Thanks

About ten weeks before writing this article I resigned as Managing Director of EngineerBetter , a company I had founded with Dan Young way back in 2016. I am now co-founder and director of AJDD, working on the conversion of two barns and a possible eco-tourism business - more on that another time.

I left EngineerBetter at a point when 27 people were working for the company, we'd achieved record revenue, and made investment-enabling financial contributions to our parent entity, Container Solutions . The acquisition of EngineerBetter coincided with a large deal, made possible by our long-running community standing, which allowed this growth. All credit for the great numbers-on-paper go to the EngineerBetter team, past and present, who built the reputation that led to this work.

Ivana Scott , Chisara Nwabara and Tom Godkin continue to lead EngineerBetter, likely doing a much better and more professional job than I ever managed. It's been great to hear through the grapevine how people have risen to the responsibilities that have presented themselves.

For me this is a transitionary change that gives an opportunity to reflect on not just the last few years, but the larger segment of my (varied) professional life that led up to this point. 'End of a chapter/era' would be a cliché and also likely inaccurate - I'm sure that one thing will flow into another, with some continuity preserved.

I have been extremely fortunate to have benefitted from the kindness and generosity of a great number of people. I look back with great warmness at the friends I made on this journey, and the many virtues of those I was lucky enough to be surrounded by.

I'd like to express my gratitude to a number of people. It's impossible to list everyone and everything over nine years, and I hope I've included as many as possible. Length of entry does not denote depth of feeling. There are many more people that I have warm feelings for, albeit for less specific things and instead for being generally lovely.

Thanks, in rough chronological order, to:

• I've no idea if she's 'out' or not, so I shalln't name names - but I am grateful that you made it entirely normal, very early and before this stage in my career, to see a gay woman in a position of technical authority. This was back when identities were coincidental and we all just got on with our jobs, without making a fuss. I found this formative and important to my career and my ability to provide opportunities to others.
• Joel Jacobson for being curious enough about this so-called 'Spring developer' to get me in for an interview at OpenCredo
• Jonas Partner (as an employer) for putting up with my general ineptitude, lack of experience, and my propensity to be a pain in the arse. Later, for offering advice and understanding in the small club of IT consultancy owners.
• Christopher Hedley for befriending me on my first day and serving as a role model in my consultancy career. Along with Aleksa Vukotic , your example of rigour and methodological discipline opened a career path for me that would compensate for my being a dimwit. You have been counsel over many years - although I'm sure we can both agree that it may have been easier to just have a recording of you saying "what problem are you trying to solve" and "have you taken a step back".
• Dominic North for sharing his experience on developing training courses, an exercise that would be my first contact with the company that would become Pivotal Software, Inc.
• Neil Stevenson for both demonstrating the soft skills of consultancy and how to stay sane when on long engagements away from home
• Justin H. for being a fellow 'trooper on the ground', a source of networking knowledge and general mirth
• Matt Calthrop for the conversations and understanding, perhaps more so after our time working together
• James Masson for being friendly, and offering sagely networking wisdom
• Pete Sheffield for giving me an education in enterprise architecture that continues to be applicable today, and for introducing the concept of the "rod of focus"
• Tareq Abedrabbo for listening to me complain and moan
• Tristan McCarthy for imparting knowledge, being fun and sympathetic to work with, and later giving great recommendations on hiking boots
• David Borsos for being kind, friendly, and significantly smarter than me - without which I may never have realised that I was over-estimating my own abilities (something that is very easy to do!)
• In a similar fashion, Dominic Fox for being the 'Doctor Who of code', and for recommending EngineerBetter's services later down the line
• Nicki Watt for being calm, kind, measured, and incredibly clever. I am humbled by such folks who are so much smarter than I, and yet never make someone else feel stupid.
• Christopher B. for being an inspiration as to what a developer could be, and for your patience in dealing with my utter ineptitude and lack of experience in all that we were doing. I can't imagine how you stayed sane when having to pair with me. Plus, of course, your contributions to Concourse.
