So yesterday was my last day at Dash Navigation / Research in Motion. Changing jobs is always bittersweet for me, but yesterday was unusually difficult because I’d made some truly great friends there. I’ve been lucky to be on some high-performing teams, but I’d never had a job where every member of the team was just uncommonly awesome. I’m proud of working with those folks, and proud of what we all achieved as a team.

When my new opportunity came up, I struggled with it on the basis that I’d be leaving a bunch of incredible folks and moving on to things unknown. However, I realized that Dash Navigation isn’t the same plucky little company it used to be since the Research in Motion acquisition, things have slowly been inching inexorably toward being “RIM-ized”. I know how I am, and I tend to love being in an environment where I can jump in and do anything that’s needed, rather than having to jump from silo to silo with requests for firewall changes, switch port provisioning, and other things.

I figured it was time to find a startup-y place that could use me, and I landed a position with some friends and old Dash coworkers at a place that’s literally blocks from the old office. So while one chapter draws to a close, a new one starts. I’ll miss the folks I worked with daily at Dash, and I made some great contacts at RIM corporate. I certainly wish all of them well and hope they have lots of future success.