What’s Next?

By Lachlan Hardy
1900h Thursday, 01 March 2012 Permalink

It’s been 550 days since I posted an article to this site. That means I didn’t write anything about building HTML5 apps for TV sets; working in Hong Kong; running development for a cloud computing startup; our pre-SXSW roadtrip through New Mexico; the incredible week in Portland, Oregon, for JSconf and the first NodeConf where Dave and I built a site about drinking while in a bar, drinking; making so many incredible new friends who inspire me greatly at the world’s best conference, Brooklyn Beta; attempting to photograph everybody at the second Brooklyn Beta; attending two Railscamps in New Zealand and one in Adelaide; taking a few months off; or the product I’ve been building with two superbly talented friends.

Now that we’re caught up…

Today is my ninth day working at Microsoft.

And I love it.

When I left Ninefold, I had no plans as to what I’d do for employment. I just wanted to see what came my way if I was open to it. I want to thank all of the people who made interesting connections for me or brought me exciting opportunities. Thanks to them, I was lucky enough to be able to choose what I do next.

I chose what I believe will be the next frontier of incredible user experiences built in web technologies.

Why Microsoft?

I realise some will view Microsoft as an odd choice for me. I get that. Until last week, I hadn’t used Windows daily in more than 4 years. Or Office in more than 6.

In 2006, some viewed News as an odd choice. And Atlassian in 2008. And Telstra in 2010. But News taught me how to build at scale. Things I designed and built at Atlassian are now core components of every product they sell and their culture is decidedly more front-end focused. At Telstra I delivered the world’s first DRM live adaptive streaming TV channels over HTTP to a TV set. And at each company, I got to work with the smartest, most passionate and talented people in our industry.

That’s what I have at Microsoft. Having just spent two days at a team offsite, I’ve learned that yet again I’m lucky enough to work with amazing, genuine, clever women and men who come to work every day wanting to change the world for the better. I’m incredibly excited about the opportunities inherent to HTML, CSS and JavaScript apps on the desktop. And even more excited about what might be coming next. I get to be a part of that, by exploring those technologies and sharing them with other developers.

Having got up at 3am to download the ISOs, and spending the entire day experimenting with the stunning Windows 8 Consumer Preview, I know two things for sure:

This paradigm is what’s next and I’m stoked to be right here for it.