Moving Forward

tl;dr - As of June 15th, I am resigning from my engineering role at Southwest Airlines.

It seems strange to be writing a post like this. Who would've known that, as awesome as Southwest has been, that I would've decided to leave? Not even I could say I saw that coming.

As I'm closing in on my 6th anniversary at Southwest Airlines, it's time for me to say good bye and thank you - prior to my anniversary on June 26th, I've decided to leave my Software Engineer position at Southwest Airlines.

Reminiscing and a thank you

This wasn't an easy decision to make; Southwest Airlines has been my amazing home since graduating in 2012. I've been afforded many opportunities to grow my career and skills and am immensely grateful for everything I've gained. During my tenure, I've bought a house, married my wonderful wife, and started a life on my own. Southwest enabled all of it and provided unconditional support for this whole journey.

I've made a ton of wonderful friends and got involved in a dizzying number of opportunities and programs to give back to the community that makes Southwest Airlines the best airline in the world, bar none.

The LUV Classic Golf Tournament and Party has been one of the most fulfilling experiences that I've had the pleasure of coordinating, regardless of how many long days and late nights there may have been (and knowing full and well that my counts for each pale in comparison to the real heroes of this event). Lori Skinner, as long as you'll have me, I'll keep coming back and throwing myself full-force behind making the LUV Classic the event you envision. You've been an amazing, wonderful friend and co-heart and I couldn't think about Southwest Airlines without thinking of you and the LUV Classic.

Aside: If anyone reading this is a golfer or just loves a good charity event and party, I highly encourage you to take some time, come out to Dallas, and see what we have to offer. You won't be disappointed.

To my managers, Mathew Marley, Scott Templeton, and John Hodge, thank you for being the outstanding leaders that every team at SWA deserves to have. Thank you for all the opportunities you presented, the support you provided, and the challenges you let me tackle. I relished every second of it. I couldn't possibly put all of my gratitude into this post without doubling the length it already is.

I do want to extend one additional thank you in particular though to John Hodge - thank you for, almost six years ago, taking a chance on me and offering me the engineering position that brought me to this point and thank you for all the guidance and patience you gave a naive college grad. Without you, this journey never would've happened.

To my teammates, keep rocking it. You've been outstanding in your roles and both of you have built relationships with our customers that you should be incredibly proud of. You've both managed to make a ton of people very happy and I have no doubt in my mind that you're going to continue knocking it out of the park every chance you get.

What's Next?

Now that the thank you's are complete, I'm glad you've asked. I've accepted a Software Engineer role at Toyota Connected. While I can't speak a ton about what I'll be doing, I am very excited about what the future's going to hold and the work that Toyota Connected is doing is very, very interesting.

I can't wait to get started there and begin the next phase of my journey.