Yesterday, Aug 31, 2007, was my last day at BEA. After 7 years 6 months and 11 days, I said good bye to a very strong team of people trying to make successful products. Over the years I had a chance to build a number of areas for WebLogic Portal including the JSR-168 container, built the federation architecture around WSRP, and more recently on some Web 2.0 initiatives. It was tough to say good byes to all the people that I like and respect for their contributions and strengths.
With JSR-168, JSR-286 and WSRP, I had a chance to spend long hours in person and over email with really tough folks discussing how best to design these specs. It was a great experience learning how different products work and design solutions to accommodate all those. Although these specs took too long to argue, debate, specify, and test, it was worth the effort. At the end, we had to compromise on a number of things at the expense of innovation. Still, it was worth the effort.
During these years, I learned how to build quality software, how to be pragmatic, how to maintain high levels of productivity across the team, and more importantly, how to own up things and take responsibility.
What’s next for me? Next week, I will be joining Yahoo and relocating to the bay area later this year.