• Will Pragnell for teaching me a great many things. Along with C-Bro, you have been a great inspiration, humbling me by how much more effective a developer you were despite having been in the industry for less time. Your relentless (and perhaps forced!) enthusiasm made learning about interactive rebasing and the git reflog something that I still remember to this day. Your catchphrase of "it's gonna be great" is something that I would later go on to parrot with great effect when pairing with new hires. Most of all, I am grateful for the example you provided in bringing up sensitive issues in team retros in a productive and non-confrontational way. Your name was cited many times when I was coaching employees on how to handle intra-team, inter-personal issues. Oh, and thanks also for introducing me to colourful trainers.
• Maartens Lourens for being a fellow outsider when we landed in this weird pairing cult, and for sharing your sys-ad knowledge which compensated for my lack of ability in the area
• Gerhard Lazu for somehow mustering the patience to not bludgeon me to death with a keyboard. I have no idea how you tolerated my complete lack of understanding of TDD, red-green-refactor, or any of the other principles that I'd come to adopt as fundamental working practices. While at the time I felt the 'TDD ping pong' exercise you took us on condescending, it was an utterly invaluable exercise that changed my understanding. Later you would be a fountain of knowledge, generous with your time, helping me with a myriad of issues whenever I came calling.
• Craig Furman for being yet another in the category of 'smarter than me yet somehow tolerant of my ineptitude.' I am grateful that you taught me another important lesson (and no, not the "Craig Furman power shot" in table tennis). I believe that we didn't pair well. It was only after you mentioned that you have an impeccable memory for detail, and after some reflection, that I realised how frustrating I must have been to work with given that I was often unable to articulate my reasoning. I believed that you didn't respect the knowledge I had gained earlier in my career; however I later realised that the fault was all my own in that I was unable to properly explain myself. Awareness of this prompted me to invest much more effort in awareness of why I did things, a skill that would prove invaluable.
• Nadia Odunayo for being great fun to work with, and as a then-recent Makers grad, providing some solace when we were surrounded by folks who at the time were all much more capable than us. You were always a joy to meet when you later visited the Pivotal office, and I am grateful for you giving your time and experience to help me prepare for that talk. I hope that you believe me when I say that the only time I considered you any different to the rest of the team was when I was concerned that by helping the reception staff, people would start to view you as doing 'the girly jobs'.
• Theo Cushion for the greatest act of pairing kindness that I can recall, that would go on to become one of my too-often retold stories at EngineerBetter. One Friday morning I came to work with a stinking hangover. After standup I was late to our pairing station, having been to the toilet to vomit. I eventually draped myself over the chair next to you, sliding downwards to near-horizontal orientation. I then heard the most welcome statement in perhaps all of my career: "don't worry, I'll drive." I am sorry for the times that I've upset you.
• Peter Ellis Jones for saving the day more than once, and teaching me and everyone around you the power of multi-cursor text editing! I have seen few people whose minds work as fast, and your ability to change positions when presented with contrary evidence is humbling. The second time you flew in get me out of a hole, you relieved one of the most emotionally painful moments I'd endured during my tenure at EngineerBetter.
• JB Steadman for tolerating my presence in the first two iterations of the London Pivotal office, even after I shot Christopher Hedley in the eye with a Nerf gun whilst you were showing potential clients around. Hopefully his northern accent masked the profanities that thus flowed.
• Robbie Clutton for also tolerating my presence, especially given my surliness and unwillingness to engage. As an outsider (even more so from Labs than R&D) I think I felt awkward striking up conversation. I wish I had done so sooner.
• Tammer Saleh for teaching me so very much about kanban, lean, continuous delivery, engineering, product management, and swearing in the office. It wasn't until I later went to contract at Fidelity that I realised how much I'd learnt from you; however I wish for your sake that you hadn't needed to correct me so many times! Since then you've been a mentor and a friend.
• In no particular order, Dragan Milic , Cyrille Le Clerc , Tiago Scolari , Tanzeeb Khalili , Todd Ritchie and anyone else from the Pivotal London Data Services team whose name is lost to me in the eight years hence. You were all a fun bunch to work with.
