want to thank everyone who has served on the executive with me over the last 5 years. It truly has been a pleasure. Also, best of luck to the future executive members.
Why am I leaving such a great city?
I like Calgary…I really do. There are so many great opportunities for software developers in this city (and contrary to popular belief, those opportunities extend beyond Oil & Gas). Calgary is also very close to the Rocky Mountains, which offers a huge variety of recreational options.
However, there are two things that I don’t particularly enjoy about Calgary: winter and traffic. Winter in Calgary is just plain gross. I actually really like winter, but what Calgary gets every year does not count as winter. It’s more like 6 months of dirty melting mess. Traffic is also pretty bad, which can make the daily commute painful. The combination of winter and traffic is aggravating.
Where am I going?
Every winter, my wife and I escape to the Caribbean for at least 1 week. A couple years ago, we started investigating the possibility of reversing our approach. What if we could find a place in the Caribbean where I could live and work year round? After doing some research, we settled on the Cayman Islands. This seemed to offer the best standard of living and opportunity to find work in my field.
As it turns out, we were a little overly optimistic about the job search. Finding a .NET Developer job in the Cayman Islands is not easy, but I finally accepted an offer after nearly 2 years of searching. To say I am excited is a huge understatement (my new office is located across the street from the beach in the picture below), but I am also realistic. I am sure that I will be facing all sorts of unforeseen challenges. The 2 things that scare me the most right now: hurricanes and slow internet.
Stay tuned to hear more about my experiences coding on the island.