Announcing Coaching, Mentoring, and Consulting Opportunities

Today, I’m excited to share the launch of some new opportunities I’m making available to individuals and companies. I’ve put together a unique set of coaching, mentoring, and consulting options covering several recurring needs I’ve seen in the industry over the last few years. In addition to my web standards training, I’m now offering everything from one-on-one career coaching and technical mentoring to corporate OSPO development, and Web Architecture consulting. Read on to learn more about these options, along with where you or your employer can sign up.

I look forward to working with you soon!

Options for Individuals

I have a pretty non-traditional career background. I have no degree in computer science or software engineering, nor have I attended any boot camps or technical schools. I taught myself to program in the 80s but ended up studying music at university. It wasn’t until the early 2000s that I took my first job writing code as a part time member of a small company’s software R&D team.

It’s been 20 years since then. In that time, I’ve had many challenging, growth experiences, including working as a Principal Architect at Microsoft and working as GEICO’s only Technical Fellow, providing technical leadership to the entire engineering organization, a group consisting of over 4,000 engineers, directors, and VPs.

I learned a lot of things the hard way. I’ve made my share of mistakes. But I’ve also discovered non-traditional routes that enabled me to innovate and provide unique, high value to the teams and companies I’ve worked for. It would have been a heck of a lot easier with a coach or a mentor…or just someone I could throw ideas at to get feedback. I had this in the earliest days of my career, something I wouldn’t trade for the world, but missed it later on and found that many others were missing this too.

As a result, I’ve decided to offer a set of services targeted directly at individuals in the tech industry. You may be looking for a job, trying to figure out or advance your career, want to grow technically, or just need a technical “wall” to throw ideas and questions at. Or perhaps you are a manager who wants to find a mentor for a promising individual on your team. Here are a few opportunities you can sign up for today:

• Resume Review — As a hiring manager and technical interviewer throughout my career, I’ve looked at a lot of resumes. I often find that folks don’t know how to present their career in this form. So, I’m offering a service designed to help. The Resume Review service involves a thorough review of your resume, followed by a one-one-one meeting where we’ll discuss what you can do to improve the resume itself as well as your marketability for the future. Sign up here.
• Mock Technical and General Interviews — Interviews are a huge source of anxiety for many people. As a musician and public speaker, one of the most important lessons I learned is the importance of practice. It generally results in greater confidence, better performance, and less anxiety. This has led me to offer a Mock Interview service. This is a one-one-one experience that starts with an intense, real-world, 45-minute mock interview and concludes with 15 minutes of feedback. This is a great opportunity to get some practice in, and also learn how you can improve. I’m offering technical interview as well as general/soft-skills options.
• Job Prep Bundles — Since sending out resumes and doing interviews often go hand-in-hand, I’ve got a bundle that provides a discount to those who want to combine the Resume Review with either a Mock Technical or General Interview. Sign up for the technical prep bundle here, or the general bundle here.
• Career Coaching — I’ve had the opportunity to wear a lot of different hats in my career: engineer, architect, manager, PM, consultant, founder, advisor, teacher, etc. I know how difficult it can be figuring out what you want to do, and more so, coming up with a plan that will get you to where you want to be. It’s easy to misjudge opportunities or even oneself along the way. So, I’m offering a Career Coaching opportunity. It’s a subscription that includes two one-on-one meetings per month, dedicated to helping you grow in your career and pursue the best path for you. Subscribe here.
• Technical Mentoring — Early in my career, I had a close friend who I also became coworkers with. While I had been writing code for many years on my own, I had no experience working in the profession, and was a bit aimless in my learning and growth. This person mentored me, resulting in an amazing work relationship that spurred both of us on in what would become one of the greatest periods of technical growth in my career. Having had that experience, I’ve decided to offer a subscription that includes two one-on-one meetings per month, dedicated to helping people pursue their technical growth and learning. You can subscribe here.
• Ask Me Anything — Sometimes you just need a second opinion. You may be the only dev at your company, or you may be a leader who oversees thousands of people, but rarely has the opportunity for deep review. “Ask Me Anything” is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a way to put some time on my calendar to discuss whatever is on your mind for whatever reason. You can schedule time here.

The above options are all available today. Just follow the links to sign-up, pay, and schedule your meetings. I’m looking forward to getting to know you and helping you along your journey. 😃

Options for Teams

There are a lot of challenges that engineering organizations and teams have to face today. They tend to be quite different from the challenges that individuals face. So, I’m offering a few unique options targeted directly at teams and engineering decision-makers, based on common areas of struggle and growth I’ve seen over the last several years. I’ve had particular success helping companies in these areas, so I’m now making these services officially available more broadly:

• Outsourced Technical Interview — Not every company has a large or mature engineering team, making the task of hiring talented individuals all the more challenging. This kind of bootstrapping problem isn’t uncommon. As a result, many companies don’t have the people that can even perform an effective technical interview for the position they are trying to hire for. To help with that, I’m offering a sort of “outsourced” technical interview. If you’ve got a promising candidate, but no one to perform a comprehensive technical interview as part of your hiring process, I can do that part for you. You can schedule the interview here.
• Web Architecture Consulting — The Web continues to evolve, constantly presenting new possibilities for companies to better serve their customers. The rate of change can make it difficult for leaders to find time to understand how new web technologies apply to them, or how they can be leveraged in a practical way to improve their systems. Those that follow my blog or read my posts on social media won’t be surprised that I’m now officially offering consulting specifically geared towards helping companies better leverage the full power of the web to build the best solutions possible for their customers and business. You can book a consulting engagement here.
• Inner/Open-Source Program Guidance — There’s a lot more to open-source than browsing GitHub or installing a package in your project. As companies grow in this area, not only do their needs and challenges expand, but also their potential to do great good, or unfortunately, harm. Building a healthy and responsible open-source program and culture isn’t easy. I’ve helped many companies in these areas over the years, from the basics of understanding how to use open-source, to the challenge of building a successful Open-Source Programs Office (OSPO). Wherever your company is on this journey, there’s probably opportunity for growth and improvement, and I’d be happy to help you explore what’s next. You can go here to book OSPO consulting.
• Engineering Organization and Culture Strategy — A healthy culture and an engineering organization that’s effectively structured are two factors that I’ve seen make or break products and whole business units. I’ve had the privilege of working for some amazing leaders who got this right…as well as in some of the most toxic and broken situations. Over the years, I’ve aggregated the best of my experiences and used them to develop a set of values, principles, and practices, designed to help leaders and organizations mature. If you’re struggling in this area, I’d love to help you work through the challenges before you.
• Fractional Technical Fellow — For those companies who need a senior technical leader for a longer period of time, I’m offering a monthly retainer option. This option would provide a certain number of hours per week, usable for whatever is most pressing. This could be hiring, architecture, open-sourced guidance, cultural strategy, etc. Essentially any of the above, mixed and matched as needed.

Like the options for individuals, you can follow the links above to immediately book time. However, since many businesses don’t handle purchases in that way, please also feel free to reach out via the official email channel: consulting@bluespire.com

More To Come…

I’m hopeful that the options I’m launching today will be a help to both individuals and companies who are looking to continue in their professional, technical, or organizational growth. And please keep a lookout for a couple additional opportunities I’ve got coming soon as well, focusing on ways to support both the Web Standards and Open-Source work my company is involved with.

Cheers!