How I Work (for you!)

I am a traditional software engineer, not just a developer. I will do discovery, write requirements, architect a cloud-native (usually) serverless solution on AWS, architect the software, write the software with test driven development (TDD), and automate the whole pipeline. My focus is on the cloud, but I can also write the companion web application.

I will work with your in-house team and mentor by example to new strong practices.

I will not lock you in to be dependent upon me. My deliverables are not just code, but documentation so anyone you choose can take over. I want the products that I help you build to grow and succeed after I'm gone.

I can say this, because it is what I have been doing since I started working for consultancies in 2014.

My rate is much less than a junior or mid-level software developer from the big consultancies. It is even less than a small offshore team of junior level people. Also, since the rate is truly by the hour worked and not by the week or contract, you are not paying for any downtime or overhead time.

I can be cheaper than these consultancies, yet more productive, because I don't have overhead and profit margin to cover.

Contracting with me instead is a win-win: You spend less, deal with fewer people, avoid restrictive statements of work, and benefit from 34 years of experience and expertise. I earn more and enjoy more control over my life.

No Up-Charges

My hourly rate is all-inclusive. I provide my own office, computer, individual software licenses, and insurance. Travel is billed at cost. Clients may provide corporate software licenses and specialized hardware as needed, and retain ownership of these.

Entrepreneurial Experience

As highlighted above, I am not new to consulting. I am also not new to working independently. As a high schooler in the 1980’s, I was already an entrepreneur building and selling my BBS applications (pre-WWW). My wife and I have two side businesses for investment and fun, so we are no strangers to customer service, contracts, and billing.

Combining my experiences to be an independent consultant is a natural progression.

My Preferred Tech Stack

These are some current technologies that I already know and excel at. There are older technologies not worth mentioning, and I'm certainly ready and able to pick up new things, especially adjacent technologies.

• AWS cloud-native, Lambda, API Gateway, Cognito, IoT Core, Kinesis, DynamoDB, Pinpoint, S3, Fargate, RDS, SQS, SNS, CloudWatch and anything else in the AWS serverless space
• IaC with Serverless Stack, Serverless Framework, AWS CDK, AWS CloudFormation
• Front-end with Angular (strong) or React (familiar)
• TypeScript, JavaScript (older: Java, C, C++)
• ESLint, JEST, Cypress
• Git, Bitbucket Pipelines, JIRA, Confluence, Notion, PlantUML, Draw.io, LucidChart

Want to Learn More?

Contact me, and let’s see how we can work together to accelerate you into the cloud!