Changes

This came sooner than I had expected, but I’m moving on: I have resigned from the University and will finish working here in the middle of June.

I have had a really interesting few years working in the University, first for the library (but sitting in the computing service) on the DSpace@Cambridge project, then in the Unilever Centre. In the 6 years I’ve been here I’ve worked with, and for, some really great people, and worked on some really interesting projects. In my current position I work with the incomparable Peter Murray-Rust and a bunch of the brightest folks you could hope to work with, on a programme of work I’m interested in because I helped to form it and take it forward. I wake up wanting to go to work. So why the change?

I’ve had a hankering to go back into small business whence I came for a while, and was presented with an opportunity to join another group of bright folk who are developing and delivering exciting new technology for online clothes retail. In June I’ll join Metail (http://www.metail.co.uk/) as lead developer, and move into the role of Head of Technology early next year. I can’t say too much about the business offering yet, or about the details of technology; suffice to say that I’ll have the opportunity to do some hardcore (“decidedly non-trivial”, for the geekwardly minded) algorithmic programming in the medium term, and I relish the challenges that lie beyond it.

It’s going to be an exciting couple of years!