And what's a decade it's been.

 A decade ago, I started at Twitch, and now my time here is ending. It has been an incredible ten years. Twitch has become a "large" company, and I find myself, after ten years wanting something different, something smaller, something like Twitch was in 2011 when I joined. I leave on a high note and will miss the most incredible job I have ever had.


In my time at Twitch, I have accomplished much. I joined to write our Broadcast SDK. I wrote the system that until recently powered in-game drops, I rewrote our big-data pipeline (including writing Kinsumer), I collected two carrots and much more.


My most significant achievement, and probably the thing I am proudest of in my career, is founding the Safety Product (now Community Health) org at Twitch. I was the first employee, and I leave it four teams strong with many engineers, product managers, data people, applied scientists and more. Safety is something we care a lot about at Twitch, and I'm happy to have had some impact in that area. I'm incredibly proud that our Community Health org is a diverse group, something we strongly emphasize. Diversity is never a solved problem, but I often enjoyed being the only man, the only white person or sometimes both in meetings.


I have worked with many outstanding individuals in my time, and I can't shout them all out here, but I will say my thanks for a few.


In the last ten years, Jacob Woodsey has always been there for me when I needed someone. He is a great leader who set aside 30 minutes of his time every week to keep the first (and for a while) only remote employee at the company (me) feeling connected. Jacob also proposed that I take on the Safety problem, which is an opportunity I will never be ever able to repay him.


Sharmeen Browarek Chapp is the best manager a person could ever have. I would like to believe I have always been empathetic to my co-workers and cared a lot about them, but Sharmeen taught me (and many others at Twitch) how to Lead with Empathy. Sharmeen has recently left Twitch, and I envy the group of people she gets to work with next!


I leave Community Health in the more than capable hands of Alison Huffman. Under Alison's watch, the group has reached heights I could only dream of, Alison is truly a great leader, and I expect much more from her and her team.


Lastly, Emmett Shear. When I interviewed for Twitch, he took a big gamble with me, as Emmett had never had a remote employee, and in the years, Emmett has shown great loyalty to my co-workers and myself. Emmett truly cares about us, and I would not hesitate to work for Emmett again.


I have nothing planned for myself next. I want to take time to decompress and have an opportunity to look around. Ideally, I would love to find a startup working on a socially valuable product that resonates with me. If you know anyone fighting climate change, fighting global poverty or the like and needing an engineer to build stuff, please send them my way. If that doesn't work out, I might start a startup or go back to making games, I do not know, but right now, I'm happy to wake up tomorrow morning and have nothing to do.

Comments

Ian said…
Congratulations on a great run! Enjoy your well-deserved down time!
Rami Citrom said…
Good luck Gareth :-)
xexuxjy said…
Congratulations, and best of luck.

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