If you're new here, welcome to my blog. As a developer, I felt like I often lacked an outlet for many of the thoughts and learnings I have, so adding a blog onto my existing site seemed like a sensible approach to remedy this problem.
For anyone who hasn't met me or come across me before, I'm Michael Evans (you might have guessed that). I'm a software developer specialising in Ruby on Rails and React. I've been working in the field for around 7 years at this point and have worked with mostly small companies, and one perhaps more notable company - Deliveroo, where I worked on a large company-wide project in Geosharding (don't worry, I didn't know what it was before either!).
More recently, I've been delving into the world of Next.js on the frontend, which has opened my eyes to the joys of server-side and static rendering. On the backend, Ruby on Rails has long been my firm choice in API building. The developer experience is unlike anything I've ever come across and it's why I advocate for new developers interested in backend development to start there. While it can be a little confusing because of the "Convention over Configuration" mantra where correct file naming and placement is absolutely key to avoiding hard-to-debug errors, it's worth the learning curve, as the benefits in terms of speed of development are quite clear to anyone who has used the framework.
On a personal note, I'm a fan of football, chess and swimming, although I don't do it nearly as much as I'd like to. Having lived in Berlin now for some time, I speak German and have also taken Spanish lessons.
As I look to improve my own skills, I also want to help other developers improve their skills and new developers enter the industry as easily as they can. Despite seeing a tech crunch over the last few months, I firmly believe that there is a global lack of skilled software developers (a shortage that won't be solved by AI/ChatGPT, no matter how much people might tell you otherwise), so I'm here to help. I intend to fill these pages with useful information, both in terms of technical skills that are necessary for a professional software developer, but also those soft skills that will not only get you through the interviews, but also make you a good person to work with. After all, nobody has time for high-performing assholes.
Finally, if it sounds like you might benefit from a conversation with me, feel free to get in touch with me directly on my contact page, or go straight to booking a coaching session with me, where we can go over your current situation, discuss possible options for the future and plan out a roadmap of how you can get there. Even if it's just to say "hello", my proverbial door is always open.