VP Eng | ILM Executive Coach | Neurodivergent | Queer | Chief Racoon Officer

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No-bullshit writing on techsweary, occasionally furious, always honest.

Thoughts on engineering management, burnout, neurodivergence, and working in tech without becoming someone you hate.

• Running a Small Business — The Emotional Rollercoaster Nobody Warns You About

  You build something great, immediately assume it's terrible, and then one 5-star review threatens to become your entire personality.

  April 29, 2026 |  personal-development, coaching, fun

• Haiku: Groundbreaking Interview Tip

  A haiku for hump day. Groundbreaking interview advice for the new AI world.

  April 29, 2026 |  hiring, haiku, fun

• The AI Employee Advert Feminising Servitude — And Why It Matters

  An AI employee advert promised a woman who never gets sick, never complains and never asks for a raise. That is not innovation. That is not okay.

  April 14, 2026 |  diversity, leadership

• Why 996 Work Culture Kills Productivity — And What the Research Says

  Some tech leaders are celebrating 9am to 9pm, six days a week. Some tech leaders are full of bullshit.

  April 07, 2026 |  leadership, self-care

• Why Kindness is a Leadership Strategy, Not a Weakness

  AI is changing everything fast and it's noisy and sometimes frightening. But human kindness is the one thing we can't automate away.

  March 30, 2026 |  leadership, personal-development

• The AI Trend That Should Concern Every Woman in Tech

  Much like my laundry, there's a ton of it and I'm already over it. Companies are using AI as a convenient cover story for cuts that were coming anyway — and 86% of the workers most at risk are women.

  March 28, 2026 |  diversity, leadership

• The Anthropic Report Doesn't Say What You Think It Does

  The latest Anthropic report does NOT say 75% of programmers will lose their jobs to AI. Here's what it actually says — and why the difference matters.

  March 16, 2026 |  programming, leadership

• Haiku: I Don't Read the Code

  A haiku about AI-assisted code review, for a certain kind of team.

  March 15, 2026 |  programming, haiku, fun

• Why Getting Another Qualification Won't Fix a Broken Workplace

  It's not you. It was never you. LinkedIn's 2026 State of Women in Leadership report reveals the uncomfortable truth about why women aren't progressing — and it has nothing to do with qualifications.

  March 14, 2026 |  diversity, personal-development

• New Engineering Manager Mistakes — What Not to Hand Your Team

  Giving someone without engineering knowledge an AI agent doesn't make them an engineer. It makes them a baby with a dangerous power tool.

  March 03, 2026 |  programming, spicy

• Haiku: Five Devs, Five Projects

  A haiku about what happens when you spread a team too thin.

  February 11, 2026 |  management, haiku, fun

• Timed LeetCode Interviews Are Incredible

  A completely sincere and not-at-all satirical appreciation of timed, locked-down LeetCode tech interviews and everything they optimise for.

  February 04, 2026 |  hiring, spicy

• Why Rest is a Leadership Skill, Not a Luxury

  One of the most important things I've learned as a VP is that rest isn't optional — and the cost of ignoring it is higher than you think.

  January 06, 2026 |  leadership, self-care

• Devs Who Use AI Are Rated 9% Less Competent

  New research shows developers who use AI are perceived as less competent — and for women and older engineers, the bias is even worse. Here's what we can do about it.

  September 05, 2025 |  diversity, leadership

• How to Run Better One-to-Ones as an Engineering Manager

  Wanna know why?

  June 09, 2025 |  management

• What is Coaching? A No-Bullshit Guide for Folks in Tech

  What coaching actually is, what it is not, and why you might want a coach when work has become a bit too much to untangle alone.

  February 27, 2025 |  coaching

• The Advent of Bad Management

  Help the Grinch get Christmas cancelled by validating Santa's bad management choices.

  December 02, 2024 |  management, advent, fun

• You're so great with people

  What might sound like a compliment can land in a painful way if you're not careful.

  November 21, 2024 |  management

• Your architecture problem is a people problem.

  It's easy to blame systems for all your problems.

  November 19, 2024 |  management

• Why Cutting Engineering Managers is Killing Your Engineering Teams

  We gotta stop forcing engineers to do pastoral care and pretending management isn't an entire job.

  October 10, 2024 |  management

• Imposter Syndrome in Tech — It's Being Done To You, Not By You

  You are not an imposter. Imposter Syndrome is being done to you.

  September 20, 2024 |  personal-development

• What Does a Non-Coding Engineering Manager Actually Do?

  Clearly nothing at all right? ;)

  March 07, 2024 |  leadership, spicy

• The Importance of Creative Rest

  AI art is my happy place. What's yours?

  February 10, 2024 |  self-care, leadership

• LGBTQ+ inclusion and profitability report

  A recent study by Open for Business has revealed that LGBTQ+ inclusion is linked to higher profitability. Here's a summary of the findings.

  February 01, 2024 |  diversity, leadership

• Atlassian Remote Work Report

  Atlassian have just published an excellent ‘1000 days of distributed work’ report. Here's a summary of the findings.

