Andrei Zmievski

This past Friday was my last day at Yahoo!.
I went digging through the archives for a post from the previous time I switched jobs, and the only one I could find was written after I already started at Yahoo!. Nothing from before even hinting that I was job hunting. Perhaps secrecy is a necessary part of this process. At least this time I did drop some clues that I was leaving soon.
In any case, my time at Yahoo! has ended, and suffice it to say that it was a great time. I’ve made a lot of friends, did good work, grown professionally and as a person, and was able to contribute to reaching out to millions of people who use the Yahoo! services. So where am I going next?
I have joined a small start-up in San Francisco called Outspark. Outspark publishes casual online MMORPG games based on a common technology platform. The first game will be hitting closed beta soon, so you should go sign up for it.
Why did I decide to make the switch? Life at Yahoo! was definitely good, but without going into too much detail, I simply wanted to find new, interesting, and challenging work in a somewhat different domain from what I’ve been doing, and I wanted to live in San Francisco. Besides, I know a few people in the company already, some of which are my good friends, so it’s bound to be a great environment.
My joining Outspark does not mean that I will stop work on PHP 6 or related projects. It does mean, however, that I will not necessarily be paid to spend substantial amount of time on it. But then again, I wasn’t being paid to work on it before joining at Yahoo!.
I’ll be moving to San Francisco sometime in July, fully planning to enjoy the entirety of that fantastic city.
And so, it begins.