Hi, I'm Nessa Jane (or NJ). I got hooked on Linux when I was about twelve years old, starting a home recording studio and Googling "free recording software" because I didn't have money of my own yet. This meant compiling audio drivers and acting as my own sysadmin just to get a microphone working. I even got my first job through a contact I met at a Linux User group with no idea you could get a job that way at the time.
I've been a professional software engineer, tech lead, and open-source contributor for over 14 years. I've built everything from tiny startups (have you ever sat in a closet with two other people 60 hours a week?) to large scale platforms serving millions of users. I've worked across the stack, but I've always had a soft spot for the backend, infrastructure, libraries and frameworks, thinking about code as a craft, and thinking about how to best communicate ideas in code.
For the last six years, I've been managing other software engineers! It's been been such an incredible ride learning to lead teams in a different way, taking more of a coaching approach. I even built a side business coaching fellow neurodivergent tech folks.
I still love writing code and am doing more out in the open again.
This blog is a part of that. Here, I write about:
- code
- things I just learned
- technical leadership? Maybe?
- Neurodivergent things possibly?
- we're figuring it out...
Fun things
When I'm not at a terminal, coaching a client, or doing my job, I'm probably gardening, making music, or having a laugh with some friends.