  January 30, 2024 |  remote-work, leadership

• The Unexpected Struggle to Slow Down

  Something I didn't expect after quitting my job was the monumental struggle to slow down.

  October 19, 2023 |  self-care, remote-work

• Energy Eggs

  It's important to remember that productivity and connectedness to others looks different to everyone.

  October 16, 2023 |  productivity, leadership, remote-work

• Remote Work is Safer Work

  The unspoken benefits of remote work for members under-represented groups

  September 22, 2023 |  remote-work, leadership

• What are you saying no to?

  There's power in unchecked boxes on your todo list.

  September 01, 2023 |  productivity, leadership

• Launch Alert! ‘Holy Shit I'm A Manager!™’ is now live!

  My new course to teach Engineering Managers everything they need to succeed in the role is now live! No corporate BS, just a ton of fun and a bunch of racoon art.

  August 15, 2023 |  training, management, leadership

• Share Your Salary Ranges 2 - Salary Deflation

  Let's put to bed why using the current salary of a candidate is a terrible idea.

  May 10, 2023 |  hiring

• Share Your Salary Ranges 1 - Negotiation Bias

  Don't let this one limiting belief stop you from doing the right thing for underrepresented candidates.

  May 10, 2023 |  hiring

• Burnout at Work: Why Holidays Don't Fix It and What Actually Does

  Sorry about that. But these actions will help instead.

  April 08, 2023 |  personal-development

• Introverted Leaders

  Never let anyone tell you introverts can't be leaders.

  April 01, 2023 |  leadership

• Continuous, Inescapeable Failure.

  When deciding how to react to failure and mishaps, be more Efren Reyes and keep on smiling your way to success.

  January 30, 2023 |  personal-development

• Go Time vs Go Slow Time

  How to avoid being the harbinger of chaos as an engineering manager and embrace the learning zone.

  June 27, 2022 |  personal-development, management

• The Engineering Manager's Guide to Effective One-to-Ones

  An exploration of the purpose, structure and outcome of one-to-ones to help you rock at them.

  June 07, 2022 |  one-to-ones, management

• Building Trust in One-to-Ones: The BRAVING Framework for Managers

  A walk through Brené Brown's recipe for building trust, in the context of one-to-ones.

  June 06, 2022 |  one-to-ones, management

• Radical Candor in Engineering Teams — How to Give Feedback That Actually Helps

  Giving and being willing to receive constructive feedback and why it matters. A story about my experience with Radical Candor and how it changed my behaviour as a programmer.

  May 14, 2022 |  personal-development

• Managers Are Technical

  Does becoming a manager mean giving up your 'technical skills'?

  February 13, 2022 |  management

• My Favourite Questions

  It's surprisingly hard to ask the right question, at the right time to the right person but when you get it right it unlocks doors and ways of thinking you didn't even know were possible. This is a list of my favourite questions.

  July 09, 2021 |  leadership, books

• Will I Belong Here?

  I'll share my view on how I look to answer this key question when I'm job hunting to help you increase the number of diverse and amazing applicants that apply for your positions.

  July 01, 2021 |  hiring

• Compassionate Hiring Checklist

  A quick reference checklist to help ensure your hiring process sets the candidates and your company up for success.

  June 11, 2021 |  hiring, management

• Pairing Isn't Staring: Five Perils of Pairing In Interviews

  Many technical hiring processes have a 'pairing' step, but many actually involves staring and not pairing! Let's look at five possible perils of interview pairing and how we can address them to set the candidate up for success.

  May 13, 2021 |  hiring

• Other companies tech hiring processes are costing YOU talent

  Are you sabotaging your recruitment efforts by using other companies' outdated 'elitist' processes? These practical tips will help you develop a 'compassionate hiring' ethos to attract diverse and impactful candidates.

  April 27, 2021 |  hiring, management

• 7 Nuggets from 'The Better Allies Approach to Hiring' Book

  April 26, 2021 |  hiring, books

• Self-Sponsorship in Tech: How to Advocate for Yourself at Work

  Grow your career and sense of pride by owning your achievements and advocating for yourself, regardless of the environment.

  April 14, 2021 |  personal-development

• 5 Things I Learned from Humble Inquiry by Edgar Schein

  A summary of 5 things I learned about asking more, telling less and staying open, curious and humble in order to build better relationships and why it matters.

  April 13, 2021 |  management, books

• Tips for Learning to Touch Type

  Having learned to touch type in dvorak to reduce RSI over the last couple of years, I’d like to share some insights about what I learned on that journey.

  January 14, 2019 |  personal-development

• Imposter Syndrome as a Developer — You're Not Alone and It's Not You

  On feeling like you are not good enough and what to do about it.

  September 08, 2016 |  personal-development

• S.O.L.I.D For Human Beings

  A (hopefully) digestible explanation of the S.O.L.I.D principles from Object Orientated programming.

  August 30, 2016 |  programming