• Ben Laplanche for proving that not everyone from Accenture is a total git. You've been helpful and a companion over many years, and I've enjoyed our time drinking together at conferences. I know who to call if I'm in need of a terrible pun.
• aram price for showing me a patience and kindness that I don't think that I earned. That you were always keen to say "hi" at conferences made me feel good.
• Emma Hammond for being so reckless as to employ my services, allowing me the space to do my thing, even when I was an insufferable pain in the backside and created difficulties for you.
• D HR , Sam Bryant , Rob Langley, Prateek Mehrotra as the original development crew I met at Fidelity. You were all a lot of fun, and extended patience to me despite my irritating ways. My thanks to Wayne Sowery for being the first security dude I'd met who wasn't from the Ministry Of No. Later, Rachael Wonnacott , James Conner , Christopher Metcalf , and Andrew Driver . I'm not sure from which of you I got use of the adjective "shouty" for uppercase. FIL was the favourite client of one of our engineers.
• Sam Ramji for spreading positive thoughts and ideas, and for passing on the observation about time spent that would go on to be the emotional lynchpin of keynote talks I would later give.
• Stormy Peters , Deborah Giles , and many other folks at the Linux Foundation when I started giving talks, for giving your support. The frustrations that you must have experienced with the community and the large events were never evident when you greeted me cheerfully.
• Francesca Lee, DJ Mu?oz, the organisers of MAGWest, and Super Soul Brothers. My first attendance of an IT conference as an independent contractor was blissful. California sun, an adjacent video games festival, fantastic live music, and catching up over beer with colleagues with whom I'd ceased working.
• Colin Humphreys for allowing me to contract for one of your customers, and not laughing in my face when I asked for equity - I was na?ve. Thanks for manufacturing the boy band of Cloud Foundry, encouraging and supporting us. Your support was often understated but pervasive, and given how annoying I can be, I'm not sure what motivated you to keep helping. I wish I could have been more helpful in return. I thank you also for filling a role as benevolent antagonist, giving Dan and I someone to prove wrong.
• Dan Young , clearly there is too much to say than will fit here. Thanks for balancing my arrogance and loudmouthed nature, for listening, and for introducing me to so many new ideas. I am grateful to have laughed so much with you, and to have had a companion on the journey. There is no way EngineerBetter could have become a thing without you. Your gift of listening challenged my thinking in a way that few others have been able to.
• Julian Fischer for taking us seriously at the start, and extending patience my way when I was going through difficult personal circumstances. I am glad that we did not go into business together, because I fear that would have led to friction that would have prevented our friendship. You have always been straight-talking, giving Dan and I reality checks, and have been generous with your time and experience over the years. I wish I could have sent more revenue your way!
• Jonathan Matthews for being there since the beginning at that lunch in Pod. Your support and belief (along with that of James Abley ) gifted us with one of our contemporaneous first gigs, and you've been supporting and helping us for years since. I am grateful for the times we've worked together, and for the straightforward nature of our commercial discussions.
• Greg Luck for your generosity in supporting a fledgling business that wasn't able to substantiate the credibility required for the rates we were charging!
• Ravish Sharma and Ed Nicholas for being fun and supportive in an early engagement, and being warm and friendly when meeting many years later
• Paula Kennedy for much, much more than I can list. Throughout all my failings, you only ever treated me with kindness and patience. Your help in the early days was invaluable - otherwise I still wouldn't know what a 'statement of work' is! You were a confidant and friend, and a pleasure to have a commercial relationship with.
• Colin Simmons for being mad (desperate?) enough to take the plunge working for a company with more Dans than clues. Your enthusiasm for travel allowed us to satisfy customers, and your commitment to Concourse-Up was a benefit to the company that I do not think we balanced. By being there for so long, you were a bearer of 'the way', anchoring our culture.
• Matthew Skelton for your kindness, generosity, and for welcoming me into your community
• Tim Harris for being an easy-going chap, who tolerated my inadequacies. It was fun spending time together on that training gig.
