Secure it like you own it
I messaged the head of operations. After a short discussion and an inspection, he turned off a production system that had gone live that day. This was not a paved path response. As the lead of a small
Engineering and Careering
Engineering and Careering
Latest posts
Three impossible things before breakfast
In Through the Looking-Glass, the White Queen tells Alice she's sometimes believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. When I chartered an Engineering Security team at Tes, I only neede
Goodbye toil - 6 Months in the loop with Claude
A lot of my work lands in the difficult middle: production issues in code I didn't write, upgrades that have been avoided for years, legacy systems that nobody fully understands. That's not unusual. M
Bottling the Chaos
It’s 2026! Why aren't you 10x vibe coding? 2025, What a year! Though the last few have been a run; Post Covid, the software development world shifted and shifted again. Remote shifted back to hybrid and in-office models. Changes in the cost of debt f...
Video: Helping Engineers Thrive: A Framework for Growth and Retention
https://youtu.be/5S959MblQAw Here’s my talk from Agile on the Beach on engineering career development that directly impacts retention and organizational success. In my career as an engineer, consultant, and mentor, I've found that growth isn't line...
Building Paved Paths to raise a secure tide
You might be tasked with enhancing security at your organisation. Communicating this effectively and ensuring teams build sufficiently secure software is challenging. Some may suggest a policing approach, but this is neither realistic nor sustainable...
Navigating Security Challenges: The Art of Risk Register Creation
Using a Risk Register to select and drive action is a great way to securely manage a product portfolio; but how do you identify and prioritise your must-fix items? Let me tell you how I did it. What is a Risk Register? A Risk Register, also kn...
Engineering a solution to security
An internet of threats In today's digital age, a multitude of services are accessible online through apps, websites, and internet connected devices. Whether you're booking a holiday, arranging a flight, shopping, ordering a meal, or adjusting your ho...
Engineer Growth series
It’s been quiet over here, but I have been thinking and writing. My focus has been on the engineer growth experience and how we, as leaders, managers and coaches, can best engage and enhance how the engineers we work with can thrive as they move thou...
Engineer growth paths are critical
I recently wrote a new talk on Engineer Growth and how we can engage and empower the engineers we work with. Now, I'm motivated to help folk grow because I love seeing people progress. It's fabulous. But that can be a hard sell. I needed to get some ...
Tech Leads in 2024: Navigating the Evolving Landscape
My previous post looked at how software delivery has changed in the last ten years. Here we focus in on what that means for Tech Leads and how the job we need to do has altered and developed. Architecture New cloud technology has been empowering. The...
Technical Leadership and Delivery: a 10 year review
A little over ten years ago I was a Tech Lead and a consultant Software Engineer. I published the first version of the Well Rounded Tech-lead I grew, and so did the tech industry. Engineering Managers became a thing, and so did Staff Engineers. Produ...
Best before end: Your Software has a shelf life.
Ever got caught up with a full fridge, picking through the items, looking for what’s in-date and what needs slinging? Everything has a shelf life, even software. Continuous delivery of value is hard in the long term. Swift at the start, change often ...
Your software didn’t rot. You levelled up.
You start to build something new, and it feels great Perhaps you know the feeling? A team begins to build a new product. The technology stack is selected, and coding begins. You set up spaces where you will code and ship into. Soon you are flying. Wr...
10x teams on the Quality Bits podcast
I've begun writing out my thinking about the important subject of developer effectiveness and 10x teams recently. Quality Bits has kindly chatted to me about the subject. Take a listen, and let me know what you think https://www.buzzsprout.com/203713...
'With Great Power...' documentation as a security platform
Secure systems are important. We often hold precious information in our products and that needs to be protected. There are several different approaches to ensuring good enough security in digital products. My go-to option is to place responsibility w...
Find your way, without a map
There's a big challenge in modern software and product delivery. We get ambitious missions, goals (or objectives). But we can’t easily get there from where we are. If we could they would not be ambitious We do our best. But complexity often drives us...
Make the invisible visible!
As we become more senior, we are given the gnarly problems. Big challenges that have no clear answer, one that other folks may have already tried and failed to fix. So what do we do? Have a go? Sometimes fail? This simple approach is not unreasonable...
Building Growth Plans with Mentees
Mentoring is all about growth and learning. Growth conversations are best if supported with goals, direction or even a plan. But how do you get to having a plan? Engineer learning and development is a big ol’ topic. In this post, I’ll focus on a few...
Mentoring Through Conversation
Mentoring is often been essential to how engineers work and grow. It can bring knowledge, wisdom and experience to bear on an individual's progression and challenges. Mentoring centers around an extended conversation: regular, focused one-on-one chat...