I had a great conversation with David Giard on his show, Technology and Friends, the other week and he asked a question that I’ve been thinking about since. “Tell me about the code that’s in QA and testing” – I answered briefly in the podcast, but have been thinking more and more about what kind …
Some vulnerability from me here – I’m in a program called Al-Anon, a 12-step program for families of alcoholics. Like most 12-step programs, this one has a few books with daily meditations/thoughts/considerations that we read from. A recent entry from Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie hit me in this current state I’m in …
It’s been a month since I was laid off from my dream job at Xbox. This is the first time since I was 13 that I’ve been unemployed! As might be expected, there has been a mix of emotions. Grief – from all the work it took to get to my dream being lost, from …
TL;DR When people ask me how I got back into coding after years away, my answer is essentially to have a project you can use to either start or add to (either production code or tests), find videos/trainings on the changes since you last coded, and don’t be afraid to just write some code and …
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been laid off from Xbox, and after some introspection and updating my resume, I think I’m ready to find my next role. Here’s what I’m looking for from that role: Must be fully remote with minimal travel I prefer IC roles over project lead/architecture, which I prefer over …
I haven’t posted on this site since December, 2022. A few big things happened since then: I got divorced in March 2023 (it was already happening by that last post I wrote, I just didn’t include it) I gave my first keynote, at Romanian Testing Conference in Cluj-Napoca, Romania in June 2023 I continued work …
It’s time again for a year in review – 2022 edition! This year has been a doozy for me, personally and professionally. Work-wise, I left my job of 9 years, worked with Jim Holmes for a few months, then my dream job came calling. As of July 18, I work at Microsoft, in the Xbox …
Yesterday, I was finally able to give my talk “Socializing for Heuristics: How Social Media Made Me a Better Tester (and Human)” at Targeting Quality 2022 in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. I talked about it in my last post Diversifying Heuristics with Social Media and I’m so glad I was finally able to give the talk! At the …
I’ve had a talk rejected a few times this year that I *really* want to give somewhere, so I thought I’d blog about some of the ideas I had for it. This will help me to work through some of it, as well as hopefully generate some interest! I talked through some of this during …
Like many folks, my 2020 and 2021 have not been ideal. 2020 had started pretty well! I spoke at CodeMash in Ohio in January, then at SWETUGG in Stockholm and EuroTestConf in Amsterdam in February. I had a lovely surprise 40th birthday party with my family in March. And then it all kinda went to …