Scott Blomquist

I (and everyone I know) figured I was about the last person on the list of people likely to quit work at Microsoft any time soon, but a very interesting opportunity came along.

It’s the kind of company that would rather that I not say much about just yet, but I’ll say this: it takes something pretty special to convince me to leave my extremely fun, well-paying job at Microsoft working as the development lead whose team was responsible for the user experience on Live Image Search.

One of the things that make this opportunity special include an opportunity to work with my brother on a software project like he and I have always said we would someday. Another thing is that the company is headquartered in my home state, Oklahoma.

I really like Seattle, so I’ve never been in a huge hurry to pack up and move back to Oklahoma, but at least on some level I’m happy to have the opportunity to give something back to the state. Y’see, my last two years in high school were at a highly specialized public school called the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics. It’s a 2 year residential school that’s 100% taxpayer funded. The catch is that you have to apply for admission and get selected to attend. Oh, and you get an unaccredited diploma upon graduation since many of the teachers come from university teaching backgrounds and don’t have secondary education teaching certificates. That doesn’t matter too much–there’s not a university in the country that doesn’t recognize the quality of the academic program there.

Enough about my educational background. The bottom line is that the people of the State of Oklahoma gave me quite a bit, and I’m thrilled at the opportunity to give something back. (Related point: one of the themes that Representative Ernest Istook challenged Oklahoma’s incumbent governor on was that Oklahoma’s young people are leaving the state due to limited high tech opportunity. Here’s another clip on the same theme.)

At any rate, my wife and I are packing up our stuff and moving to Oklahoma, at least for a while. I still think there’s a high chance that I’ll end up back on the West Coast someday, quite possibly working once again at Microsoft. But in the meanwhile, I’ll try something else for a change. I expect to learn a lot. And maybe I can make an impact both at my new company and in my home state at the same time.

[Edit: make the mention of OSSM a link to the school's web site per bl00mie's suggestion.]