As I hinted on Twitter earlier in the week and announced today, I’ve accepted a full-time position at Engine Yard starting on Monday.

I cannot overemphasize how much of a change this is for me.

I haven’t worked for someone other than myself in nearly 5 years. No employment agreements. No phone extensions. No email addresses I didn’t assign for myself. No direct deposit.

In fact, I even went so far as to say that I probably wouldn’t work as an employee for anyone else ever again.

And yet, a few days after a 3 line conversation on IRC, I was signing employment agreements, getting a phone extension and a new email address (why does it have to be mivey … ugh) and sending in a voided check.

Why would I do such a thing?

Because Engine Yard kicks ass, they’re committed to seeing good people write good code that helps their customers be successful, and the team they’re putting together is absolutely first class.

I’ve been an EY customer for a while. I know they do good stuff. I’ve seen first-hand the difference between other hosting companies and EY. Other places give you an IP and a login, and you’re on your own. EY deploys your app for you. Ezra literally wrote the book on Rails deployments. If your app breaks, they help you fix it. Need help scaling? Just ask.

Plus they’re fully committed to Ruby as a serious platform. They’re supporting Evan’s work on Rubinius
and of course they are the best place to host Merb apps. A significant chunk of the Merb core devs now work for EY. If your Merb app needs some help, who else would you want to work on it?

And now I get to work with these people every day.

So yeah. It’s weird to be working for someone else. Really weird.

It’s going to be great, though. I can’t wait to get started.

PS: they just raised 3.5 million in VC money to continue to grow.