amazon.com

After 2 years, 7 months, and 7 days at Amazon.com, I’ve decided to make a major career change.

May 16th was my last day at Amazon. After about a week of a half of vacation I’m starting all over today at blist.com, a small, early-stage startup in Pioneer Square, Seattle. My tentative job title is “Technical Project Manager”, but my actual work will encompass so much more. I’m looking forward to working with such a young, ambitious company and getting the chance to leverage my skills and experience in ways that will hopefully help make them very successful.

In my tenure at Amazon, I had the opportunity to work with so many awesome people that I can’t count how many people I need to thank. I still love Amazon and all it’s hard working employees, but this opportunity at blist was too good to pass up. They’re small, scrappy, and have a grand vision of the future, probably much like Amazon did when it was starting out. It’s a big jump, but it should be a great ride, and I look forward to being able to accomplish some great things.

Photo borrowed from TheMahers Seattle Lunch2.0 photoset on flickr

Today was kind of a big day for me, so I thought I’d mark it in my blog. Mostly for personal reasons, so I can look back on it later.

Today I got my first paycheck from Amazon.com. And I paid off my credit card debt… in full. It feels good.

So I held off on blogging for a week or two. Partially because I was busy/lazy, and partially because I was waiting to hear back from HR about Amazon.com’s blogging policy.

But I finally heard back from them. I think they created a blogging policy simply because I asked. As such I’ve added a disclaimer to the sidebar of my blog reminding you that although I work for Amazon.com, I don’t speak for them. And don’t expect me to give away any deep dark Amazon secrets… that would certainly get me fired.

What I can tell you is that my group builds the tools that medium-sized third-party merchants use to sell products on Amazon. So when you buy an item thats sold by that mom & pop shop in Wisconsin, you’re dealing at least a little bit with my group’s code. Amazon is an awesome place to work and I’m very excited about the directions in which we are going.

Other than that… I love Seattle. Its an awesome town. I found a great apartment on Alki beach with an old housemate from college and I’m settling in nicely. Now I just need to find a boat to race on…