• Steve Greenberg for being a friend, and for showing me better ways of training that were highly valued by customers. Your enthusiasm was infectious, and your support when working on those inclusion keynotes was vital.
• The folks at Makers for bringing to us people who deserved a career in IT, regardless of their background
• Will Bentinck for your understanding in handling a difficult issue with sensitivity
• Panagiotis Xynos for years of loyalty, straight-talking and the mentoring of our staff and customers
• ?? Sapphire Mason-Brown for being dependable, thoughtful, and never a cause of worry
• · Will Gant for putting up with all sorts of nonsense, and sticking by us
• Paddy Steed for leading a full-price engagement mere months out of university, and for bringing us the joys of Yubikeys
• Alain M. for your patronage, and for enduring our professional and political blunders
• Callum McIntosh for getting us involved at Siemens, which led to one of the most enjoyable and satisfying engagements that we ever had
• Julian Friedman for your enthusiasm, ideas, friendship, thrilling conversations and patient help over many years
• William Martin for your help, willingness to think of us, and for (inadvertently?) demoting Praggers to "not-cool Will"
• Guillaume Berche for your enthusiasm in the community, which allowed me to participate and made me feel welcome
• Abby Kearns for your support, even though I think we didn't ever get beyond breaking the ice. The fact that you continued to help us despite my clumsy inability to build rapport is a testament to your professionalism.
• Chip Childers for your kindness, patience, and your example as a cool-as-a-cucumber public speaker and professional. I am sorry that my duty to my customers meant that sometimes our goals were in conflict, and I hope that I didn't inconvenience you too much.
• Liz Rice for not decrying me as the idiot I am when I introduced her on-stage as "Alice"
• Don Cleeve for your help, advice, referrals and support over the years
• Nick Holden for your continued support over the years, something I don't feel I repaid
• Amanda Wood for tolerating us in the office, and enduring the problems that we caused you
• Alisa Greaves and Vi for being friendly and treating us as part of the family, even though we weren't
• Alex Ley and Nick Street for brief our time pairing together, and your help professionally in the years that followed as your careers flourished
• Simon Copsey for introducing us to systems thinking and question-led consulting
• Chris Hurford for dealing with all the trials and tribulations of our longest engagement with a degree of calm
• Rob Edwards for being great fun to work with and talk to
• Ivana Scott for being able to pay people correctly (a feat Dan and I couldn't manage), making sure that everything ran smoothly (even when that meant out-of-hours work), your meticulous attention-to-detail, and putting up with my bad moods and vague requests
• Ife Runsewe for giving "this DevOps thing" a go, and being gracious in my deficiencies in handling the situation better
• ?????????????? Anouska Streets for your patronage, wit, advice, and like-minded support
• Swarna P. for your unending support and, err, encouragement that I think only an Indian mom can give! You allowed me an irreplaceable opportunity that few others would, and tolerated all the hassle I gave you in the process.
• Molly Crowther for your perspective and patience: I valued our conversations
• Kyle Campos for your patronage, and for being one of the nicest people in the IT industry (along with Clint Hill , obviously). I am sorry if we reflected badly on you at the end of that long discussion. I am grateful for your example as a man of faith, challenging my ill-informed stereotypes.
• Eva Dinckel for your efforts on internal projects and billable work
• Jessica Stenning for always being straightforward with us, and allowing me to take credit for your achievements by showcasing your subsequent achievements
• Eilidh 'Boom' Macleod (She/Her) for the kind words you shared, which if true are a source of pride beyond the technical outcomes we achieved
• Irbe Krumina for your technical input, wickedly dry sense of humour, and tolerance of situations in which we couldn't make you happy. Please know that I took no pleasure in creating the circumstances that I believed I had to, and I hope that you enjoy your work now.
• Andy Paine for your fearsome intellect, patience in suboptimal gigs, and willingness to let me complain at you
• Rocio Sanchez , Uwe Zymelka , Hendrik Frenzel and the gang for the opportunity to work with you
• Mike Dalessio for being a kind manager to my friends, and for giving up your time to help us test Beluga
• Matthias Haeussler for your enthusiasm, support and kind words
• Alex Suraci , Topher Bullock and Jacques Chester for tolerating my half-baked attempts to support Concourse; I wish I had helped more, and sooner.
