About
Hi there, thanks for stopping by.
I’m James, a storytelling technologist who brings humility and curiosity to all aspects of technology, whether head down in an IDE or on stage, talking, teaching, and inspiring.
I’m currently talking all things serverless at Datadog and am a Microsoft MVP.
Technology is fundamentally a creative human endeavour. And as humans, we love stories. Homo sapiens (one of my favourite ever books) taught me that :) Stories are a fundamental part of what makes us successful as a species.
So, how does that translate to a career in tech? Let me share my journey. I took the self-taught route into software. I started working in front-line support at a software company in the North of England (Preston, if you’re interested). I quickly realized that learning SQL Server was the best way to support this. So off I went and taught myself MS SQL. From there on out, I slowly worked my way up the stack.
How can I better help people? Learn to code? Ok, I’ll learn .NET.
How can I better help people? Learn to design software? Ok, I’ll learn software architecture.
How can I better help people? Learn about the cloud? Ok, serverless all the things!
That question has been a mantra I’ve repeated over and over again.
And now, it’s time to teach. My role now is split perfectly between my two favourite things to do. On one side, I’m a content creator, speaker, and teacher, engaging with the community to help people be the best version of themselves in technology. On the other hand, I get to dive deep into new technologies, learn about new ways of building software, and write code. This site will chart that journey, giving you a single place to jump off from wherever you are.
Outside of being a nerd, I try to be as active as possible. I run ultra marathons, although a persistent Achilles problem is slowing my progress. I cycle, hike, walk, and lift weights. I try to keep myself moving as much as possible.
All opinions expressed on this site are mine and don’t represent organizations that I am affiliated with.