2026-04-22
Why I'm moving to Montréal
Three years of federal .NET in Ottawa, three languages, and a city that finally lines up with all of them.
I'm leaving Ottawa in May/June 2026 for Montréal. People keep asking why, so here it is in one place.
The short version
I grew up trilingual in English, Spanish, and French. After three years inside Service Canada writing C# and .NET MVC for federal platforms, I want a city where all three languages are useful, not just listed on a CV.
The longer version
Government work taught me to ship cleanly the first time. WCAG-compliant HTML, accessibility audits, peer code review on every PR, Azure DevOps pipelines that don't tolerate flakiness — when your users include people on slow connections in northern communities and screen-reader users applying for benefits, you stop cutting corners.
But after three years I want a different scale of problem. Smaller team, faster product loop, more of the frontend stack I've been sharpening on the side — Angular, React, the things I build in personal projects like Crittr (Blazor WASM + ASP.NET Core, currently adding LLM-powered features) and the SignalR + OpenAI work I did for Swipe & Decide Cards at JacHacks 2025.
Montréal has the density of product companies and consultancies I want to work with, the bilingual workplace I'd actually thrive in, and a tech scene that's small enough that you bump into the same people twice and large enough that there's always someone shipping something interesting.
What I'm looking for
- Full Stack or .NET-leaning role — I'm strongest in C#/.NET 8, but I want to keep growing on the JS/TS side (Angular, React, Next.js).
- Permanent, fixed-term contract, or contract-to-hire — open to all.
- Remote, hybrid, or on-site in Montréal.
If that sounds like your team, say hi. I read every email.