Starting a Unique Craftsman Journey
A couple years ago Corey Haynes went walkabout. He traveled around the world agreeing to pair program with anyone who would provide a place to sleep and feed him. He spent a year on the road documenting the experience through a collection of interviews, videos and musings. This has led Corey to not only become a prominent figure in the development community at large, it also led to a return to happiness with what he was doing.
Last year, I was lucky enough to meet Liam McLennan at ALT.NET Seattle. Liam at his own expense took a few weeks off his job in Australia and went on a journey of his own visiting many great software shops here in the states. He documented what he found on his blog.
Many stories are popping up on the net about people attempting similar things. Some companies are starting to open up and do Craftsmanship Swaps, most notably business rivals Obtiva and 8th Light.
All of these people see the value in openly sharing practices and cross pollination of ideas. And so do I. So I want to get in on the action. I cannot abandon my job and go gallivanting around the globe; financial constraints, employment obligations and a loving wife will keep me where I am. After attending Software Craftsmanship North America 2010, I came to the conclusion that these things don’t need to be a road block for achieving my goals.
I live in one of the greatest software development cities on the planet. I am just a short bus ride away from Microsoft. I work in the heart of downtown Seattle. This city is my oyster and I plan to shuck it, man. Seriously, shuck it.
So, with all that said, I would like to offer myself up to any agile shop that I can reach by public transit. I want to come to your shop and work with your team for a day. I am willing to pair program, help in design sessions, participate in sprint planning and retrospectives. Note, I don’t want a tour of your facility or to meet your CTO or gab about being awesome; I want to work and learn beside the best developers Seattle has to offer.
I am primarily a .NET developer using a mostly open source stack including Castle, NHibernate and TopShelf. I am dabbling in Ruby in my spare time attempting to cross the Rubicon. I also lead my sprint team at work facilitating sprint planning and retrospectives.
If you think your shop would be interested in having me, feel free to contact me at bobby.johnson@gmail.com. If you want to get a feel for what I can do, why not read my blog, watch a video I created or peruse my GitHub profile.