The Misanthropic Developer

You Can’t Force Psychological Safety

In recent years, a lot more emphasis has been placed on making spaces (particularly workplaces) into settings that have psychological safety. I consider this a fantastic trend (though a lot of people tend to disagree with me) because people who feel psychologically safe not only have a better quality of life, the results of their…

Becoming Agile – How Transformations Go Wrong and How To Start Doing It Better

If you’ve been in tech long enough, you’ve either been through an “Agile Transformation” or you’ve seen the result of one. Usually what happens is the company brings in a consultant for a short period of time (sometimes a day, sometimes several weeks) and they introduce you to a bunch of Ceremonies that you basically…

Assuming Good Intent is a Bad Idea

Telling people to “assume good intent” when they interact with others is one of those things that sounds great because it acts as a social lubricant, but is actually a really bad idea and can cause a great deal of harm. It Actively Hides Bad Actors Part of how it causes harm is because it…

It’s Not My Fault But It Is My Responsibility

The nature of a lot of my work means that I find myself put into situations where my team and I come in to continue (or fix, depending on the day) the work of other people who have long since rolled off of a project or out of a company. Sometimes this means coming into…

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About Me

Hi, I’m James.

I’ve spent most of my career as a developer helping teams write more secure, more maintainable code while helping them learn how to deliver value in a more responsive way.

I joke that I’m a misanthrope, but the truth is that I hate seeing people being abused and work to prevent that from happening.

I wear a lot of hats on my teams, both figuratively and literally.

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