job updates and a reflection on ten years

 It's now been ten years since we moved back to Seattle after our grand adventure (https://aglie.blogspot.com/2012/02/part-where-we-come-home.html).   After we returned on Valentine's day in 2012, we stayed with Jack's mom and step-dad for a couple of weeks.  I interviewed at Nuance in downtown Seattle, but I believe I set up the interview while we were still on our trip.   I started work on March 21st, delaying my start date while I went through my slightly complicated name change (https://aglie.blogspot.com/2012/04/rose-by-any-other-name.html) which required two court appearances.   Jack found an architecture job on Craigslist, which was described as a 3 month, temporary position.   He started on April 10th.      

We moved in to our apartment at 5th and Washington in Pioneer Square/ID in March, got new cell phone plans and found a dentist.   When we moved into the apartment, we also got our darling cat, Emo, back from Jack's dad and step-mom who took care of her during our trip.   We joined the downtown YMCA which was a few blocks north of us and both had good walking, running or busing commutes.  

That same spring we started looking at properties for our future house, mostly in south Seattle, near the light rail, but also on Beacon Hill and in the Central District.    Eight months after we returned to Seattle, we bought our lot (https://aglie.blogspot.com/2012/11/we-are-landed.html).

It was a busy, but simple time!   Living downtown was fun.  Seeing family more often was nice.   We still had some old friends around and randomly running in to familiar faces was a treat.   Also, people kept giving us free tickets to downtown games and shows, and we ended up out and about a lot, at least in the eyes of this working (from home) mother-of-two, two years in to a pandemic....

I needed to write this little summary of our first year back home in Seattle as context for the double job update I want to share.   

For me, the news is that I now work for Microsoft, via an acquisition that just closed on March 4th, 2 weeks shy of my 10 year work anniversary.   The $19.7 billion acquisition was first announced in April 2021 and took a very long time due to the multi-national nature of it all.   For people paying attention to such things, I guess this wasn't a big surprise as we were already partnered on some projects for the past couple of years.   In retrospect the 2019 spinoff of our automotive domain (which I had been working on) was probably also done with the prospect of possible future acquisition in mind. (https://aglie.blogspot.com/2019/12/spinoff.html)

Microsoft is pretty exciting and the more I learn the more it seems like a company to be proud of.   Not much is expected to change.   Our CEO will still be our boss but he now reports to a VP instead of our board.   In a year or so we'll probably get better benefits.   We're all excited about data and tools and opportunities.   I don't have any plans to go to the office (my old one downtown, or Redmond) but am excited about the Eastlink lightrail that would make for a pretty good commute and will open as soon as summer 2023.

Jack's news is much more of a personal achievement.   This week we signed the contract (as a spouse I had to sign too) and he's now a 15% owner of the firm he's worked in for almost ten years.   He's the first partner in addition to the founder, a fellow CMU grad and Seattle native ten years ahead of Jack.   It means he's done a good job, is good to work with and brings value to the firm.    In his ten years there they've gone from three employees to eight, at present.   He's worked on new residential construction, townhomes, remodels and two apartment buildings.   

Sometime I'll blog more about Jack's projects.   

Jack's partnership has been discussed for several years and it's quite surprising how both of these longer term deals came to fruition within days of each other.