b5media

March 26th,2008

Saying a Sad Farewell to Aaron; Hiring Director of Technology!

By Jeremy Wright

It’s with a bunch of pride and a bit of sadness that I write this post thanking Aaron Brazell for his time at b5media and saying goodbye (here’s Aaron’s post on the subject).

As most folk know, Aaron’s been an absolutely integral part of the company almost since the beginning (he started doing contract work for us 6 weeks after we launched), was one of the first employees and has seen his role change from a weekend developer through lead dev through a manager position to his current position as head of technology. And he’s one of the hardest working people I’ve ever met to boot.

As a result b5media, and myself personally, are incredibly sad to see him go. But, given that he’s been with the company for so long and has grown so much and has so many great ideas for personal projects and ventures we’re also incredibly excited to watch his next steps as well!

I’ve always wanted to try and create a culture where people grew enough that they launched off and did their own thing. So if Aaron’s the start of the “b5mafia”, that’s totally cool with me!

So if you or your company is looking for a rocking developer, leader, consultant, advisor, etc for social media, wordpress, blogging, podcasting, etc, Aaron’s a huge asset to have in your corner and I highly recommend you contact him (his aaron@b5media.com address will work for as long as he wants it to… and I don’t want to give out his personal email without his go-ahead!

Trying to Replace a Rockstar

At the same time as saying goodbye, Aaron’s departure obviously creates a significant gap for the company. Thankfully he’s given us ample notice so we have time to find the right person, do the transition, etc.

So what are we looking for? More than anything we are looking for a mid-level to senior person who’s run major forward-facing (specifically consumer) web properties in the past. We need someone who understands development principles and how to push them forward. We want someone who wants to work in a startup, is passionate about blogging, and wants to see our already significant company grow even further. The person must be in or willing to be relocated to Toronto (on our dime, obviously) - and can even be in the US (yay for the reverse brain drain!).

End of the day, we hire smart people who like to have fun and really want to build great stuff that tens of millions of people are going to see. The challenges for this year are significant, but so is the opportunity. In fact, by this time next year, this individual will be leading a team of 15-20 folk building some of the most widely used tools in the blogging world.

If you or someone you know is interested, feel free to contact me directly (jeremy@b5media.com) with questions or whatnot. This is an immediate position, and we are aggressively interviewing for this right now, so don’t be shy!

Smart people, big challenges, great team, big vision.