I’ve had a great time at GitHub over the past year and a half. I’ve traveled to plenty of interesting places, taught thousands of developers how to do a better job working together, and learned quite a bit myself from GitHub’s unique approach to organizational structure. It’s a tautology to say that the experience has changed me, but I think time will reveal that it has changed me in important ways. Hopefully I can write about some of this in the future.

GitHub is a great place to work, but the landscape of one’s career is constantly shifting, and staying on top of one’s own calling requires constant adaptation and re-evaluation. Managing a career is like climbing a mountain, except it’s a mountain whose elevation constantly shifts in response to your own footsteps. My current path has led me, as of today, to leave GitHub for an exciting new opportunity.

I’ll be joining DataStax as their Director for Technical Enablement. I’ve known the folks at DataStax for years, and even did some contract work for them back when I was on my own. When they offered me an interesting position doing what I love, I jumped at the chance. It doesn’t hurt that they’re a classy bunch of people who seem to have figured out how to combine a startup’s pragmatism and adaptability with the structures and attitudes of a mature business.

Starting a week from today, I’ll be focused on helping DataStax channel partners be better at delivering Cassandra-based solutions to their customers. Apache Cassandra and DataStax Enterprise are complex products that solve difficult problems, and people need help getting that job done. I’ll be doing a lot of the same sorts of things I’ve been doing of the past few years—conference talks, classes, workshops, and videos—but focused on the indirect sales channel instead of the end user. This is a whole new world for me, and I’m really excited to jump into it. I will do my best to keep you posted here with what I learn.