• James Ma for your efforts on Concourse, and for listening to me complain endlessly
• Dmitriy Kalinin for taking the time to answer questions and review our designs
• Stephen Levine for making all sorts of tools that I found useful over the years
• Mark Kropf , Dieu Cao , Joe Fitzgerald , Nima Badiey , Joshua McKenty and countless other managers at Pivotal for being friendly and supportive
• Micah B. for your patronage, and for putting up with my frankly unprofessional behaviour when filling in security surveys
• Cai C. for being an all-round top bloke, and demonstrating unrewarded leadership when I needed it most. I regret that I couldn't give you better circumstances.
• Chisara Nwabara for being the antidote to my Britishness, being highly effective in what you do, showing vulnerability, not taking any nonsense, and fostering inclusion without bashing anyone over the head with the woke playbook
• Tom Godkin for unending niceness, for never complaining despite having to put up with an imbecile like me, and for never being the slightest bit of trouble
• Miki Mokrysz for your contributions technically and personally
• Lade O. for your efforts, and the privilege of watching your professional skills expand
• Federico Nardini for being highly effective, making tough times more enjoyable, and for tolerating my professional and character flaws
• Gareth Evans for achieving results in difficult circumstances. I tried to fix things, but I was prevented from doing so.
• Richard Pryce and Sam Colson for picking things up so fast, and enduring a period of growth in which we were ill-prepared
• Lilly Daniell , Adrienne Galloway , James Cleveland , Marcin Kubica , Dominic Meddick and William Young for being a great mix of people, for joining us when I knew I'd be leaving, and showing grace when I reneged on what I'd sold you
• Xu Han for our fun but brief conversation!
• Diego Iaconelli , Urse Searle , NK Guy , ?? Tim Jarratt ?? and Therese Stowell for your help, as well as your friendliness and conversations - it would have been much more dull without you!
• Troy Topnik and Jeff Hobbs for being such great chaps and great company over the entire journey
• Rob Knight , Ignacio Gomez , Marlen von Roth , Gerald Pfeifer and a bunch of other cool (ex-) SUSE folks
• Wayne E Seguin , Brian Seguin and Mark Carlson for your support that few others could give
• Sven Schmidt for being a constant companion and technical advisor on Slack over the years
• Dr Nic Williams for being a laugh, a character in the community, and understanding what it's like running a consultancy
• Rob Mee for creating a thing that I have benefitted from so greatly, and for being generous enough with your time to listen to my na?ve ramblings about methodology
• David Beazley for giving us the opportunity to work with you; we certainly enjoyed the engagement and expanded upon the methods that we used with you
• Akash Gharu for your enthusiastic support, despite the amount of trouble I caused you 15 years prior. Not to mention explaining colonial injustice to a cocky and ignorant 20-something.
• Michele Sollecito for being a like-minded advocate, and for allowing me to witness one of the boldest organisational refactorings I'd ever heard of
• Billy Jenkins and James Mace for our honest and frank discussions, and the services of your team
• Adam Kinder , Chris Codner and Crae Murdock for being trust-worthy and dependable in an industry of twazzocks
• Mercedes McGarry (CIMA Cert BA) for telling your other half about my LinkedIn posts
• Andreas Bader for your patronage, and your energetic enthusiasm
• Cornelia Kinder for your patience, understanding, and room-brightening laughter
• Kristian Ladefoged for your energy and enthusiasm, and sharing the original vision
• Michael Mueller for allowing me to work with your customers, and in doing so learn more about our own methods
• Jim Armstrong for your support in making that eBook, it was fun and I hope that Snyk got value from it
• All of the customers that I've not mentioned, in part because I might break NDAs in doing so
• All of the Pivots, pretty much. Listing them all would take forever!
• All of the poor souls that have had to pair with me
• Anyone that responded positively to one of my talks, blogs, or posts. I found this one of the most rewarding parts of the job.