Exactly one year ago I started working at Avanade: wow, time passed fast, way faster then the 10 months I worked for Calcium (7 of which in Wellington). And now that I think, it’s the my second longest job.

Another funny coincidence is that the weekend before starting my job I was showing Milano to David Silverlight, and this weekend I showed Milano  (and other cool places around, including a flooded Lake Maggiore) to another of two guys I met in NZ through the “enlarged” .NET community, Nic Wise and his wife Leonie.

But back to the main topic: Avanade is great place to work, I feared it was more Accenture-like (which means, at least in Italy, 12hrs a day and at least one weekend per month), but it is not. And comparing to my previous experiences, where I had no training provided and no possibility of professional growth, here is the opposite: training, possibility to make a career, to attend to Microsoft conferences are invaluable. And for a technology enthusiast like me, the close connection to Microsoft and the deep technology focus of Avanade are a big plus of the job.

The only downside is that most of my time is now spent managing a team, so I don’t get to write a lot of code: but I guess it depends on the size and the scope of project you end up working for. On the other side, this is good since I love to share my knowledge, and help other people grow.

Another thing I think is good about this first year is that I started working with technologies I never really used before, like MSBuild, Reporting Services, Notification Services, and a little bit of Sharepoint.

All in all, a very positive first year. Looking forward to seeing how the second one will be.